On an interesting possible source of a successor to the Castafiore

I took advantage of the car to drive around to various bike stores in search of information about a possible successor to the Castafiore. My first stop was the new MEC store in Longueil. (Much as I had feared, it is stuck in a suburban wasteland much like the Montreal MEC. Why are the stores near Montreal so badly located?)

I inspected the Nineteen Seventy-One and found it much to my liking. However, I couldn't try out a size XL bike so I am not sure as to the overall fit.

My next stop was LaCordée where I saw a DeVinci Tosca in red on sale at about $900. Very tempting, and very close the specs of the Nineteen Seventy-One. I didn't see anything interesting at Le Yeti, apart from the Surly Long-Haul Trucker and there the interest was academic as that is what Margo and Chris got for their Bangkok to Paris trip. I will point out that it is a low point in the cycling year, so stores aren't carrying as full a range of bikes as they might.

One thing that was bugging me at both the MEC and LaCordée was that the tires on the bikes were knobby as they were technically cyclo-cross bikes. (Cyclo-cross bikes have a partly off-road nature, hence the knobby tires.) However, my requirements are for a street bike and thus I want solid street tires such as the ones currently on the Castafiore.  Also on the Castafiore are fairly new and very strong rims. I was loath to casually dispose of them. Consequently, I was wondering how to store them until they should be needed.  I was also thinking about taking the pedals off of the Castafiore and using them to replace the toe clip pedals currently fitted to Leonardo while I am using him to commute to work.

I then stopped at Re-cycle cycles, which as the name suggests is a second-hand bike store. I often bike past there on my way to work, but I had never gone in. I was pleasantly surprised. The guy there was very with it and as I explained my bike requirements, he pointed out a number of bikes that might suit me. He then made the surprising offer that I could bring in my old bike and he could transplant salvageable components to a "new" bike. This rather caught my attention. After chatting a bit more, I made arrangements to come by with the Castafiore tomorrow to sort things out. I rather liked the guy's attitude which was bikes are there to be rebuilt and he seemed to know what he was doing. I wouldn't mind having a "new" bike custom-built out of older components.

While I looked around, I also saw a red DeVinci Oslo trying to seduce me at a good price. I don't know what tomorrow holds, but it should be fun!