Quote Originally Posted by dachshund

I'm interested in kelownagirl's experience riding again after 20 years, and what it was like to get through the buying experience.

Thanks again.
Amy
Not much of an educational story on the buying experience there I'm afraid. I had ridden my 8 year old, very heavy, mountain bike a few times last summer and again this spring. (Didn't know the difference between a mountain bike and a road bike until I met DH 2 years ago). When I decided to actually start "training" myself to ride more seriously this spring, I bought the new bike. Woke up one morning, said let's go buy me a bike, went to three different stores, found one at the last store and bought it. Was just hoping to get a used bike that was better quality than my old one (which wouldn't be too hard) but ended up spending about twice what I had planned (the bike was only 1 year old). I rode it around the parking lot a few times and said, yup it seems good to me I really had no clue. I let dh and the store guy make the "mechanical" decisions. I liked that it had disc brakes only because dh was excited about that. I changed the seat to one off another bike I had tried and also bought slicks because I was mostly going to ride on the road. I guess I'm lucky because I really like this bike and it fits me and it goes much faster than my old one and the chain never falls off

HOWEVER, in the past two months, I have tons of reading about cycling, reading all hubby's Cycling magazines, Team Estrogen archives etc etc and now I'm just beginning to understand a little about what really should go into buying a bike. I am gonna buy me a good road bike sometime in the next year and I'm gonna to know what to look for and do the "mechanical" talking myself next time.