It's August! Riding through the heat.

[Crankin]

I really know nothing about the color; this bike was hidden away in the kid's section of Belmont Wheelworks. It's a 2017, so it's been hidden for awhile! It is really an olive green, almost neutral looking.
I am getting ready to ride to work. It's 62 out and feels cold! So, I put on my new Terry Soleil hoody that I snagged for half price. I probably will need a vest, too. I plan to take a longer ride home, since I am done at 3:45, but the Soleil is so light weight, I think it will be ok, despite being in the 70s.
I have all of my clothes packed in the Topeak trunk bag. I haven't put my lunch or flat iron (it's a mini size) in yet, but I opened the expander. Before, I would always have to walk across the street to an office park that has a cafeteria to buy lunch when I rode, so this is nice. DH wanted me to get the larger size, but I thought it looked kind of too much and rather geeky. This is the medium size. I will report back later.

[north woods gal]

Sheila, not sure how much help I can be on the stem and handlebar thing. It's just such a personal preference thing. I usually ride a bit and try different lengths of stems and figure out what I want through trial and error, but that assumes you have a lot of time to putter around and a bag full of different stems to try, which I do. On the Jones bar, for instance, I didn't change stem length at all and it put my hands comfortably on the controls where I wanted them.

Also depends on your riding style, of course, and whether you like being stretched out a bit or whether you'd rather be in a more upright position. After my accident, I changed to shorter stems on a lot of bikes for a more upright position for the sake of my neck comfort. I like it that way and will probably stay there, now, since my riding has gotten more conservative. Getting in a low and aggressive crouch was almost a necessity when I was climbing boulders, hopping logs and doing jumps, but I'm now riding, dirt, only, both wheels on the ground at all times, as part of my resolution to ride safer. I now prefer MTBs with more traditional XC geometry and steeper angles than the now very popular trend for trail bikes with slacker geometry.

Okay, sorry for getting geeky on everyone. Interesting, though, how my accident has changed my tastes and preferences and needs as to what I bicycle, now. Definitely see myself headed back into a more traditional direction. Would like to save the fat bikes, for instance, for winter riding, only. That leaves me with a couple of single speeds for the bulk of my summer riding. Would like to have more options for my summer riding than that. We'll see.

[Crankin]

Yeah, except he's in the Army, now. I can't remember if you knew that; when he wanted to go back as an officer, when he was about to start his junior yr of school, he was "too old," (30), without going through paperwork hell to get an exemption from the rule. He just wasn't up for it. Since he already was in Army Reserves, he joined ROTC at school. But, I still think of him as a Marine.
Riding with the packed trunk bag was a challenge, in that climbing was hard! Not really any big hills, but I felt it on the way. On the way home, I took a 5.9 mile route home that includes a good climb; not steep, but long and annoying. It's somewhat a question of getting used to the gearing. It's a compact, but has really low gears, even lower than my really low gears on my 2 road bikes. So I either feel like I am spinning out of control and slow or it's too hard. By the end of the ride home, I was getting it more down pat. Still, very fun. I took the trunk bag off for my 1.3 mile ride to the gym at 5:15 am tomorrow. It will be my first test of riding with the flat side of the campus pedals. Thankfully, there's no stop signs where I'll have to stop and put my foot down, as this feels incredibly wrong to me when I am not clipped in.

[north woods gal]

Love that bag! Going to save the link. Thanks.

Gorgeous late summer day, here. Temps in the 70s with a brisk, though nice and dry, south wind. Did 17 miles of pavement on the single speed Log lady and loved it. This one is geared low for trail work, but it makes for a nice, easy pace bike out on the pavement. Did do a couple of my leg burner hills to make it a good workout, but most of the ride was on the flats.

Can't get up much past 11 mph on the flats with the Log lady gearing, but one nice thing about going so slow is that I can relax and see wildflowers in the ditch, the birds around me, breath the pine scented north woods air and, in general, just enjoy my surroundings more than if I was riding a geared bike and worrying about trying to maintain an average speed. The other thing about a single speed that I enjoy is that they are so quiet. There's no chain noise or derailleur noise. All you hear is the gentle sound of tire on the pavement and on a fresh black top road, hardly even that. Did have to scare off a couple of deer with my bell, but it worked as intended, with the deer bouncing back into the woods rather than out on the road in front of me.

Back home, traded the Log Lady for the new Pugs and hit the trails with Star. Really do like this new version of the Pugs with it's wider tires as a trail bike. Did 5 full miles of laps, then put the bike away and spent an hour cleaning my trails.

Storms moving in, tomorrow, so glad I got in such a nice day, today,

[Crankin]

Sheila, DH has 2 bags like the link you posted; he bought them many years ago and used them for his Trek 5500 and the Kuota for when we did long rides or for commuting. He tried it on my bike, but my bike is just too small for it. They are gorgeous bags, though, which is why he has kept them. I don't know what brand they are, but they look exactly the same.
I axed the idea of using my pannier, too. I absolutely hated it, though I used it for a long time on both my Jamis Coda and my Guru. However, both my new Topeak trunk bag and my Arkel bag don't change the handling of the bike at all, the way a pannier does. It just feels incredibly heavy. The thing is, I can take the Topeak bag off in a second, for rides when I don't need to carry stuff. Like tomorrow, we are taking our granddaughter in the Burley, on the bike trail. I can put my stuff in the trailer trunk.
I didn't ride to the gym, although it is absolutely gorgeous out, was 56 at 5:30 am. My legs were toast when I got up, from that little 9 miles I did yesterday on my commute. It's fine now, and I suspect riding the Ariel with the packed bag is going to make me feel like my Silque is just flying. I will find out on Sunday.

[north woods gal]

Thought about the bag on the ECR, too.

Unfortunately, the fate of my ECR is uncertain, right now. As I've mentioned, the single speeds and the aftermath of my accident have changed my biking style and uses and the ECR just kind of falls between the cracks, right now. The ECR is a great bike for its intended use, a la loading it up and bicycling in remote or rough road areas, but I have fat bikes that will do the same and more. As far as riding pavement, it's way, way behind the single speeds as far as enjoyment and ease of use. Right, now, the ECR is sitting at one of our bike shops while the owner contemplates allowing me to use it for a trade. It's in mint shape, so really don't want to ride it while waiting to see if I can sell or trade it.

Kind of open as to what I want as a replacement to the ECR, but I do know that a replacement will see mostly pavement and some gravel. I would like steel, but I want something 25 pounds or less to pedal, same as my steel single speeds. That weight limit might be tough to pull off on a fully geared steel bike, but I'm looking. For sure, don't want another tank for pedaling on pavement, though. Seems pointless. Definitely want a bike that rolls, easily, like the single speeds. Has to be at 37mm tires for width, no skinnier. Prefer flat bar, but will consider drop bar, again. Would like to get something for this fall, yet, but I'll probably have to wait till next spring.

[north woods gal]

I did not get along with the SRAM double tap road shifting on the Fargo. Really struggled with downshifting because the reach was too far to be comfortable for me and, of course, on SRAM, if you don't push the shifter all the way in, you end up upshifting instead of downshifting. Not good on a long hill. Also, the Fargo came with Apex, which is low end SRAM and it basically fell apart on me in one year. I understand why so many gravel bikes come with SRAM, though. It's easier to mix and match road and MTB components than with Shimanon and it is cheaper, but I've never, ever had any issues with Shimano road groups and would gladly pay extra to get Shimano. Bottom line: If Salsa ever decides to go Shimano on the Fargo, I'll grab one, though it's still a bit heavier than I want. The Vaya Tiagra, though, is definitely under consideration. The current Tiagr is actually pretty good.

As for today's ride, we had a break in our much needed rain, mid-morning, so we biked around the neighborhood for awhile, then I called Star and we did 5 miles of laps on the trails. All riding was done with the old Pugsley. Wet pavement and wet trails don't bother a fat bike.

[north woods gal]

My usual 15 mile morning ride on pavement with a single speed, this time the Gunnar, followed by some afternoon trail riding. The trail riding still has me conflicted. Some days my neck and shoulder are okay with the bouncy ride and some days, not. Yesterday and today were NOT days, even though I rode mostly fat bikes to smooth things out. Today, started trail riding with the fat bike, then, what the heck, just grabbed the Log lady with its skinny 2.25" tires and figured I'd just endure it. Was getting awful tired of pushing those big heavy fat bike wheels, anyway, and just wanted something easier to pedal. The Log Lady certainly is all of that, even on the trail. Turns out that the skinny tires on the LL worked okay as far as smoothness as long as I stayed on the nicer sections and kept my speed down. I do think the lighter overall weight of the Log Lady compared to the big fat bikes helped to keep my head from bouncing.

I'm enjoying the pavement and gravel road riding more by a wide margin over the trail riding, anyway. The accident hasn't completely soured me on the gnarly single track riding, but it has pushed the trail riding into the background. I'm glad I learned all the techniques to ride some pretty rough trails - that knowledge will not be wasted - but, right now, my heart is no longer in it. The open roads are calling me back and I'm listening.

[Crankin]

Took our granddaughter on a 14.6 mile rt ride on the rail trail. This time, we drove to the terminus (so we wouldn't have to ride 5 miles uphill in spots to where we usually catch the trail). I rode my Ariel, with DH pulling the Burley on his Guru. It was a lovely day, partly cloudy and about 79. We have a terrible heat wave coming next Monday through Thursday, so I really enjoyed this. The first mile and a half was a new part of the trail for us. It now ends near where it will take a path to a new bridge that will be built over the highway and come out about 1.75 miles from my house, in 2021. We rode to a pond in South Chelmsford, where there's a little beach and a swings, picnic tables, and near a Mobil mini Mart. It's really a beautiful spot, that doesn't require a resident parking sticker to park or use the beach.
This was the first time we had annoying cyclists on the trail, but nothing like I've experienced, say like on the Cape Cod Rail Trail. I have a bell on my Ariel, but apparently no one around here knows what it means when you ring it! We were going a long a good clip for a person with a trailer and me on a heavier bike. We sat and had a snack and let her go on the swings, but she didn't want to go in the water. On the way back, we called out to an older couple going really slowly, and the woman weaving all over. She told me I scared her, so I did retort that she was weaving all over the road. When you don't respond to the bell, you get me calling out in my "teacher voice."
It was really fun, I feel like I actually worked, and she is now calling it "my trailer" and my "birdie helmet."