I’ve been thinking of buying a bike lately, and after many test drives and research I finally decided to buy this one – a Fuju Sunfire 3.0 performance fitness hybrid. I chose this model for it’s front and rear suspension, light weight, twist-shift 21 gears, riding position, and amazing handling. I paid for it late Friday but didn’t pick it up until this morning (Sunday) simply because I was at a SharePoint conference all day yesterday. The bike shop I chose is Olde Towne Cyclery in Lake Mary, FL – mainly because I appreciated the honest and friendly customer service provided by the couple that owns and operates the shop – Tommy and Teresa Costello. The convenient location is also nice, they’re in downtown Lake Mary near City Hall so only about 2 miles from home.
Once I decided on the model I immediately wanted to start tricking it out (typical Lori, right?) but Tommy was great at telling me which mods were ok to do immediately (fenders and rear rack) and which should wait until after I spend some time on the bike because I might not need them (grip upgrade, cushier seat, etc.). He offers a 15% discount on all accessories for the first 30 days, so I plan to purchase a bell, cell phone mount, and maybe some clothing during my discount period. I purchased a nice helmet – white with my initials on the front (ok, the LG actually stands for Louis Garneau – the brand designer) and some LG gloves for padding.
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Oh and I forgot to mention, they threw in a free water bottle holder, water bottle, and kick stand for me – all nicely mounted by the time I picked my baby up this morning. 🙂
Tommy showed me how to take the front wheel off using the quick-released lever (really easy) and it fit nicely in the back of my car. We know James’s bike fits in the back of his car too, so if we decide to go explore trails beyond riding range of our house we can do so without purchasing bike mounts – yay!
Ok so we got the bike home, reassembled it, added air to James’s tires, and set out on our quest to find lunch. We had originally planned to ride to Heathrow, but we got a late start so decided to have lunch in Lake Mary then just ride to Heathrow for fun. The ride was nice, but I’m certainly not in as good of shape as I thought! The tops of my thighs were burning after just 1 mile, I was struggling to keep up with James, and at about a mile and a half I had to stop for water. Whew – this cycling thing is quite the workout!! Needless to say, we did NOT ride all the way to Heathrow. 😉
I was impressed with the way my bike handled on the trip – several times I didn’t anticipate a turn or a dip and was able to make a last-minute decision without losing control of the bike. I also like how quietly and quickly the gears shifted. I noticed when I was test-driving bikes that not all gear shifts are the same, and I appreciate how quickly mine changed – especially because I was probably doing it more often than usual just trying to figure out which gear is best at every slight incline change.
About 1/4 mile from downtown Lake Mary as I was riding up the pedestrian crosswalk I heard a loud PSHHHHHH and I immediately knew my front tire was losing air. 
Within about 30 seconds the tire was completely flat. Great – my first ride and I’ve already broken the bike.
Fortunately, Olde Towne Cyclery was just a short walk from where it happened so we walked the bikes to the shop for a quick repair. There were no obvious punctures in the tire or tube, and no shards of metal poking off the wheel frame, so we’re not sure what the problem was but the Tommy and Teresa team worked their magic and got me back on the road in no time.
At this point James and I were pretty hungry, but since Delano on the Park was closed we decided to head back toward our house and get subs at Subway. The ride back seemed easier than the ride there; I’m not sure if I just got used to the bike or made better gear choices but I felt fine when we got to Subway. I was soaked in sweat (see photo), but not nearly as out-of-breath.
After lunch we decided to ride around the Seminole State College campus, which was nice. There was very little traffic to deal with (Sunday afternoon) and we explored several parts of the campus we hadn’t seen before. SSC is a pretty nice school! At one point we were stuck on the interior of the campus with only stairs to get us down to ground level. So what did we do? We drove down a steep grassy hill – it was a bit scary but my bike actually handled it beautifully!
I just love this bike.
After about 2 1/2 miles of tooling around the campus we headed home for showers and a nap. Overall we did about 7 1/2 miles total – not bad for the first day, but I’d certainly like to work toward much longer distances in the future.