February rides

[north woods gal]

Good idea on the bicycling gear, Crankin. Also a good time of year to do some rebuilding or even start thinking about changing or adding bikes.

My Salsa Fargo is a good example. It's a drop bar mountain bike with 29er wheels/tires, kind of a cult bike for those of us who have them. Love the bike in every respect with one huge exception. It has SRAM Apex shifters with I HATE. The problem is the single paddle that is used for both upshifting and down shifting on SRAM. In order to down shift, I have to move the paddle twice the distance in, compared to moving it a short distance for a higher gear. With my hands, I struggle to reach in far enough when I need to downshift and if I don't reach in far enough, I actually shift to a bigger gear, not a lower gear and that completely kills things when I'm in a climb. Even when I do it right, it's still slow and awkward to downshift. MUCH, MUCH prefer Shimano 105, Ultegra and so on because downshifting and upshifting is on different levers and I have enough reach with both. Much more manageable for me.

At this point, it's either convert everything over to Shimano - and that won't be cheap - or trade it in on another bike. Decisions, decisions.

[ny biker]

Good idea on the bicycling gear, Crankin. Also a good time of year to do some rebuilding or even start thinking about changing or adding bikes.

My Salsa Fargo is a good example. It's a drop bar mountain bike with 29er wheels/tires, kind of a cult bike for those of us who have them. Love the bike in every respect with one huge exception. It has SRAM Apex shifters with I HATE. The problem is the single paddle that is used for both upshifting and down shifting on SRAM. In order to down shift, I have to move the paddle twice the distance in, compared to moving it a short distance for a higher gear. With my hands, I struggle to reach in far enough when I need to downshift and if I don't reach in far enough, I actually shift to a bigger gear, not a lower gear and that completely kills things when I'm in a climb. Even when I do it right, it's still slow and awkward to downshift. MUCH, MUCH prefer Shimano 105, Ultegra and so on because downshifting and upshifting is on different levers and I have enough reach with both. Much more manageable for me.

At this point, it's either convert everything over to Shimano - and that won't be cheap - or trade it in on another bike. Decisions, decisions.

Are your handlebars too big? Having compact drop bars has made a huge difference for me, and I have no trouble with Sram shifters.

[north woods gal]

Thanks, NY. Might try that. The problem with the SRAM is mostly back when trying to ride trails and single track. For that, Salsa recommends staying down in the drops for better braking and control and I agree. It is safer for technical riding. When in the drops, though, almost impossible for me to get enough reach to downshift, so I have to go back up on the hoods to do it, right. All and all, I think drop bars are fine for milder and easy trails, but they really are a mismatch on the techno stuff. Not a big deal, because I have other bikes for trail work.

[azfiddle]

We rode from our house to milepost 4.5 on Mt. Lemmon today (me and the DH). It was cool to start but warmed up to short sleeve jersey temps. About 29 miles total- and almost 2000 feet of climbing or so. And then I rode to get a hair cut and color, and groceries on my touring bike, for about 4 more miles.

[emily_in_nc]

We rode from our house to milepost 4.5 on Mt. Lemmon today (me and the DH). It was cool to start but warmed up to short sleeve jersey temps. About 29 miles total- and almost 2000 feet of climbing or so. And then I rode to get a hair cut and color, and groceries on my touring bike, for about 4 more miles.

Good job!

[north woods gal]

Plus, one, AZ. The only practical way for me to rack up those kinds of miles, right now, and do it safely, is indoors on the trainer. Yuk! Love my snow biking, but this time of year I'm dreaming of those good times to come when the snow is gone and I have hundreds of miles of nice dry open road to explore. Definitely cabin fever time for me.

[north woods gal]

Good news and good day for me. My bruising has subsided to the point where I can ride, comfortably, again, without aggravating anything. Did two miles of heavy duty plowing and pedaling though deep crusty snow out on the lake (whew!), then added another easier pedaling mile, riding the shoulder of our snowy neighborhood roads, being very careful to stay off the well traveled and slick portion of the snow pack. Still need to mount the studded tires on one of the fat bikes, but can't decide which one gets the studded. Kind of OCD, maybe, but hate changing out tires on the other bikes because each kind of tire and tread has its place for various types of winter riding I do. That, and I hate doing the switch out tires thing.