One my buddies finally got tired of hearing all my brouhaha about how great bikes are, and decided to get one for himself. I drove out to his neck of the woods (about 100 miles), and we went to the LBS. He and his wife tried out several bikes before settling on the Trek 7200Once we were all done, we went for a ride to his sister’s house (about 5 miles away). I rode one of the 7200s. It was way to small for me (I ride a 25″ and this was a 17.5″), but it got me there. I was kind of surprised to see Trek speccing SRAM gripshifters and Tektro brakes. I thought Trek was all about Shimano.

All in all, I think the 7200 is a pretty good bike for people who are just getting into cycling. They are pretty cheap ($400.00), and have the comfy, upright position and low gearing of a mountain bike, with easy rolling 700c road tires. I’m not too sure about the suspension fork, but if you don’t like it, the 7200fx line is pretty much the exact same bike with a rigid front end. The 7200 has eyelets for fenders, but not a whole lot of clearance if you want to run fat tires with them.

Genesis isn’t exactly what I’d call a bobish store, but they do carry SKS fenders, wald baskets, and I saw one bike with a b17 on it.