AARGH!

I keep making it all go away!

I'm trying to post about some observations that I made tonight that I think might help me start understanding these road bikes some, so I can start figuring out what I'm looking for when it's time to pick mine... I keep pressing something on my laptop's keyboard that makes it all disappear!

DH has caught me surfing the LBS site tonight -- he would probably say it's karma, since he keeps telling me quit looking at those road bikes!

I told him I'm studying geometry. In reality, I don't think I'm ready for the numbers yet, just the pictures.

Anyway, I saw something for the first time tonight, and maybe it's starting to make some sense: with ten pix per page of the bikes, I was able to see that indeed, frames have different shapes, and parts attach to the frames differently.

Since someone has been drooling over the Ruby Comp today, I went to the LBS site and started looking through their Specialized "catalog."

My first observations were how much more like a moutain bike my Expedition is than like a road bike. And there were some observations about mountain frames too, but I'm not interested in another one of those -- don't like single track. The occasional fire road MAYBE, as long as it doesn't go up or down hill!

I have been looking at Ruby, Sequoia, and Sirrus for half an hour or so now. Differences I've seen -- the SEquoia's top tube seems to slope more than the other two. Sequoia also has a very upwardly angled stem (the thing that the handlebar attaches to, right?) where the other two have pretty flat stems. Sequoia and Sirrus talk about their relaxed, upright riding position, but I'm not sure how they are related? Except maybe that Sirrus has the flat handlebar so you don't do drops? Hmmm, looking carefully, maybe Sequoia and Sirrus forks angle out farther toward the front than Ruby's? Wandering to other parts of the catalog, Dolce looks an awful lot like Ruby to me. So do the other models.

I think the bit more upright position that Sequoia and Sirrus are supposed to offer is probably a good thing for me, but I don't understand exactly what it is about them that makes them upright? I'd think it's related to the stem-thingie, but they don't match on the two bikes. If the big thing to make a bike more upright IS the stem, then can the Dolce and Ruby be made to be upright if I wanted them to be that way?

Not that I've got my heart set on Specialized, it was just easier to look at a few different models of one brand and see some differences...


So, did any of this make sense, or is it just a tired sewing teacher rambling uncoherently after a long day of teaching retired sewists how to use their computers to create embroidery designs to make into quilt squares?

Karen in Boise