I bought the Kona bike in 1996. It was one year after I finished my masters degree, and I'd been working on various short-term independent contracts for eight months. When I got offered my first longer-term appointment, I took some of the money I'd been saving (when you do short-term contracts, you never know when you'll be paid next...) and went out and bought a brand new bike. The $1000 it ended up costing was more money than I'd ever spent on any consumer good (I spent far more than that on tuition every semester, but it's not quite the same).
And I loved that bike more than I think it's possible for me to ever love another thing again. It was the first time I'd ever owned a new bike, and the first time I ever bought myself something - new! - for the sheer fun of it. It seemed so extravagant, coming after a time when I took the old diesel wabbit (worth less than the bike) off the road because the operating costs were beyond my means. That bike defined the summer of 1996 - I rode it every day, with it I got to know all the trails and dirt roads around Guelph, it was what I did with my weekends and evenings and how I got my exercise.
Yesterday, I took the konabike to the bike store to have it overhauled. It will be with me for years, still, as my primary commuter bike, so it's worth getting it taken care of. Until yesterday, though, I could never bring myself to do it (it hasn't been professionally tuned up since the summer of 2002!) because I always wanted the tune-up at a time when I wanted to also ride the bike. But now, I have my bikefriday. See how cute it is? I am in love with the bikefriday, and I spent 66 very happy kilometers with it yesterday. It's a mountain bike frame, but I had the gearing changed so that I have more of the heavy gears than a mountain bike would, and I have thinner rims and slicks on it. After the hilly ride yesterday, I'm sure I made the right decision on the gearing - I used my biggest gear a fair bit, and while I ran out of granny gears on the big hill on Appleby Line that I've never - ever - made up (and Kevin rode up *twice* in a row on his bikefriday two years ago, while I was pushing the konabike up), but even with additional little gears I would have been walking by the halfway point.
The frame geometry is close enough to the konabike that I didn't have to adjust in any way. I have clips on only one side of my new pedals, which is taking some getting used to but actually better because I could unclip before trying the Appleby hill on the flat side of the pedals. This means that I didn't fall over when I hit the point where I ran out of legs, which is always nice. The other bit of adjusting is how the bike feels when I stand on the pedals. With the big wheels of the konabike (and the fact that I was only using seven gears, because my front derailleur was unpredictable at best) I was in the habit of gearing up and then standing up even on flat bits sometime, just for the sheer joy of the speed. I powered up every hill that way, too. The bikefriday does not respond as well to that - I just don't feel like I have that surge of power - maybe it's just that I'm perched a fair bit above my bike and the balance is different, but I don't feel as solid when I get up and push.
I'm happy with my new bike, and yes, in love. But it'll never be like that first time. I'm too spoiled with toys. (Before the konabike, my biggest purchases were all plane tickets, and the SLR I bought - used - with the earnings from my first summer job at 16.)