Believer Of The Hype

I am notoriously cheap...there, I said it.  I try to save money whenever I can, and opulent spending or missing a discount perturb me greatly.  So, when a great deal comes my way, I know it, and I capitalize on it.  This is all especially true when it comes to sporting equipment, in this case, bits and pieces for my [race] bikes.  I've limped those bikes through a lot, and repair everything I can in lieu of replacing the issue(s).  Upon sending in the suspension from my race bike for inspection and repair after my time in New Zealand, I learned that I had in fact wrung it for it's last drop of usability.  This caused me a fair bit of distress, mainly for the implied financial contribution I was about to make to Fox Racing Shox's annual sales report.

I took a picture of a dirty tire instead of the new fork...not helpful.

After some delays, this new piece of kit arrived on Friday, looking all sorts of shiny and new in its cardboard box.  Of course I immediately got to work installing it into place and thus finished assembly of the 2015 race rig.  It looked nice bolted onto the burnt orange bike, with its gold stanchions, so I did my due diligence and dirtied it up a bit
today.  I even managed to not scuff it up when I fell flat on my face being an idiot.
Once I bothered to actually ride my bike with purpose, instead of taking up the position of a passenger astride metal, I found myself in complete disbelief; the hype is real.  This new mechanical addition to my life is not just money spent, but money WELL spent.  A timing device will need to be employed to confirm this suspicion, but believe you me when I say, it felt faster, like way way faster.  I'm pretty sure I was missing out massively before, it felt like night and day; So much so, I drove to a different trail that was faster so I could enjoy the unrelenting new found speed contained in the gold-coated tubes.
It is fair to say that we all get excited about "new" and tend to get all worked up over new purchases, but for once, I think this is warranted.  As a well-known cynic, I was of course skeptical about buying into a new era of product from this company.  But my concerns have at least been temporarily alleviated, as the performance I experience today while riding easy terrain will undoubtedly only get better once the pitch of the track gets steeper, rougher, and more aggressive.  I'm a believer of the hype, and for once, I think that's warranted.