There are a lot of changes in the wind for our family. It seems that everyone we know, and many we are related to, have been popping out babies! OK, some have yet to pop them out, but you get the idea. Before you get the wrong impression let me tell you not to worry... Debi and I are not getting in on that act. We love the fact that we get to play with all of these little bundles of joy... and then promptly hand them back to the parents when they are not so joyful!
There is, however, a new arrival in our home. It's a bouncing baby bike!
Not what you expected, right? Haven't you been paying attention? This is a BIKE blog! Let me tell you how this one came about.
I've been looking at this touring frame on Nashbar.com for a couple of years, but could never justify the purchase. I've always wanted to build a touring/commuting specific bike and had my old Bianchi set up for it, but it just wasn't the real thing. Don't get me wrong; the Bianchi is a very nice bike, but it's just not the same.
Well, a few weeks ago I was looking at the frame again on the Nashbar site. It normally sells for about $300 for the frame and fork, and was on sale for $225. Again, I just couldn't justify it at that price, but the rusty littles wheels in my brain started turning. I work for Performance Bike and get deep discounts on company branded items. Performance owns Nashbar... the frame is a Nashbar branded item... shouldn't I get a discount on the frame? I figured it couldn't hurt to ask!
The process took a little while, but was well worth it. Jay (my boss) sent a few emails to someone in the head office that handles employee purchasing, they hooked him up with someone over at Nashbar that handled them over there, and so on until I ended up on the phone with what turned out to be the woman of my dreams. The price she quoted me was... wait for it.... $45! Can you believe that?
Well, I could feel the credit card in my wallet heating up, so I whipped that little sucker out and started reading her the numbers. I figured I'd better jump on it quick before she figured out she had dropped a decimal point or something! The final total with shipping and tax was $63.10.
After a couple weeks of digging parts out of the garage and making raids on Ebay, what you see is the final result. With the price of gas going up exponentially, it's not going to take too many months of commuting on this bike to break even. Now I just have to get my butt in good enough shape to actually do some touring...
Posts
