New bike time! The old Malvern Star has finally found another owner. Good luck to him, and I hope he remembers to carry some shifting spanners.

Walked into the local bike shop that afternoon, with the intention of purchasing two new wheels and all the fancy bits that go between them… and the store’s almost empty!

Grumble grumble… turns out their old supplier, Apollo, had been very unreliable when it came to actually delivering the bikes they’d ordered. So they’d found a new supplier, Fuji. Only they didn’t have any new bikes, either…

Was told, delivery of new bikes expected on Thursday.
“Great! Which models?”
“All of them.”
“…great!”

Except Thursday comes, and I call them up, and
“Sorry, no bikes have been delivered. Hopefully by next Thursday.”
“…great.”
So I sit here, waiting. The Fuji website has a bunch of nice-looking bikes, and of course choosing one is the tough part.

The Malvern Star was a flat-bar road bike, extremely heavy, with tyres that made you worry about the slightest bit of gravel. (In fact, the last time I went touring was cut short due to the front tyre actually exploding.) So, the requirements for a new bike are; light and durable. ‘Light’ suggests road bike, ‘Durable’ suggests hybrid.

Of the Fuji range, two look quite interesting:

FUJI Sunfire 2.0

and:

FUJI Absolute 4.0

I don’t have any numbers on ‘durability’, but for weight the Absolute 4.0 is 11.78kg to the Sunfire 2.0’s 13.06. Which is better for road riding in Sydney / occasional forays into the countryside with panniers attached?