The best toys we ever bought...

At one point or another, we've all bought toys thinking they'd bring us lots of enjoyment, but in the final analysis, we only use them a few time and end up owning them and ignoring them at the same time. This is what ends up filling our garage and attics to the rim and often make us say “what was I really thinking when I bought that stuff...” Most of these objects are what I would call “toys” or gadgets, and many sport items fall into that category. Take mountain biking for instance; in 1991, we bought two Kästle mountain bikes for about $830 and used them two or three times, at the most, after we got them. The rest of the time and until 2002, they remained hung up high inside our garage waiting for that other outing that never came. We left them, just where they were when we sold our big house that year. Then, in 2005, my good friend Dirk Beal talked me into reconsidering mountain biking; technology had progressed, full-suspension and disk brakes were the rage, plus what he told me about the great riding available on the many Park City's single track trails made my mouth water.

So, as that summer season came to a close, we purchased two little-used, state-of-the-art rental mountain bikes from Deer Valley Resort for less than $1,300 total. My wife, just like me, was a bit dubious that we would ever use these machines, but today, we are into our sixth year of serious mountain biking.

Don't get me wrong, we had to learn the sport, which is not as intuitive as anyone who knows how to ride a bike might believe, but now we've become proficient in most intermediate, single track runs and get a great pleasure out of each single outing. Since we acquired our new mountain bikes we have been out on them between 180 to more than 200 times. They're now fully amortized (no pun on their full-suspension features there!) and with enough TLC and regular maintenance, we hope to ride them a few more seasons. Yeah, they're truly the best “toys” we treated ourselves with!