i bought a REMEDY!!!

My boss made me work last Sunday. He said that he had me come in to tidy the tech room and make an "action plan", etc.
I was a bit cross about this, as I'd been invited to ride Hartland with Julia and Michele and the rest of the SIMBS women's ride group. Instead I spend the day cleaning up dusty stuff that other people had dumped in there when told to tidy somewhere else. That went on from 12 to 6 pm, and then there was a computer department meeting, where we went over "solution selling" and did some roll play (no, I'm not kidding). The meeting went on until 9:45.
Because I'd worked Sunday and they didn't want to pay me overtime, I got Thursday off. I decided to ride down to Victoria and take a look around bike shops as I've been considering a new mountain bike for some time now.
The first place I went to when I got down there was the Trek Store. As you walk in, the counter is on the left and two bikes on the left, and all the rest of the bikes are at the back of the store. The two bikes at the front of the store were a Trek Soho (the belt driven bike I was talking about in a previous post), and a 2009 Trek Remedy 8 (size small) on sale. I rode it around outside a bit, and then went and had some lunch.
I checked out Russ Hayes and Ryders. Ryders had an R9 and R7, but neither in my size, and both marked at full retail. I messed around in town for a while, then rode to Oak Bay Bikes, where I rode a Norco Fluid and a Specialized Enduro. The Enduro felt more like a cross country bike than I wanted, but had heaps of standover clearance (something I wasn't too bothered about), and looked a lot nicer (something else I wasn't too bothered about). I'm not keen on Specialized's own brand shocks - apparently they've had a lot of trouble with them, and I'd rather get something tried, tested and refined (most likely a Fox Float RP23). It's seems contradictory to me that they market their ASF suspension designs as eliminating pedal bob, and then they make shocks with automatic lockout to eliminate pedal bob. The Fluid felt like a downhill bike (not that I've ever ridden one), and although it had 5" of travel (while the other two had 6), it was way over built and heavy. It seemed as if I was going where the bike wanted, and the bike wouldn't go where I wanted. It really was ugly though. Weird shape (especially in the small size) and terrible periwinkle blue paint that looked cheap.
I rode back (after getting lost - when I came out of the store I thought I was on a different road to what I actually was, and ended up going quite far north), and walked around Beacon Hill Park for a while and took some photos. Then I went back the the Trek shop and put down a deposit on the Remedy.
I wasn't sure how I was going to get it home. Bikes aren't allowed on the Greyhound. There is a city bus (with a bike rack) that goes from Duncan to Victoria (and back, obviously), but that's only on weekdays. The only option was to take the Greyhound down there and ride it back.
So I hung out with Hilary at the market for a while and then took the 11:30 bus to the bus station in Victoria. I walked from there to the shop, payed the rest, went to Booster juice, and started the long ride home.
I'd forgotten to take some slicks with me like I'd planned, and forgotten to take anything to eat, so stopped at the last gas station on the way out of town. It seems all gas stations sell is chocolate bars - racks and racks. I ended up with a Power Bar (I'm not keen on these), a Rice Krispie square, and a packet of Maynards Juicy Squirts (more to come on these).
Riding west from the store was horrible. I thought I as never going to make it home. How could this bike be so slow? But it was just the wind. The wind was terrible, and once I'd got out of the wind (around Goldstream), it occurred to me that I've felt terrible up until that point every time I've ridden back from Victoria. Damn wind.
The rest of the ride was slow and uneventful. Very slow and long.
I'd filled up with water in Victoria, and the water tasted horrible, so I got quite dehydrated, and had a headache before I got to Mill Bay. I was planning to catch a bus from Mill Bay, but there are only three buses on that route throughout the day, so I'd either missed the last, or the next wouldn't be along for ages.
I've no idea how long the ride took, but several people looked at me funny. I often people riding Kona Stinkys around tow and think "why?".