We were headed down to Lake Placid to train for a weekend in May. Before we had even left, with the bikes loaded on the back of the car, I backed up into my aunt and uncle’s car. I smashed my wheel and completely bent my pedal crank arm.

Idiot.

That meant that I’d have no bike to ride for the weekend in Lake Placid.

We hated the bikes we were riding—both of us were on bikes that we bought because they were on sale, not because they were the right bikes for us. We won’t make that mistake again.

We had purchased a new bike for Kathryn a few weeks earlier – she’s riding a Trek Equinox 7.0 WSD So, the only logical decision would be for me to buy a new bike as well, right?

Off we went to check out the selection in Lake Placid at our two favourite stores: High Peaks Cyclery and Placid Planet Bicycles. The long and short of it is that High Peaks had 3 or 4 good road bikes in the store, and Placid Planet had about 7 or 8 in store that were my size. The range of bikes at Placid Planet made it easy to shop there.

I tried out several different bikes – all of which felt pretty good (anything was better than what we used to ride). In the end, I settled on a Cervelo P2C triathlon bike The price point was right, it feels light, and it looks pretty sleek.

Thanks to the staff at Placid Planet for putting up with me as I experimented and test drove several bikes, and especially Bill for doing a really good bike fit and setting me up in a very comfortable position!