I suppose this could go anywhere. But, I've got some questions that I was hoping TE people could explain, and I'm sure there are other occasional newbie questions that are easy enough and don't need their own individual threads.

As a start:
I've got a 11-28 shimano 105 set....what does this mean? I started thinking about it wrt the thread about biking CO mountains on the cervelo vs synapse. I'm not super clear on the specifics of what my gears do, other than "make bike go". What should I look for in other bikes, future bikes, bike n+1?

Second q: wool in the summer? and tangentially, base layers and layering systems....worth considering?

So....yea.