Happy new bike day! I’ve been doing triathlon for a few years now, and while my road bike, Bella, has treated me extremely well, the time has finally come for me to invest in a bike that’s going to be with me for the long haul.
I’ve done a lot of research, debating how much I wanted to spend, what was important to me in a bike, where I could find the best bang for my buck.
There were 2 major things that informed my search:
1) I knew that I wanted a women’s specific bike, which narrowed down my options pretty significantly. I’m fairly petite, and finding a bike more suited to my proportions seemed like the way to go.
2) I was comfortable spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,000-$2,500. I don’t need more bike than that, and that’s already a pretty significant investment!
So I started looking around, and made up the small list of bike companies that produce women’s specific tri bikes. Ultimately, my search narrowed down to a tie between the Felt B16W and the Cannondale Slice.
Both sport a great set of components, carbon frames and (insert girly moment) are sharp looking bikes.
The more I researched though, the more I decided that the Felt was the bike for me. I called my local bike shop, Champion Cycling, and it felt like fate: they had a size small B16W on order that would be in the shop by the weekend.
I had the great plan that I was going to go in, do a test ride, then leave and think about it; no impulse purchases.
But then I took her out for a ride, and I just knew: we were meant to be together.
All thoughts of leaving went out the window. E tried to subtly suggest that I make sure to take time to think about it, because I asked him to make sure I didn’t just jump right in.
And what did I do? Jump right in.
But I love it. Happy to be a Felt girl!