Ahh...bike-related shopping. Such a joy. *grumble*

Actually, it is a joy as long as I'm at home and doing research on the interwebs. As soon as I go to an LBS, it becomes an exercise in frustration (with just a little smidge of rage).

At the moment, I'm trying to make a buying decision around a new set of wheels. In short: I need them. Being the fatty that I am, the wheels that came stock on my bike when I bought it last year are not holding up so well. They go out of true pretty easily, and currently my bike is sitting near my living room window with a couple of loose spokes and way wobbly-rotating back wheel.

Since I decided that I'm not going to let up on my riding, I decided that I should treat myself to new wheels. Part of me wanted to treat myself to a whole new bike, but I think I'm going to hold off on that until I'm ready to spend a bigger chunk of money and I have a better idea of what I want in a bike.

But, since I'm shopping for wheels, I figured I should get something gooood. Or, at the very least, strong...and pretty wouldn't be so bad either. In my roving interweb researching, I started ogling Chris King hubs. I'm familiar with these, in as much as I've seen them out in the wild and have always admired their killer aesthetic and lovely buzzy freewheel sound, but I didn't know much about them from a performance perspective. After many assurances that they were worth every penny, I started entertaining the notion that I may spend the extra coin to get some of my very own.

I priced a couple of different builds online with Chris King hubs, just so I would have a ballpark of "reasonable" when I went out to find a local builder.

*sigh*

I'll take this moment to say that over the past year I've had absolutely zero luck with finding an LBS to call my own in this city. Quite the sad state of affairs when you consider that cycling is such a common thing around here, and there are shops all over the place...

Anyway, armed with these baseline prices, I started visiting local shops. Grr.

One place was closed. Or, at least, their door was locked. Though the open sign was out and the lights in the shop were on. Ahh, well.

Another shop was helpful, but didn't offer Chris King hubs as an option, and was actively steering me toward 105 hubs, which I don't really think I'm interested in. (If I'm going to drop a chunk of change on something, I want something I now I'm going to be keeping for awhile. And his 105 price was considerably more than I can get the same rim built up on Ultegra elsewhere, and just a smidge above Dura Ace.) I want to support local shops, but not at the expense of getting what I want.

The last shop. Ugh. The last fucking shop was trying to steer me toward the least expensive options they had. To the point that they were practically selling me something crappier than I'm already freakin' riding.

I actually signed up for this blog about a year ago...I just never got around to using it.

I had just decided to do the Seattle to Portland and I was all kinds of excited about this new adventure. I call it a "new adventure" because at that point it had been about fifteen years since I'd really ridden a bike--the occasional one mile rides to the coffee shop on my Campus Green 1973 Schwinn Breeze excepted...oh, and the one time the summer before that I rented a bike with some friends and took in some sights on a nearby island.

I had intended to chronicle my (mis)adventures in bike shopping, accessory shopping, and clothing shopping here. And, of course, all of the hilarity that comes from an uncoordinated fat girl trying to actually ride her bike enough to get ready for a 200-mile ride.

I didn't actually do any of that. But, believe me, you would have laughed. A lot.

I did, however, complete the ride. And not without inflicting a certain amount of pain upon myself. There's YouTube video and shots on Flickr to prove all of this. (No, I'm not going to tell you how to find me in the masses. But, if you already know me, or have ridden with me, it's not that difficult to pick me out.)

So, why am I writing in this blog now? I dunno. Because it seemed like something to do?

No. Well, ok, yeah...that's part of it. But there's also a larger reason (no, I'm not referring to my ass).

I've decided to do the STP again this year. My original hope after completing last year's jaunt was that I could go into this year with the goal of being a One-Day Finisher. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. I've had enough injuries over the past year that kept me out of commission that there's no way I can get in (or rather, sustain) the kind of training that I would need to complete this ride in one day...not this year, at least.

So, in addition to trying my first sprint distance triathlon later this year, I'm also going to be gearing up for another STP.

Fatty's getting back on her bike...