new rider again

Goat heads: armadillo tires or slime. LBS says armadilloes on my new bike. Slime is good, but LBS dude said not so good in high pressure road tires. Dude said it tends to just blow right out through the holes, not clog them. That was his answer when I asked to make sure armadilloes were available for my bike if I run into lotsa flats.

Tater, have you tried them?


Mimi, I will keep the handlebars in mind, but at this point, I'm adapting to a whole different riding position, and figure I should give it a hundred miles or so before I make any changes, except to the seat! I'm going to swap that out for the one on my old bike and see if I can utilize my butt a bit more to take a little of that pressure off my hands!

I'll pick up a new pair of gloves to give myself a little padding between hands and hoods, and do my crunches, and watch my diet (make less of me to hold up!) and put in a few more hours, and see how I'm doing. Now, that won't stop me from talking with the dudes at the shop to see if it's easy to make some temporary changes that will help me adapt while I'm in picking up those new gloves!

21.5 miles on the new bike, and I'm in awe of the muscles I'm feeling! AND of how easy it was to make them "feely" as my kids used to say! Which is probably WHY they're "feely" -- it was so easy to get more out of them!

Karen in Boise (debating a ride in the rainy windy icky weather today, but after work!)

Karen
you are right where I was last year. my new bike made me want to go faster,
but my old muscles weren't quite ready for it yet.
Good luck with the goatheads!

If you tilt your bars up a bit so that the top part is parallel to the ground instead of sloping down, it will not only put your wrists in a more natural position on the hoods, but it will also bring your hoods just a bit closer to you, thus reducing the stretch/reach and getting some weight off your hands.

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Originally Posted by Kano

Goat heads: armadillo tires or slime. LBS says armadilloes on my new bike. Slime is good, but LBS dude said not so good in high pressure road tires. Dude said it tends to just blow right out through the holes, not clog them. That was his answer when I asked to make sure armadilloes were available for my bike if I run into lotsa flats.

Tater, have you tried them?


Karen in Boise (debating a ride in the rainy windy icky weather today, but after work!)

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Yep, I have Armadillos on the commuter-mobile, but not the road bike. I've ran over broken glass, tree branches, road debris and not had any problems with them. Picked out thirteen goatheads one afternoon after a commute. They have to be pretty long to puncture the tube. The only flat I have had with the 'dillos (2500 miles on them) was after riding over a nail. One puncture on one side of the tube, nine on the other!

Karen, if you ride today you are a nut! :p :D That wind is just too much for me and I am wussing out of today's ride. Going forward isn't too bad, but having to lean into the wind is! Good luck if you go.

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Originally Posted by Tater

Karen, if you ride today you are a nut! :p :D That wind is just too much for me and I am wussing out of today's ride. Going forward isn't too bad, but having to lean into the wind is! Good luck if you go.

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I did NOT ride -- couldn't even talk the dog into going out today, and will now have bad hair for a month after going for the mail! My hair now looks like this: :confused:

Instead, my daughters and I went to the mall and looked around for pretty new things to want!

DH wanted to ski tomorrow -- I've gotta work again. Hard to pass up fresh snow!

Karen in Boise

Forgot to mention -- stopped at the LBS today, and talked with "my" bike dude about gloves. Got a nice, boring black pair -- didn't want to limit my shirts and such by picking up the pretty blue, pink, or purple ones!

Bike dude did say give it a little more time, cuz, you DID just change over from the upright bike. I do like that he remembers me from the other day -- they're a busy place, and we didn't spend that much time in the store! But more importantly, poor bike dude had one heckuva limp today: left shin had bad case of road rash! He was pretty positive about it anyway, though -- but it looked SORE!

The other thing I wanted to ask about while I was there was those Presta valves -- had to find out how to put air in those tires before I've got flat tires and don't know what to do about them! Sweet young road-rashed bike dude was very understanding about what seemed a pretty silly question in my book, but of course, I know that the dumbest questions are the ones we don't ask! Those valves are cool! I'm suitably impressed with the dude who came up with that idea!

Karen in Boise

Kano, there are little adaptors that you can get that will convert a presta to a shrader(sp?) valve, if you only have a pump that fits a shrader valve. I keep one screwed on a tire in case I need to pump up at a gas station or whatever.

Lisa -- tilting the handlebars -- does that make it more challenging to be comfortable in the drops?

SBCTwin -- bike guy, the poor dude with the bad road rash on his leg, mentioned the adapters. His comment was if my pump only does the schraeder, it would be a good idea -- didn't occur to me that I might run into someplace where I couldn't get my hands on a "switch hitter" pump! Maybe I'll get an adapter after all! Or my own tire pump, so I don't have to stick with DH! (he's been the pump carrier in our family)

Karen in Boise -- where it's been another incredibly windy day!

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Originally Posted by Lisa S.H.

If you tilt your bars up a bit so that the top part is parallel to the ground instead of sloping down, it will not only put your wrists in a more natural position on the hoods, but it will also bring your hoods just a bit closer to you, thus reducing the stretch/reach and getting some weight off your hands.

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You may want watch this, as this may increase the apparent distance between the brakes and the bars while on the drops. I had a fitter do this to me. I was fine on the spin around the lot, but out on the road, it was scary.

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Originally Posted by Grog

Hi Karen !

Congrats on the new bike! Make sure you send us pics soon!!

For the pedals, remember that you must unscrew them by turning your wrench towards the BACK of the bike, whichever side you are on. To put the pedals on, you must turn the wrench towards the FRONT of the bike.

This being said, I've often experienced fused pedals which I was unable to remove. When the bike shop finally did the job for me last time, we added a little o-ring (plus the usual grease) and it made a world of difference.

I now put the pedals on and off by using an hex-key (instead of the wrench) on the inside of the crank. Much easier, too.

ENJOY!!

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A tip from a not so old army female wrench turner. Keep a what we call a cheater pole around ( 2-4 ft pole) slide over wrench and turn;adds hundreds of foot lbs for torque power.

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Originally Posted by Kano

Lisa -- tilting the handlebars -- does that make it more challenging to be comfortable in the drops?

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You don't want to tilt it drastically differently- just make little adjustments. If the bike fits well, it shouldn't BE too difficult to be comfortable in the drops. Over months of riding, your core muscles will strengthen and keeping your weight balanced will become not as difficult as when you are a new rider. That was my experience, anyway.
Make sure you are never straightening your arms and locking your elbows when you ride- it tends to put too much weight on your hands and that makes you unbalanced. Try to keep your weight balanced between your seat, your hands, and your feet.
I had to experiment with finding the right length stem so my reach was right.

I found that having the top bar totally level hurt my wrists and as Fredwina said, the drops weren't comfortable at all. I guess we're all put together differently. I think that's a good thing!!