This is my new bike! I can't tell you how excited I am to ride it! My buddy Wes from NGU emailed me a couple weeks back to let me know that he was going to get rid of this bike. He had started biking a while back, but never really gotten into it as much as he thought he would. By reading through my blog, and talking to me at different times - he knew that I really enjoyed to cycle.

After talking to Wes, our friend Dana called us and asked if we knew of anyone who was selling a bike, because her friend was just getting into the sport and needed something inexpensive. If you have followed my blog very closely this year, you know that I had gotten a new play it again sports bike a few months back. You see where this is going right? Yea, Erin saw it coming too.

We were able to sell the Trek bike for exactly what we bought it for, which meant I now had some spending money to go back to Wes and make an offer on the Allez bike. The reality is, I couldn't offer him nearly what it is worth, but the dude took what I offered him anyway, and he gave me all kinds of extras like a computer, shoes, clips, a pump, a chain tool, water bottles and water cages! What a guy huh?

As far as the bike goes, it was such a great gift you gave me to allow me to buy it for basically nothing. I have ridden it only a couple times seriously, so I am still figuring out what I like best about it. The real deal is that the bike is incredible. It seems light as a feather, it shifts really well, and it has enough low gears that I can pull my girls in the bike trailer without feeling like my legs are being dipped in a volcano again and again.

The computer on it seems to be really sweet, but I can't quite figure out how to use it. Hopefully Wes has an owners manual somewhere on it, because right now I feel like a caveman with a stick when I try to use it. The shoes are probably a size too big, but the gearing of the bike means that I don't have to work the pedals nearly as hard as I have been in the past, so they will be just fine.

I would like to buy a new helmet that would match the new bike. This is purely a pride thing, but basically my bike now is like the cool kid at school who doesn't want to hang out with the loser helmet kid it used to hang out with. All in all, I am very appreciative for it and want Wes to know that I am going to get a ton of use out of it...

THANK YOU!