My shiny new...

I’m pretty much a tight ass. I don’t like to spend money on things. Generally, if Andy and I can live without something, we do. When we do purchase stuff, it’s either used, or reduced to clear.

I bought my bike at a garage sale for $10. It’s too small for me. It squeaks. When we were changing a tire one day the back brake broke. It’s hot pink, and rusty. At first, I thought it was the bomb diggity. I felt so punk riding around on such a piece of trash. I didn’t even need to lock it up, because you’d be crazy to steal it.

But, with petrol prices going up, Andy was thinking about getting a bike to ride to uni. After looking around at a few shops, we both agreed it would be completely unfair for him to wizz around on a flash new bike while I chugged away on the old gal. We considered buying cheap bikes from Kmart or Toys R Us. But after a few conversations with Andy’s cycling-fiend brother, we decided we should get a proper, bike shop bike. Because, in some cases, you really do get what you pay for. Anyways, we both feel better about giving our money to a small, local bike shop rather than an American corporation.

And what a great decision it was. The guy at the bike shop spent probably 2 hours total talking to us about different types of bikes, the brands he liked best, what we needed it for, and you could tell he wasn’t trying to rip us off. We felt comfortable with him, and we liked the looks of the bike he suggested, so we ordered two of them--mine in 56 cm, Andy's in 60 (he's super tall).

Andy and I are now the proud owners of two Kona Dews (dew dew, heehee). It’s sleek, it’s sexy, and it’s so much easier to ride than my old beast of a bike. It's a commuter bike, so it has many features of a racing bike but without all the expensive extras. With tires that are designed for asphalt, and a frame that makes pedalling much easier, I envision a lot more bike riding in my future. And every time that Andy rides his bike is one less car ride.

Photo from Kona website

In terms of petrol costs alone, it may take a while for these bikes to pay for themselves. But, when you factor in the health benefits (we both spend a lot of time sitting in offices at uni), environmental effects, and all those other unquantifiable benefits, I think we’ve got an incredible value.

And anyways, sometimes when you spend money, you get good deals. In addition to the bikes we got a helmet, lock, and pump all for half price, and our first service is free. All up, I think it was worth spending a bit of extra cash. But I’m still not paying $5 for veggie hot dogs.