It's only money, right...

** My Sweet New Ride **

It started out like any other Saturday. Sleeping in the morning after a night shift, dropping the girls off at a birthday party, checking out the Farmers Market, lunch with Mark, and looking around the Bike Barn. Actually that was a pretty good Saturday, not too common I suppose.

We went to the Bike Barn http://www.bikebarn.ca/  to see what kind of bikes they have in stock. Since my first triathlon Mark has developed beeinbonnetitis with regards to me getting a better bike. It was really fun at the Bike Barn; we talked to some friends of ours and then started looking at the road bikes.  Right away one of the employees started helping us and then another guy came up and offered his opinion and then they all started talking in tongues, Mark and the Bike Barn dudes.  I just sort of stood there grinning, trying to not look too stupid and pretended to understand their strange language (BB30?  Compact Cranks?  150 somethin’ or other?  What?)

Well we decided on a nice Cannondale CAAD 9, it is silver, with black, red and white accents. Guess what?  It has a BB30 AND Compact Cranks… oh, and it goes super fast!  I am going to I am going to call it Vegas because it was either a trip to Vegas or a bike. Of course I needed shoes and pedals so the second dude takes me to the shoe area and spend quite a bit of time helping me pick some shoes. As he was helping me I was wondering why he looks so familiar, had we met before. Oh well he was very nice and super knowledgeable. We got to the till and started talking to Will the owner of the Bike Barn. Risking the sale he suggested I try on a different type of shoes. Hmmm. Luckily for him they were shoes I had tried on 6 months earlier and really liked. He swayed me with the story that he wished he had encouraged his wife to buy these shoes instead of the ones she got. They are actually mountain biking shoes therefore they are easier to walk on when you are off the bike, good for the novice. When we got to the till Will told the other dude how he swayed me to choose these shoes instead of his suggestion, the wife example. Dude # 2 said well maybe I should have used Jill as an example, as in Jill Savege the Olympic triathlete. Hmmm I think I know why I recognize this guy…It was Jordan Rapp, winner of the Subaru Ironman Canada 2009! Check out his blog  http://blog.rappstar.com/

OMG no wonder he knows so much about the sport. I have to say it was a truly wonderful experience shopping at the Bike Barn. All of the staff members were engaging, smiling, making sure we were taken care of.  Will has a great memory; we met more than 3 months ago when his beautiful baby was born and he recognized me and remembered my name. That is a good business man.

I know this sounds like and ad for the Bike Barn, but customer don’t often talk about their good shopping experience, they are more likely to complain about their awful experience. I choose to applaud good service.

I wonder how much time I can shave off my bike time now?  Woo hoo!  No stopping me now.