Amanda's New Bike

For as long as I've known her (plus a few more years), Amanda's main bike has been her Rocky Mountain Stratos. She'd bought it in the early 90s to tour on - replacing a purple Canadian Tire Mountain bike she'd been using for the same purpose. It's one of the early aluminum-framed mountain bikes - clear coat, originally had an orange fork. It's ancient (as modern bicycles go). Sure, she's had other bikes in the meantime; a recumbent, a BMX, the tandem, a road bike, the Jekyll, the Scalpel, the Moonlander ... but her main bike for getting around has always been that Rocky Mountain. Over the years many of the parts have been replaced - bar, shifters, stem, wheels, tires, pedals, saddle - slowly shifting it into a more upright, commuter bike than the trail-riding mountain bike it was originally.



One year for her birthday I got her slick tires and a Brookes Saddle - I went to where she locked up her bike at work and replaced the old bits. She noticed the saddle right away but didn't notice the tires until she was rolling down the bridge. This is probably the earliest (digital) picture I have of it (If I went hunting through old albums, I could probably find older ones and scan them... but I'm feeling lazy and this post really isn't about the Rocky - despite all the pics of it I've crammed in here!?). At this point she'd bought the Cannondale Jekyll for a train-riding bike and the Rocky had been relegated to riding-to-work-and-around-town, so I thought she could lose the fat knobby tires.



Amanda riding the Rocky - still with original handlebars - while she was pregnant - looks like the brakes have been upgraded to V-Brakes by this point.



It's been ridden year round.



Through slush and snow. Fenders were eventually added.







It's been a workhorse hauling kids around.



Sometimes BOTH at once!





She even took it on a little tour with the family a few years ago (Originally it was her touring bike - she toured around New Zealand and Australia with it before she met me).



Eventually replaced the original handlebar with a more swept back bar - to facilitate a more relaxed, upright position.







Eventually we added a CrAzY high stem to make her even MORE upright!



This spring she finally decided maybe it was time to get a NEW city commuter bike... She's be loathe to replace the Rocky - partly because of sentimental value, partly because... well.. it just keeps chugging along... even though she complains viciously about all of it's squeaks and rattles and ticks...

She made a list of things she wanted on the bike; upright riding position, swept back handle bars, full fenders, decent rack, disc brakes, enough gears to get up the bridge to work.

She spent a LONG time looking at various different bikes online. Then, finally, she went and tried some out at the local bike shops.

She had been interested in a Brodie Robson, but the local shop that carries Brodie didn't have one in stock, and she wasn't keen on just ordering in a bike she never actually tried...

She tired out a Linus or two...



Marin Nicasio

I think she went over to the Bike Doctor and had a look at a few over there... Giant Momentum...? Maybe a Norco?



After a lot of humming and hawing, I suggested she try out the Yuba Boda Boda they had over at Bike Universe. So we wandered over there this past Saturday to give it a test ride.



She really liked this one - it became a serious contender! She wasn't hot on the red though - they are also available in a bright lime green, with more of a step-through frame.



This one at Bike Universe is a couple years old, and now 25% off the original price... a pretty smoking deal... but as she is hoping this new bike will be her riding-to-work bike for the NEXT twenty years, she figured she should really get the frame and colour she wants! Unfortunately the difference between the on sale, couple-year-old red bike and the brand new, bright green, step-through-frame version was $800CAD!? Some of the other bikes she was looking at was less than that!!

There was a LOT of back and forth and eventually she decided she should maybe try out a few more....



On Monday, she and The Girl and I rode over to Doug's Spoke 'n' Sport to try out a couple others.



The first one she tried was a Kona Coco.



We took it across the river and tried riding up some of the longer steeper hills to see how the gears were.



Long slow ride up that hill...



But still smiling!



Back downtown by way of the new Traffic Bridge.



Shop Dog.



She also tried out the Kona Dew.



More gears...

But eventually she decided she like the more upright position of the Kona Coco... so she bought that one - and had them mount a rack and a fancy new bell and a different saddle.



Amanda and her new city commuting bike; the Kona Coco!