New bicycle

There comes a time in every cyclists life when thoughts turn towards replacing his trusty steed. In my case being made redundant and receiving a pot of redundancy money meant that there was the possibility of a lot more cycling for pleasure and the funds were available to buy a new cycle

The first thing to think about is the type of bicycle needed. What kind of cycling was I intending doing? I wanted to get out roaming the countryside so a 'road' bike is what I needed. For those trips into Wimborne or down to Bournemouth or other civilized places where theft could be considered a problem, my trusty 30 year old Raleigh would be beneath the eyes of any thief.

How much money was I willing to spend? Well, I am not considering training for the Olympics, I just want a reasonably good bike. I put a top limit of £500 on it. I have seen bicycles at Iron Man and Triathlon competitions that cost in the thousands. I even looked at the Cervelo web site. I have always been a fan of Raleigh and Dawes bicycles, so I looked at those first, but also looked at Trek ( Lance Armstrong rode those) and others. I visited one cycle shop in Bournemouth where their lowest price bicycle was just about in my range. I wanted a step up from that.

I came around to thinking about the Dawes Giro 400 and the Giant SCR 3, both at about £450 and also the GT range, but as I hadn't heard of these, was not enamoured of them. At a local cycle shop I sat on both the Dawes and Giant, but favoured my position on the Dawes better. This is even though the Bicycles that I tried were not my size. The shop will get in a bicycle of my size, reluctantly, if I am keen to buy. My feeling is that I want to try the bicycle, but I can buy it from another shop that advertises on the Internet significantly cheaper. As a skilled and experienced bicycle maintainer, I am not worried about needing aftercare.

Months have gone by, and I recently visited Forest Cycles down in Boscombe, and saw the 2009 range of Giant cycles, and the equivalent of the SCR3 with the very able assistance from the guys in the shop in setting me up on it, is a definite contender. I now want to see what Dawes have in the lineup for their 2009 range.

One of the problems is that our local cycle shops do not stock a large enough range of the different sizes to enable a prospective customer to go in and try the bicycles.

I still haven't got my new bike.

23 October -Have seen the 2009 range of Giant bicycles, But discovered that the Dawes 2009 bikes will not be released until January. And I cannot buy a 2008 bicycle because all of 58 cm frame size have been sold. So I either buy the Giant, or wait until January and hope that prices have come down.