Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Kids mountain bikes for Christmas! Oh and I *accidently* joined a team...

I mentioned previously that I was shopping for kids mountain bikes for the girls.  I even made a fun Pinterest board on the subject.  I ended up picking up a used 20" Trek MT60 for my 6 year old from a friend.  It's not the best (heavy, barely functioning coil shock) but it was $75 and buying two new bikes at the same time was kind of scary.  If it doesn't fit our needs, we'll upgrade later.  So with hers out of the way I moved on to buying a nice bike for my 8 year old, something that will be eventually passed down to all 3 of the kids.

If money were no object, and if it would have been available by Christmas, the $1700 Transition Ripcord is super awesome. Full suspension, 1x9 gearing, hydraulic brakes, Sram components.  And Pedal Pushers, the shop we (ahem, I'll explain later) race for is a Transition dealer.  But yeah, wasn't going to happen by Christmas and Santa just can't leave I.O.U.s.   Pedal Pushers did have a lot of the Konas and Scott kids bike in stock just not with the features we wanted.


2nd in the "if money were no object" category, the $1700 Trailcraft Pineridge. This one is super cool because it's a new start up Colorado company and they seemed to have taken everything into consideration including designing a new better fitting kids' frame with a shorter chain stay, crank arms, etc.  And it comes in purple, my favorite.

Moving onto bikes we actually could justify spending the money on, we *almost* went with the $650 2015 Marin Bayview Disc.  Hydraulic disc brakes, shorter chain stay, but a coil shock and not going to be in stock until April.



And that brings me to the bike we actually bought.  The Giant XTC SL Jr 24.  $650 MSRP, but Peak Cycles had it IN STOCK right now, before Christmas for $599.  It has hydraulic disc brakes, a front air shock, and Shimano components. It is a 3x8 which is a little silly for an 8 year old but the husband might convert it to a 1x8.


So yeah, super excited.  It's going to be a bike-centric Christmas.  Everyone is also getting bike streamers for the handlebars and bike lights in their stocking and even little kid sized bike shorts with chamois

But yeah, then there is the small matter of me "accidentally" joining Jeremy's bike team, Pedal Pushers Racing.  They had their year end party and I had some wine and decided to give it a try.  They need help with their facebook, and their webpage (no one raised their hand for basic HTML knowledge).  I just got a new camera and it'd be fun to try and take action shots.  Finally, like I mentioned before, I think more women should MTB and race, and how can I have that opinion unless I do it myself?  The Dirt Divas are still awesome, but I hate to see the "shop teams" that appear to be men only, just because they happen to have zero women.  I don't think total segregation of the sexes does much for "the cause" or whatever.  Plus there's the added benefit of seeing my husband a little more, maybe (and I do still actually like him even after 10 years of marriage, most of the time anyway).  Lastly, I have a Scott Spark, which I love, and Scott is a team sponsor, so I'm already set there.  So, I guess I'll give it a try.  Except I'm really slow.  Have I mentioned I'm really slow yet today?  Yeah, I'm really slow.  Oh well.