I have been reading here for quite awhile and decided it is time to join in. I just got back into biking this spring after 8-10 years of not riding at all. My husband and I were out running some errands in May and he suggested stopping at a bike store we saw. "Just to look around." My last two bikes were a mid-80's "sport-touring" Fuji (introductory bike but fun and I loved it) and a spur-of-the-moment mountain bike purchase (wasn't riding off-road--knobby tires on pavement felt slow and heavy, bike never fit right and I hated it). Then hybrids became popular and I thought I might want to try one sometime. This was my intent when I walked into the bike store this spring and proceded to test-ride a few bikes. I soon found out that there were several types of hybrids, and that what I wanted was more of a fitness/flat-bar roadbike. I tried a Trek FX 7.3, which I liked a lot, then I went to another shop and tried a Specialized Vita Elite. I knew immediately that was going to be my next bike. It felt faster than the Trek, seemed to have good components for the price, and came with a carbon fork and bar-ends. All of those were perfectly good reasons to buy one bike over another, but I have to admit that the hook for me was the color--a georgeous matte purple color they called Berry. The only problem is that the LBS said they were sold out in the size I needed. My husband (who you might guess by now is a major enabler) called around the found the Berry color in a 54 cm for me.

I love this bike! I know it isn't going to be my last bike--I am already fantasizing about a new road bike, but this is the bike that got me back into cycling and I have no intention of ever parting with her. Except...I haven't had her for a month now. Late in the summer Specialized has a recall on the carbon forks on some of their 2011 bikes, including mine. So I took the bike to the local Specialized dealer, as instructed by the company. The actual instructions were to stop riding the bike immedately, and when I called the shop they asked that I bring it in immedately. Okay..... inconvenient, but okay. I got nervous, though, when I dropped the bike off, and the guy I spoke to said that "Specialized hasn't told us what to do yet, and we have a few of these here already." ????? They called a few days later and said that Specialized was out of the forks, and that they would call us in about a week to give us an update. Well, that was a month ago. I decided to give them some time, but finally called a few days ago to check on my bike. The guy at the shop said that he was going to check with Specialized again, and that they even had a few 2011 bikes in their shop that they can't sell because of this. This just doesn't seem right, and I am not sure what I can do about it. I guess a month is not so long in the scheme of things, but I just want my bike back!!!