It's exciting times in the house. We got our home office all setup, which I still need to post about, and now we have a new bike for Margaret. For the past so many years, she has been riding an old Nashiki (with a Biopace crank set) that we bought from Play it Again Sports for $35 or so. It's been a great bike for her but with her getting more serious about doing triathlons, etc. it was time for something better. The Nashiki was heavy and had poor derailleurs that needed constant tweaking to keep aligned.
In all the times I've ever ridden with Margaret I have never see her put her hands in the drops. Not once. She doesn't even like to ride with her hands on the hoods that much, so I felt as though it would do well for her to get a flat bar road bike. It would be lighter than her old bike, with thinner tires and geared like a road bike. The twist shifters are something she's use to using on her mountain bike and likes a lot. Also you can put bar ends on a flat bar, something else she likes a lot.
After convincing Margaret of my plan the next step was to find a suitable bike. There are plenty of flat bar road bikes to choose from, but I kept coming back to one over and over, the Bianchi Strada. I had first looked at this bike in 2005 when I was looking for a new bike for myself. It was geared up similar to a road bike 11-32 in the back 30-52 in the front. The key here being the 52/11 that you can achieve similar to a road bike. Many of the flat bar bikes were setup closer to a touring bike. In fact in 2006 Bianchi switched to a different setup 11-32 in the back and 28-48 in the front. It also came on 700x23C tires something most flat bars don't. I felt as though this were a true road bike with some features of a touring bike like the 32 on the front. I also liked the fact that Bianchi called it a road bike, treated it as a road bike and not as a hybrid or comfort bike.
The problem was that the newer Strada didn't fit the bill and we have no Bianchi dealer that close to us. I looked at a lot of other bikes and wasn't that impressed and began to think of getting a regular road bike then changing the shifters and handlebar, or just building one from scratch. In fact I fully priced out building one from scratch using either a cheap Nashbar frame or a Surly Pacer frame. It seemed doable, but then one day recently I hit on something. A web site that changed everything for me. bikesarecool.com had a 2005 Bianchi Strada that was $160 off retail with free shipping. I jumped on it, especially since building it myself or converting another bike was going to cost at least as much or more. This was the bike I had always been interested in and now was my chance to get it.
It arrived yesterday and I put it together last night. It looks great and I can't wait to do a fitting for Margaret and then take it out for a spin. I'm more excited than she is I believe. We are now the Bianchi 2005 couple with her having the Strada and me the Brava from the same year.
