Six13- Alan receives his new bike

So for Robert's high school graduation, I wanted to do something really nice, and offered to buy him a bike up to $1000. After steering him away from the "fitness bike" genre, I bought him a 2007 Rocky Mountain solo 30, a Canadian made aluminum bike with carbon fork and seatstays and 10 speed 105. Rocky Mountain has a solid reputation in the mountain biking industry, and supposedly made nice road bikes as well. (I hear the biggest knock on RM bikes are their frames are a little on the heavier side, but I'd trade ride feel for a little extra weight any day of the week.)

I won't say that Robert has ridden it a ton, but for those few rides we went on together, it made all those hours working at Greenbergfarrow worth it. Hopefully next year takes the bike up to Yale, regardless of how little space he claims to have in his dorm, and maybe he'll even find the adrenaline rush and camaderie of racing in the ECCC. Even if he never races, he'll always have a solid bike to zip around on, and hopefully he finds at least half the benefits that I've gotten as a result of biking.

So how does this relate to Alan, who just finished 10th grade? Alan has always been the most athletic in the family, (by far I might add), and has always shown interest in biking. Even though he has seemed to be more interested in mountain biking, as this is what his friends do, I know he's been interested in road biking as well, which would play into his strengths as a track and xc star.

I'm still not quite sure how he pulled this off, but somehow he convinced me to extend the same 1k road bike high school graduation gift to him...two years early! In reality though, it made sense to me, as he'll get much more use out of it now, as well as he has a better chance of really getting into the sport if he starts now. In addition, all of the bike and build discounts that we were getting served as really good leverage on getting a good bike at a decent price.

After originally deciding he wanted a specialized allez elite in the gerolsteiner color, I was able make him see the light, and eventually he came around to seeing the 2008 Cannondale Six13 5 in black. I'm not knocking the specialed allez elite as a beginner road bike, for all those bike and builders reading this blog, as itll work fine, but for a little more, the six13 5 is in a league of its own (and happens to be the winner of Bicycling Magazine's Best Enthusiast Road Bike, so you dont have to take my word for it.)

The bike is equipped with 105 10 speed drivetrain, ultegra brakes, mavic aksium wheels, and cannondale's carbon tubes, aluminum lugged bike, which 3 years ago was their top of the line frameset raced by the pros. Alan's new bike is actually alot nicer than my Cannondale caad7 when i bought it, which is nice, as it will be hard for Alan to outgrow the bike anytime soon.





Another happy cutomer at Bike Junkie ( http://www.bikejunkie.com/ ) If you live on LI, you'll never find a better bike shop out there.