My husband, Tyler, gave me a nice new bike for Christmas. I suspected he’d get me a bike because I’ve been talking about biking for about 5 months now. Plus, he’s always been a big gift giver. In previous years he bought me a new laptop (a DELL studio XPS) and a widescreen monitor for my home office set up.

Getting a bike for Christmas, for someone as thorough a buyer as Tyler was a relief. I knew instantly that this was the best bike for me. He’s really good at taking my considerations into account when buying me gifts. In this case, I wanted a road bike, but he thought a mountain bike (like he has) would be much more practical. So, it’s no surprise that he got me a road/mountain hybrid bike.  My new bike, the Raleigh Cadent i8 is a light weight, high performance bike known by the experts as a “Flat-Bar Road Bike“. In my opinion, and 1 week of riding experience, the bike is a road bike with upright (mountain bike like) handlebars. This puts the rider ins a position that is slightly more upright than your typical road bike, but other than this…it’s a road bike. He purchased the bike from Mike’s Bikes here in Soma. The sales people there claim the tires are wider than typical road bike tires, but I can’t tell the difference.

image of Raleigh Cadent-i8_mattesilver

I really like the look of this bike. The internal gears keep the look very clean and sleek. The bike handles to road very well, and its lightweight aluminum frame and carbon fork make biking a breeze. I used to ride a 1970’s Peugeot road bike, which was too heavy for me and made biking miserable. The bike can handle paved roads, gravel/dirt and grass well (I’ve already tested these surfaces out).

The biggest disadvantage of the bike is the standard seat the comes with the bike. It hurts my toosh. I assume I’ll get used to it soon enough, if not, we’ll get a more cushiony seat to swap the original seat with. I’ll need to put on a good couple hundred miles before I know if the seat is really a problem.

I would recommend this bike for any novice or intermediate biker, the price seems just right for someone who is serious about biking, but doesn’t want to pay $1000.