Heather's post mentioning T-Mobile's pink bikes (Giant wants you to think they are magenta...like that's an improvement) reminded me of something I was going to talk about back when I got my new mountain bike...
Victor and I had made the rounds of all the local bike stores; in fact, we'd hit most of the bike stores multiple times. (Actually, that's a pretty typical weekend hobby for us even when we aren't shopping for bikes, I admit it.) I had a pretty good idea of what level of components I wanted, all I had to do was test ride a few.
One that I considered was a Gary Fisher Marlin. The only color they had in stock was an ugly green (like antifreeze, but a shade darker.) Lord, it was a homely bike. But I figured it wouldn't be a thief target.
I was also interested in the Trek 4500. This particular Trek also comes in a women's specific design. (No snickering...many women, having shorter arms and legs and smaller hands than men, have trouble getting a good fit on a standard bike. I have ridiculously long limbs myself, though. It means I have a devil of a time buying a suit, but I'm okay on a man's bike.)
Still, Victor convinced me that I ought to at least try the WSD. You can't say it won't fit without trying it, right? So the bike shop guy brought one down, raving about what a good bike it was. He told me he'd bought one for his girlfriend. As I was adjusting it for my test ride, he asked what I thought about the color.
"The color?"
"Yeah, do you like the color? My girlfriend really liked the color."
I looked at him as coldly as I could muster (being as I was on a getting-a-new-bike-high) and said "I could not possibly care less about the color."
He sort of stammered something about how lots of women seem to be concerned about a bike's paint job when Victor held up a cycling jersey and said, full of excitement "Nic! It matches the Discovery jersey!"
(For the record: the WSD was way too short a reach for me, and I ended up on the standard model. It's red and black, not that I care. And if I were to care about such things...which I don't...it would match a CSC jersey.)
Posted by Nic at July 9, 2005 09:21 AM | TrackBack