kokomo61

My son has been doing more cycling, and I was getting ready to move him up to a larger frame bike. He gradudated to a 26" wheel bike early last year, and after putting slicks on it, he did very well on a 14.5" frame Performance Bike Shop hybrid - not an expensive bike, but perfect for his purposes. He even got his Scout cycling badge on it, which included rides of 10,15, 25 and 50 miles.

The plan WAS to get him a new bike, and move his kid sister up to his - her 20" wheel bike was too small...but I had some reservations about her ability to handle the longer wheelbase of the 26".

My wife solved that problem for me. She took our son on a ride on the W&OD trail (and she always takes the minivan to do this, even though there is a paved bike path less than 1 mile away, but that's another story). On Memorial day, they rode - and while I was relaxing at our neighborhood cookout, she came back, and asked me for a favor....seems that she didn't set the clamp properly on the XPORT rack, and my son's bike bounced off of the back of the rack on the highway...and would I be a dear and go back to look for it?

I had no idea where the bike would have come off (since I wasn't driving the car), and neither did she. I asked if she heard anything - even though she had the windows down, she said she didn't hear anything fall off the car. I asked if she heard the squeal of brakes and crunch of metal as other drivers tried to avoid the flying bike....she didn't appreciate that....so I had to get in the van to go look for the remains.

She must have been driving slowly, because the bike was nowhere to be seen. Someone must have seen it come off of the rack, and said - hey, free bike!

Anyway, now I had to shop for two bikes. I ended up getting a pretty good deal - since my daughter was shaky on the 26, I ended up getting her this:

Schwinn Midi Frontier - base level Shimano Tourney components, but it had a rigid fork and no cheaped out suspension, and the wheels/tires are a bit more easy-rolling than the typical MTB-type bikes in that size.



For my son, he has had a lot of trouble using the shifters on my road bike on the trainer, so I wanted to keep him on a flat-bar road bike. Again, no suspension or fat tires - this is meant to go longer and faster. I looked at the Trek 7.2FX, Giant FCR and Specialized Sirrus, and came very close to buying the Sirrus...but after looking at the components (Sora with an aluminum fork on the base model), and even though the Sirrus Sport had a carbon fork, it had the exact same components as the base - so the carbon fork didn't merit the $200 price difference.

I ended up getting him this:



Iron Horse Transit 3.0. Tiagra derailleur, Selle Italia saddle, carbon fork, better equipped than the other bikes....

and it only cost $399 shipped from Amazon.com. I'll have to do the final assembly, but that's no big deal (having done that to my previous 2 bikes). I could have spent $689 for a Sora-equpped Specialized Sirrus.