YTD – 622.05
MTD – 140.27
Thursday – 15.69
Friday – 17.55
I decided to take a break from the Bridgestone on Thursday and ride ol’ comfortable. I had a very nice ride down to the river and back. I completed the route in a little less than an hour which is a good time. I tried to pay attention to how my legs felt and where my knees were at different parts of the pedal cycle. I noticed that the my knee was a lot less flexed at the bottom of the stroke on the Sterling. That got me to thinking that maybe the seat was too high on the RB-1 and the bar stem was less of an issue than I thought. I went back ready to try some adjustments.
The next morning I dropped the seat down, and moved it forward just a bit. This got me a lot closer to the bars and felt better already. Upon inspection of the bar stem I noticed we actually had it pulled out a quarter of an inch too far, so I put it to max height. I fidgeted through the morning just waiting for lunch. I changed clothes and headed outside. The weather was perfect for a long ride – high 60′s with a slight breeze, sun out. As soon as I sat down I knew I was onto something. The sharp, immediate pain I had been feeling was not there. The improved angle I was sitting at was doing its job. With a smile on my face I headed west to the hills for some climbing. My next challenge is to learn the gearing setup on this bike. The RB-1 has a demanding climbing gear ratio to say the least. I fiddled with a strategy on the first hill and then headed to the big climb. I felt more comfortable in rapid descent as well. I can ride on the brake hoods with more confidence in the new setup. I drank some water and started up. About halfway up there was a road crew clearing the last vestiges of the storm from a few weeks ago. They had the road partially blocked, as I slowed and rolled up he waved me on through. He said in a deep country drawl “Come on now, I don’t want you losing any momentum” – good point sir. It was very unexpected and put a smile on my face in between the panting. I made it to the top with no stopping and it felt great. At this point I was feeling very good and so pleased to get this bike into riding shape. I wish I had the 80 bucks for a real setup at a bike shop. It would be great to know just what a bike “should” feel like. That is the ultimate culprit in my two days of painful riding at the start of the week…just not knowing. At the top of the hill I hung a right onto quarry road which is reasonably flat with some slight downhills. It runs a ridge line and has some great views of Louisville. Shortly into it there is a quick drop and then flat road. This is where the power of the bike became most apparent. I dropped into that tiny 11 tooth cog and cranked the bike – i was at 30 MPH in a blink. So fast my eyes were starting to water behind my glasses. I raced down the back of Old Vincennes and through the city back to work. 9 or 10 days ago this route took me 1:12:53, Friday was only 01:05:30 – quite a lot faster.
So the week on the whole was quite a success. I am happy to be in a proper road bike and will be looking for new routes next week to stretch out a little more.
