Friends,

After a lifetime (44 years of one, anyway) riding cheap hand-me-down and Wal-Mart bikes I decided to try a "real" bike. My primary motivation? Borderline Type 2 diabetes. My physician basically offered me two choices - get my blood pumping and shed some pounds (5'10" / 220 lbs) or take pills the rest of my life.

I bicycled a LOT as a kid on an old 26" single-speed bike handed down from an older sibling, but as an adult just never got back into it. I was convinced that I didn't like riding, but as exercise goes jogging sucked WAY worse, so I stopped by a local bike shop to check out their offerings.

The shop had a used Cannondale 2013 Quick 5 - it still looked new, and had been apparently purchased by an older gentleman who rode it about a half-mile before deciding it wasn't for him. I picked it up off consignment for well below new price and the shop owner offered to pass the lifetime free adjustments/tune-ups that come with all new bike sales at his shop on to me.

The only change I made was to add a pannier that I found at the local Goodwill thrift store for $1.00 (they had no clue even what it was) and a small Cordura trunk bag.

I have probably ridden it a hundred miles of so, which I grant you isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but each time I go out my endurance is improving. I average about seven miles each trip, and seven miles just isn't a big stretch these days. I'm planning to ratchet it up to 12 - 15 in the next week or so, and hopefully be at 20 or 25 by the end of autumn, all going well.

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Kurt