44 years old, dabbled in mountain biking, till the sad realisation that my son, who I ride with is just too good, whilst I remain a ditherer, he is a confident hill eating psycho. So not much fun to traipse around after, get back to the car and watch, breathing through my arse, as he just goes off for another circuit. I like to ride, I want to ride, so my darling wife, allowed me to buy a road bike. It seems to me that mountain biking is something to have fun with friends on, a road bike can be far more solitary. Besides I've always been in awe of the professional cyclists and what they do.
So it was hours of research on the internet, pondering my realistic budget, along with the realistic financial situation we find ourselves in, consideration of finance options, but ultimately scared to buy a bike I hadn't sat on and given a ride at least up and down the road. This turned out to be a well founded worry.
Off to Evans at Gatwick I went - advertised as a warehouse store - in truth no bigger in size than most Evans I have been into. At my budget they had available a specialised, a trek, a jamis, a fuji and a pinnacle. I was aware of pinnacle as they had made my sons first mountain bike, he'd found it an excellent ride, and he had been able to upgrade it substantially, till some thieving grot bag stole it.
The Fuji and Trek were in my size and I gave them a ride. The Trek too short, the Fuji like riding a bag of nails, this left a pinnacle sentinal 3, reduced in price by 300, with Shimano 105 groupset, but not a lot else I could really recognise from my research. It was a revelation compared to the others, comfortable ride, slick gear change, fast (to my plodding experience at least) and right in a budget that I could convince the wife to live with. It's now mine, research since suggests I may have brought the lost one in stock. The 2011 Pinnacle range is an ugly bunch of ducks, so I'm glad I got there on time.
I've now been out on three rides, only short, lets be sensible here I have age and a fat belly against me for anything to drastic to soon, and after about a mile at speeds consistently over 20mph, I now know why people love road riding so much.
My intention in this blog is to chart (for my own purposes more than anyone else) the ups and downs and progress of a middle aged, out of shape bloke with dodgy knees as I foray into the world of road bikes.
So it was hours of research on the internet, pondering my realistic budget, along with the realistic financial situation we find ourselves in, consideration of finance options, but ultimately scared to buy a bike I hadn't sat on and given a ride at least up and down the road. This turned out to be a well founded worry.
Off to Evans at Gatwick I went - advertised as a warehouse store - in truth no bigger in size than most Evans I have been into. At my budget they had available a specialised, a trek, a jamis, a fuji and a pinnacle. I was aware of pinnacle as they had made my sons first mountain bike, he'd found it an excellent ride, and he had been able to upgrade it substantially, till some thieving grot bag stole it.
The Fuji and Trek were in my size and I gave them a ride. The Trek too short, the Fuji like riding a bag of nails, this left a pinnacle sentinal 3, reduced in price by 300, with Shimano 105 groupset, but not a lot else I could really recognise from my research. It was a revelation compared to the others, comfortable ride, slick gear change, fast (to my plodding experience at least) and right in a budget that I could convince the wife to live with. It's now mine, research since suggests I may have brought the lost one in stock. The 2011 Pinnacle range is an ugly bunch of ducks, so I'm glad I got there on time.
I've now been out on three rides, only short, lets be sensible here I have age and a fat belly against me for anything to drastic to soon, and after about a mile at speeds consistently over 20mph, I now know why people love road riding so much.
My intention in this blog is to chart (for my own purposes more than anyone else) the ups and downs and progress of a middle aged, out of shape bloke with dodgy knees as I foray into the world of road bikes.
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