2nd Bike! I have named her Lucy.

Despite ignoring my husband's theory of the need for N + 1 bikes (where N is the number of bikes you currently own), I decided to get a commuter bike.

My logic being that I would like to eventually commute locally (shops, cinemas) by bike as theoretically there appear to be many benefits in Sydney.

1. Quicker - traffic in Sydney is awful
2. Parking - parking is getting harder and harder to find.
3. Trip to work - a very convenient distance (8.5km) with great shower facilities, and I'm a big fan of incidental exercise - ie. exercise that happens because of something else, ie. I have to get to work and home, right?

So, instead of going for a Saturday afternoon ride (it was quite windy), we drove to another local bike shop to look at bikes.

I had a bike in mind - hybrid commuter - a little bit Danish looking.

Specialized Globe Work 

But after riding it, it just felt awful.  Very smooth, but very slow and sluggish and not responsive.

So we tried a bit further up the spectrum with a flat bar roadie.

Specialized Vita 2013

It felt much better.  And it was pink!

And it was on sale for $539!  Which fit into the budget that I wanted.

I figured something like this.

bike = $550
rack = $50
rear basket = $70

TOTAL = about $700

So I was hoping to find a bike < $600 as a commuter - ie. the sacrificial bike for people to steal. 

Otherwise, the cost was getting close to the road bike cost (and the logic being, well I could just have my road bike stolen).

I kept in mind something I read in the recent Choice article - How to buy a bike.  In the article, it says,

"One of the most common mistakes people make when buying a bike is getting one that tries to do everything, says Iain Treloar from Bicycle Network."

Which I kind of figured was perhaps what I was doing by making my road bike my everything bike..

 ANYWAY,

The saddle felt AWFUL.  It didn't feel comfortable at all, I felt like my sit bones were touching the saddle but nothing else was and I didn't feel supported at all.

We measured my sit bones on those gel pad things.

(Courtesy - bikegal.com)

And my measurement was 125mm, which is quite wide.

So we put on a wider saddle and it felt better but still not good.

I felt like now I was bouncing all over the place.

So the shop guy decided to try one last thing, he flipped my handlebars upside down to get a more aggressive position (more similar to my road bike).  This also tilted my pelvis and meant that I was sitting slightly differently on the bike and this stopped the bouncing.

SOLD!!

Yay!  New bike!

(Image via gearjunkie.com)