When my dear old Mum passed away recently, she left me a little money, and the idea of using some of it to buy a new bike was seeded. I mean, I love riding and I love my bike so what better way to remember my Mum by than to ride a bike nearly every day that she bought for me, right? Well, you can call it rationalising if you want but when I slip my feet onto the purple pedals of my new bike (Mum was purple crazy!) I will smile and think of her.

So then the question became, if I’m going to get a new bike what will it be? You see, I do love my Giant Anthem 29er – I’ve ridden nearly 10,000 kilometres on this bike in 20 months and it has been a wonderful ride. But what would I want to change or improve?

The Anthem is a cross country bike (XC) and as such loves to go fast. And that is one of the things I love about it – with it’s 100ml suspension front and back and light weight Scwalbe Racing Ralph tyres it climbs hills very well and takes off very nicely from a standing or slow start. I wouldn’t want to give that up. On the other hand, the steering head angle is a steep 71º which makes it a bit twitchy on tighter, rocky terrain (at least I like to blame the head angle but “mates” have been heard to say twitchiness is related directly to a rider’s technique!). Also, a little more suspension for the rougher terrain would be very nice – after all, I would have bought a Giant Trace 29er with it’s 120ml suspension in the first place but Giant hadn’t released that bike at the time. (The Trace is certainly set up well for all terrain, all mountain trail bike riding and as such sacrifices some of the take off speed of its XC sibling.) Oh, I almost forgot to mention – 29″ wheels is a gimme. Why? Coz … life’s more fun on a 29er!

OK. So there it is. If I could find a bike  that was a 29er, had the speed of a XC, and the 120ml suspension go any where prowess of an all mountain terrain bike that would be the one.

The search is on!

Ummm, I really do love my bike so there is no way it will be crushed when the new one arrives. Rather, it will make a fantastic spare when the “numero uno” bike is being serviced or when a friend or family member who isn’t fortunate enough to own a 29er wants to come riding with me.