...you COULD HAVE done it on your old green bike too, if you were stubborn.
One of my friends told me this as well...but I also *really* like reasearching and shopping, and I love new toys, so this seemed like a reasonable excuse to indulge those loves a little. Also, I figured the added motivation of shiny, pretty new bike might make me more eager to ride. (And, um, carrying Anabelle up the flight of stairs from my front door to street level has never been a picnic--she's a pretty hefty girl, not entirely unlike me--and that's one of the things that's been a barrier to taking her out more often.)

I did notice the training rides on the Cascade site. Here's another of my dirty little secrets (amazing what people will reveal on the internet to relative strangers, but would take hours to admit over coffee with new friends): I have a little social anxiety. The idea of showing up somewhere to do something I'm not very good at/knowledgeable about (yet) with a bunch of people I don't know kind of makes me queasy. I'll get over that, but only after I've convinced myself I'm not a total disaster on two wheels.

I'm truly bowled over by how nice everyone here seems. Y'all are great!