Don´t expect this to be a technical article about the bike. You can search Google for that and will find plenty of information (or you can click here), much more than my very limited technical knowledge can cover on it or any other bike, as a matter of fact.

I don´t know about the newest cassette, gear, breaks or groupset technologies and about the quality of the various brands in the market (e.g. . I ride bikes, but don´t know much about them other than the known brands in the market with which we often associate quality. Specialized is one of such brands.

So allow me to go back to “B4” and to digress a little… I´ve lived for 2 periods of my life in the UK. Back in the 90s I lived for 7 years here, then I left in 1999 and came back in 2006. When I came back the first thing I bought to myself was a £60 bicycle in a Sports Direct shop in Reading (I think). Rode it a few times and then didn´t use for years (or only very occasionally). Prior that that bike I had many more and I often rode a bicycle to the Uni / work back in the 80s.

The Specialized Hard Rock Disc, however, was my first “quality” bike.

I know quality is something relative and when it comes to bicycles you can easily find premium bikes at the price of a small family car. In comparison to the £60 bike from Sports Direct it was the best bike I ever had up to that point in life. Even better, it came as a Father´s day gift from the mother of my children.

I must confess, I ride bikes, but don´t know much about them. There are known brands in the market with which we often associate quality. Specialized is one of such brands.

I still can remember the excitement after completing my first 10 Km on my old bike many years ago when I took up cycling again and then comparing the same route on the new bike the day after I got it. What a difference…

The rapid fire triggers was something I hadn´t experience in a bicycle before and the precision to which the gears changed was impressive. I don´t think I would have progressed in cycling as I did if it wasn´t for this gift from my family.

The pictures I used in this post with of my first ride on June 2012. A route of just under 20 Km (12 miles), I think.

It was with this Bike that I did my first long distance ride from London to Brighton for the British Heart Foundation on June 2013, exactly 1 year after I got it.

I kept my old £60 bike for many years after receiving the Hard Rock and it was on that bike I mounted the kangaroo seat I used to ride with my younger son, then a Toddler. After he outgrew the seat it was time to also part from the bike and I sold both (bike and seat) to a nice lady that came to collect it at the Bracknell train station with her baby attached to her back.

If you are thinking of getting a new bike in the price range of £400 to £500 and want a mountain bike? Totally recommend this one. It hasn´t given me any trouble in years and the day I decide to part from it will be a sad day for me for many reasons.