Obviously, buying a bike is not permitted in a year in which you're trying to avoid all capital expenditures. But still...
I got a new job. I start next week. It's 6 mi / 10 km from home. Since moving back to central Vancouver -- and being close to a light rail station that Erin can use for commuting -- we don't use the car much anymore. I'd like to keep it that way. Thus my need for a commuter bike.
Our thought process was this.
1) Can't buy one. Make do with my existing bike, which is a mountain bike suited to...well...mountains. It has a suspension. Suspensions absorb energy. Energy that you put in. Awesome for hills and trails. Not awesome for non-sweaty commuting. Also, the bike has rugged tires. Not ideal, but deal with it.
2) After much discussion earlier in the month, we decided that perhaps a good compromise was to buy slick tires to put on the bike. That'd make it much more efficient. But then again, it's still a crappy bike for city commuting -- and a set of decent slicks would cost $80. That's a fair chunk of change for a non-ideal situation.
3) Buy a cheap commuter bike when we go to Portland (US prices and no sales tax -- yeah!). When we were there in October, I saw a sweet new bike for just $400. That should be allowed.
4) But wait -- new? No way. There must be used deals out there. Talking this through with others, it turned out that our friend Sarah knows a great secondhand/repair bike shop in Portland. We're dialed in. The plan is to walk in, test ride a few bikes, and buy one on the spot. Ideal budget: $200. Max budget: $400. To offset this price, I will sell my mountain bike. It's an old $1000+ bike that will hopefully fetch at least $200 or $300.
A forthcoming posting will report how this turns out.
I got a new job. I start next week. It's 6 mi / 10 km from home. Since moving back to central Vancouver -- and being close to a light rail station that Erin can use for commuting -- we don't use the car much anymore. I'd like to keep it that way. Thus my need for a commuter bike.
Our thought process was this.
1) Can't buy one. Make do with my existing bike, which is a mountain bike suited to...well...mountains. It has a suspension. Suspensions absorb energy. Energy that you put in. Awesome for hills and trails. Not awesome for non-sweaty commuting. Also, the bike has rugged tires. Not ideal, but deal with it.
2) After much discussion earlier in the month, we decided that perhaps a good compromise was to buy slick tires to put on the bike. That'd make it much more efficient. But then again, it's still a crappy bike for city commuting -- and a set of decent slicks would cost $80. That's a fair chunk of change for a non-ideal situation.
3) Buy a cheap commuter bike when we go to Portland (US prices and no sales tax -- yeah!). When we were there in October, I saw a sweet new bike for just $400. That should be allowed.
4) But wait -- new? No way. There must be used deals out there. Talking this through with others, it turned out that our friend Sarah knows a great secondhand/repair bike shop in Portland. We're dialed in. The plan is to walk in, test ride a few bikes, and buy one on the spot. Ideal budget: $200. Max budget: $400. To offset this price, I will sell my mountain bike. It's an old $1000+ bike that will hopefully fetch at least $200 or $300.
A forthcoming posting will report how this turns out.
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