Bike Shopping - Peer Pressure

I spent this weekend as a true urbanite athlete. Saturday morning was the 5 miler in Baltimore and afterwards I met two friends of mine who have been looking into purchasing bikes at City bikes for an afternoon of bike talk and test riding. Sunday a good 4 ½ hours of my day was spent riding through essentially every single part of the DC area.

First, the truly exciting bike shopping:

I must admit that I am a huge fan of bicycle shopping; there are always more bikes to look at and lust over and just because I’m out helping my friends shop for them doesn’t mean I can still lust myself. I have however been somewhat guilty of pushing my friends towards the bikes that I would get if I were getting a bike, ie… expensive, fast and specialized bikes that may not be what they are looking for. That said, I still found it hard not to suggest they both look at cyclo cross bikes since they both are looking for bikes that they can ride all over the city streets but can still hop on the C&O Canal from time to time for a pleasant cruise.

I know they would be fine with getting simple hybrids but c’mon, where’s the fun in that? Not to mention, I’m just not that big a fan of hybrids in the first place. So, I basically pointed out the WSD road bikes and when I saw the Surly Cross Check for only $850 I gawked. The size was about right and the bike itself seemed sturdy and clean. A perfect city bike if I ever saw one (if of course you are into having gears on your city bike).

So, Amanda got on the Surly and Swan got on the Specialized Allez WSD (mainly because they did not have the Surly in a small enough size I think) and we went out a tooled around the streets. Sweet, two more urban cyclists whom I would like to take at least a little tiny bit of credit for. It now looks like the Surly will not be purchases due to an ex-bf bike racer who has some other things in mind and may be able to offer bigger discounts on higher end bikes, but I think her mind is set on the cyclo cross variety.

Swan on the other hand is still up in the air but sent me a craigslist posting (http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/bik/250504598.html I can't get the picture to upload right now for whatever reason) the other day asking for my opinion. My response? “SWEET!” This bike is tight! It is; another perfect example of an urban stallion. My take on it: replace the seat, wheels and tires basically just because they will need to be, throw a single speed rear on there, swap out the front for a single and make it a tight new street bike. Maybe add a little personalization to it; make it fun. I see the new hotness in this bike; that eagle image is just too sweet. Hopefully she doesn’t feel too pressured into getting some ridiculously expensive specialized racing bike after our shopping experience though; now I think I’d rather apply the pressure to get the single speed/fixie variety. Go peer pressure!