My (old) bicycle is 18 years old, has done tens of thousands of kilometres, the gears don’t work well and the handlebars give me shoulder cramps when I ride a long distance. I have tried to fix many of her age-related problems and the shoulder cramp problem, but I came to the conclusion long ago that my best option would be to buy a new bike. Then I moved to Sydney and stopped riding so much.
A few months ago Andrew’s bike was stolen from outside our cage (it was locked to our cage at the time, my bike was apparently not good enough to be stolen since it was locked by the same chain that was cut). Since then we have talked about buying ourselves a new bike each, so last Saturday found us bicycle shopping at Woolys Wheels in Paddington. We took a bicycle for a test ride (road bike with flat handlebars) and we both liked it, so we were fitted out for new bikes, a bike rack that goes on the tow bar of the car, and a baby seat. Today we picked up the bikes, got a helmet for Nathan, and lashed out on bicycle shoes and cleat pedals because I wanted to try them instead of getting toe clips (I can’t possibly ride without something like that these days, it feels like something is missing if I don’t have my feet attached to the pedals). The handy thing about the pedals is that they are normal pedals on one side and cleats on the other, so you don’t need to wear the special bicycle shoes to ride the bike.
Anyway, I’m very excited to have a bicycle that is quite light, and a baby seat so that Nathan and I can pop to the park or the shops without having to get out the car. My old bicycle is going to be donated to some place that does up old bikes for a good cause. I’ll be sad to see the end of Ten Tonne Tessy because I’ve had a lot of fun on her even though I also suffered through terribly painful shoulders as a result of bicycle touring on her. I’m going to have to come up with a nickname for my new bike….I don’t have any ideas yet, but maybe something will become obvious as I get to know her better. 🙂
The way those bikes are racked makes the car VERY wide. Be careful that you don’t damage them. Is there any other way to rack them with the rack you have?
I think the bikes don’t stick out as far as they appear to in the photo.