Quote Originally Posted by nuliajuk View Post
Interesting that you should mention fashion. I remember sitting in the infield of the velodrome between races years ago and mentioning to another female rider that I'd wandered into a high-end dress shop on my lunch hour and seen an $800 dress. I remarked that you could buy a pretty decent bike for $800 (this was in the 80s) and she laughed and told me I had my priorities straight. Many women who balk at paying more than $200 on a bike don't hesitate to spend that and much more on shoes and clothes that will be out of fashion within a year.
Find a maintenance class if possible - they are out there. When I bought my first "serious" bike as a teen in the late 70s, the bike shop I got it from offered a free maintenance class to anyone buying a new machine. Being young and dumb, I didn't know that it was supposed to be intimidating, so I took to it with enthusiasm and did my own overhauls for years. I'm eternally grateful to that shop (now long gone) for having offered that class, because even though now I don't do my own repairs much any more, I know enough about bikes to at least have an idea what's wrong before taking it to a shop. (Actually, modern bikes require a whole lot less maintenance than older ones, what with the sealed cartridge bearings everywhere.)
I was with a friend at Tiffany's when she was preparing to get engaged and we were trying on rings and I couldn't stop thinking about how I'd spent more on each of my bikes than most of the rings we were trying on. It really cracked me up. I'm not sure I'd put that much money on my finger, but I'd put it between my legs!