I won a bike!

[lnr]

They recently had a promotion in the canteen at work. One raffle ticket for every sandwich you bought. I ended up with 3 tickets, so was very surprised to find that I'd won. And this is what I won:

It's definitely a more expensive bike than I was expecting it to be (more details). But I'm not entirely surprised to find it doesn't have any lights. And I'm not *quite* sure what I'm going to do with it :-)

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh! Congrats! How exciting, winning competitions is ace (I should enter more! I should get 'puzzler' mag or sthg).

[lnr]

It is really cool to have won it. But a bit daft given I already have a (better) bike :-) I might keep it anyway and actually try some off-road biking, but I'm a bit of a scaredy cat. Still, I reckon since the cheapest I can see it online is 170 quid I could probably get 150 for it if I decide to just sell it. And could spend it in Guitar Hero World Tour or something.

[lnr]

PS I now have mario kart, can I come and play with you online some time?

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Yes yes! Here are my codes
console - 4417 7719 6728 7057
mario kart license - 0516 8800 7809

Gimme yr codes! If you are in tonight and have a go, text me and I'll come on, I think I am too full of cold to go out, really...

[lnr]

I don't know the code for mario kart yet, I'll look it up though.

My others are here:

http://lnr.livejournal.com/565344.html

I have just been round putting all my friends' codes into my LJ memories :)

[(Anonymous)]

mk code is 4683 1904 4338

lnr (posting from the wii)

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

Oooh, how lovely! Looks pretty nice too. Lights coming on a bike seems like a really weird thing to me, but then I think the more expensive you get with them the less you get as standard because the more picky about what you get you are likely to be or something? Often people do deals in shops where if you buy the bike you can have up to X of accessories free and then you get to pick what it is you want.

Could you use a new bike? GHWT isn't a bad idea either mind *&) We bought Rock Band just before GHWT came out, annoyingly (should have paid more attention). Plus we bought it for Wii thinking the guitars would be interchangeable with Guitar Hero but it doesn't look like it, so we might as well have got it for the PS3 really.

[lnr]

I wouldn't expect lights to come as standard on a bike I was buying. But I wouldn't buy a bike without also buying some accessories and lights would definitely be one of them. You'd kind of hope a bike that you won would be ready to ride. And at this time of year lights are necessary: if I want to ride it home I'll have to do so before 4pm.

I was wondering what your opinion of it would be, since you're the most serious mountain bike rider I know :) Clearly it's a pretty entry-level bike, but it does look like it might actually be a real mountain bike (iyswim) rather than just a toy bike.

I don't really need a new bike: my own is only a couple of years old and in good nick and more appropriate for commuting and a slightly higher price-band bike anyway. But it is quite tempting to hang on to it and give some off-road stuff some more of a go. We had fun on the hybrids round Thetford forest but they definitely had their limitations: notably being too *long*.

I only discovered GHWT because I was looking up rock band on amazon: I was intending to get that but I realised the guitars aren't compatible. It's a complete arse that you can't just buy another guitar hero compatible guitar on its own though. Dammit I want to play 2-player!

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

I had a Saracen aluminium frame hardtail with V brakes as my second bike (only because the first fell off the car at a very young age and was replaced by the company who made the defective bike carrier). I loved it to death and only moved upward because the trails we were riding were so rough that a hardtail was giving me a painful choice between burning thighs (from never sitting down) or aching kidneys (from the constant rattling). Their full-suss bikes were not great then, very heavy steel things which lost most of their momentum into the suspension; but they did make nice hardtails.

Mine was pretty decent and robust for a cheap bike. I gave it to my mum when I got a new one and she rode it for a while although it was too big for her. She has a full-suss Specialised (that she never rides!) now so they've taken it over to France for their house there and I look forward to riding it a bit when we're there next summer. I did lots of local off-road trails on it with no problem, it was the steeper rockier stuff we started playing on that gave me the problems - and that took a couple of years of riding really.

If you don't need the money it might be fun to play on and see how it goes. Check out the second-hand value first though on ebay - if they don't hold their value well it might be worth selling it as new without riding it. I know Marins hold their value really well, I can't remember how Saracens do.

[lnr]

Ha, the only two on ebay are brand new 16" ones. And both have different RRPs quoted, both higher than the RRP on wiggle.

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

My experience is that they last pretty well, if you periodically replace any bits you've crashed.

[lnr]

:-)

And gosh, I didn't realise you were still reading!

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Oh, cool! Ok, it's not actually *useful*, but it's nice to win it. :-)

[uisgebeatha.livejournal.com]

If you're not sure what to do with it, I could buy it off you, since I'm in the market for one what with Saracen being a bit on the rusty crap side ;)

[lnr]

oh gosh, that would be a remarkably sensible plan. Would 150 quid be OK? The cheapest I can see it online is 170.

I'll have a think over the weekend about whether I want to keep it.

[catyak]

And I'm not *quite* sure what I'm going to do with it :-)

Normally you sit on the flat bit top left, hold the handles top-right then put your feet on the pedal things bottom-centre and move your feet/pedals in a circular motion clockwise (as viewed on that picture).

Sorry, it is Friday, after all (well it is here, you seem to be into Saturday by now).

D

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday! :-)