This is what I realized about ten seconds after I leapt out of bed, cursing, fist lifted to heaven at the gods of crappy alarm clocks. Turns out I had turned it off because I did not need to get up at the crack of 8:00 a.m. Ha-hah.
Anyway. I thought I would talk a little about the exciting day a bike mechanic has when loosed from the chain of labor(There actually is a chain with handcuff bolted to the repair stand. It chafes me so.)
Lots of stuff going on, but first: I GOT A NEW BIKE. Awesome, yes!
Shown here with some old freinds and using this crazy technique where I turned the camera sideways.
It showed up last week, but I was not doing this then so we talk about it now. This is a Giant Trance X 0, five inches of travel, Fox dampers, Mavic CrossMax wheels(Strangely missing tubeless tires), XT/XTR. I only had to sell one other bike and donate blood three times to get this bike. I have been riding a Giant TWO2ONE(The bike I sold). It was a great bike but the lack of gears was tough when riding with my buds and the lack of rear suspension was a killer on some of the trails we ride(The aptly named Rocky Road for example). Then I got a chance to ride a Specialized FSR. Should not have done that. It turned me to the dark side. I started looking around for a full suspension bike. At first I was looking for an FSR. That thing went so great I got in over my head, crashed hard, missed four days of work and spent a month in physical therapy. That kind of fantastic is hard to ignore, I HAD to get one. Problem is there were not to many(read:NONE) around. I did come across an FSR Pro frame, but hemmed and hawwed to long and someone else grabbed it. Not really a problem, as I did not have any of the parts to fit it up anyway. So I started looking at the Giant bikes. I tried out a Trance X 2 that we had at the shop. It was great. Only real problem, no tubeless wheelset. But wait, there was the Trance X 0. It had tubeless and nicer parts all the way around. Only problem, THERE WERE NONE. That is right freind at home. No bike for Chuck, hard worker and keeper of the flame. But then, but...then. Karma smiled, a rep had an X 0 that had been used as a display bike for National Geographic, Never Ridden. In My Size. Below wholesale(More on this in a minute)* And still I hemmed and hawwed. This time no one else was looking and when I finally got off my ass, it was still sitting safely under a protective layer of dust. I told the Rep to bring it on. Two months later, it was mine. Yes, I missed two months of prime riding waiting for my bike to show up. The bike shop guys get to wait for stuff just like every one else. So I don't want to hear any bitching about your Knog flasher taking six days to show up(You know who you are)
Sad part. I have had this bike for seven days and have not ridden it farther than the driveway. Rain(trails closed), work(My boss will not just let me run free), and dark(every twelve hours like clockwork). The suspension is ready to go, saddle set, levers angled, still needs a Red Lantern(My logo) sticker, otherwise waiting for go time.
*Bike shop employees often get bikestuff at or below whole sale. To the non bikeshop person this seems horribly unfair. We feel the same way about the non bikeshop people getting things like: healthcare, a living wage, vacation, and a lunch break. That's right, a lunch break. I have not eaten an uninterupted sit down lunch in fourteen years, but I did get a sweet deal on my new bike.
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