New Toys :-)

Just had my birthday ... don't ask how old I am ... I'll just say that I'm well old enough to justify a mid-life-crisis style impulse purchase (or two) ... And no, it's not a Harley / leather jacket / topey (how on earth do you spell that word ? the checker comes up with 'ropey. dopey, to pee etc) ....

And here it is ...

It's a full suspension Marin cross country machine: Rift Zone Quad XCR7. Bought it from the excellent bike shop that we have here in El Medano: Bike Point (check em out)

I put those combination clip / no clip pedals on it (Shimano SPDs) so I can ride with 'proper' biking shoes or nip down to the beach with flip flops.

And the other new toy ? well, not quite so impulse or mid-life-crisis style but a beautifully elegant bit of design - it's this bike rack for our new Opel Corsa. It's actually integrated into the boot of the car and pushes back when not need. You can check out just how cool the design is (sorry, but it just is) in this little video:

So anyway, new toys ... and as you can see ... no topay ("copay, to pay" etc):

Wow what a bike ! Took it for a spin around my usual coastal circuit (Palm Mar - Faro de Rasca - Las Galletas) and did the ride about 15 minutes quicker, with hardly any stops and 25% less effort !

Here's a last pic of my old bike (Specialized hard tail) taken by my biking friend Anna, on a recent downhill ride. If you click on the pic and look closely you can just about make out the summit of Mt Teide in the background. It was taken near the start of the ride at around about 1200 meters and we descended to 800 ms on wonderful single track through the forest and saw hardly anybody else the whole ride. Definitely looking forward to doing that route again on the Marin :-)