Saturday, May 2, 2009

Retail Therapy

Since I'm tapering, I'm spending less time running and more time worrying about my triathlon. Yes, I've been in the pool and plan to do more of that, but I really want to give my legs a chance to rest before the race. That has meant no time on the bike and taking it easy on the legs in the gym.

So, what is a girl to do? My solution so far has been to do more shopping planning. I've been trying to get everything bought organized so that I can get on my bike right after the marathon. As I mentioned a while ago, Mike put aero bars on my bike for Valentine's Day. I've ridden the bike several times on the trainer since then. Mike, my bike mechanic husband, brought it upstairs to get it tuned up to ride outside a couple weeks ago. When I got ready to take it for a test ride, I noticed that the handlebars didn't turn to the left very easily. Thinking that it must have had something to do with the installation of the aero bars, I figured I would just stop by the bike shop sometime and have them adjust it. No hurry, no big deal.


We went to the bike shop today to look at helmets for Mother's Day. Are you seeing a holiday gift pattern? They looked at the bike, took it to the workshop, and hemmed and hawed for a while. Then... the bad news. They pointed out that the fork on my beautiful, Trek Lemond bike was cracked. Ugh! It had to have been there when I bought it. I had bought the bike somewhere else, but this store tells me that Lemond's are great bikes and are fully warrantied for a year. I had bought the bike on May 4, 2008. Today is May 2nd. Whew!

We jumped in the car and headed to the other bike shop. My bike is now waiting for the Trek rep to look at it this week. It is covered under the warranty, but I'm going to be without a bike for a little while. I'll know more by the end of the week.

To help me get over the disappointment of my cracked bike, I did some more shopping planning. We found some great Sidi shoes on clearance in my size. Then we headed to REI where they had bike helmets on sale. I got a new bike helmet that complements my bike very nicely. See, there is such a thing as retail therapy!

6 comments:

Porkchopwi said...

Nice looking Lemond! (No I don't say that to all the girls... just some).

Cracked fork eh? As your mechanics point out, that seems pretty odd. Nice that it's still covered under warranty.

I assume you'll be showing off your helmet ... I mean "organization/preperation" ... on this site sometime in the near future?

Enjoy your week as a taper-worm!
(Man, I'm a dork)

Nate

Londell said...

Then pessimist/optimist I can be... My first thought is they give her a new model bike and it does not match the helmet?

My girlfriend said helmet and bike are just part of it, you still need the shorts, shirt, socks, gloves and glasses coordinated...

Sounds like more retail therapy is in order?

Dori said...

New shoes and a new hat are a good way to get over a disappointment. How fortunate that you found out 2 days before the expiration. At the price they charge for bikes there's no excuse for that. I'm going to take my bike out for a ride when I get home and make sure everything is good before the warranty expires.

Mark said...

Whew is right! Glad you found the crack! A bike helmet for Mothers day..that's really cool! Rest those legs!!

Velma said...

I hope you get the bike back soon! Love the retail therapy.

I Run for Fun said...

Good thing you got your bike checked out when you did!

You bike's a beauty.