Originally Posted by
Monoborracho
Last summer we spent a week in Destin during which I was able to take a nice long ride, both on and off bike paths. I took my old steel Trek 520 and wore SPD sandals. One day I happened upon a 30 ish couple with new Madones and we rode about 20 miles together. Back at the grog shop the young lady was complaining about how uncomfortable her bike was and how much her neck and shoulder hurt... She felt like she had been sold something well above her needs.
I've been preaching about this for probably 20 years. I used to write cycling stories for my newspaper, and I heard so many people say they'd tried cycling and hated it that I started poking into why--how could they dislike something I enjoyed so much?
More often than not, the problem was just that--they'd either insisted on a "racing bike" when they didn't intend to race (most common among guys) or been told they NEEDED a racing bike when all they wanted to do was ride with their kids or go to out for breakfast on Sundays (common among women). One of our local shops followed up by advertising "the bike you NEED--we'll never try to sell you up," and got a lot of business.
Re your Trek 520--what a great bike. I bought one used 15 years ago and still have it, now converted to singlespeed. It's every bit as comfortable and versatile as my Atlantis. which cost 15 times as much (but is WAY cooler...).