Snow ride

Roads were still pretty icy along the shoulders this morning, so ditched the road ride plans and loaded up my singlespeed 29er and went over to Ipswitch to check out the trails.  I havent had so much fun riding these trails in a long time. The trails were still really crunchy and in some spots the snow was untouched. I did about 2 hours and about 9 miles total, and grinned ear to ear the entire time.

1964 Schwinn Stingray

1964 Schwinn Stingray owned by my neighbor. I'm definitely suffering a case of bike envy!

What?

In a strange twist of coincidences and dumb luck, I am now in the possession of a new (to me) geared road bike. I'm not going into the details of attainment, I'll just say it came from a very cool guy down in Raleigh, NC, via my brother. The bike is a carbon framed Litespeed M1 with a SRAM Rival group set and it is an AMAZING ride.  So far I've only logged a few miles around the ol hood, but plan on getting in a good distance ride this weekend. First impressions so far are pretty positive. On my last ride I did about 12 miles and averaged around 18.2 mph. I average about 14 mph riding the same loop on my Surly.  Having more than one gear ratio/choice really makes a big difference. It took a few miles to get used to the SRAM shifters and I still need to figure out how to shift properly and maintain speed on turns. I am hoping that my years of riding a single speed will help with cadence and spin.

     

Duck, NC to Wright Memorial, Kitty Hawk, NC.

Last week I took thursday and friday after the 4th of July off and headed down to my in-laws summer house in Duck, NC. While I was there I got in two rides, the 1st was a 30 mile ride from the house to the Wright Memorial and the 2nd was a 20 mile ride from the house to the Kitty Hawk Woods Coastal Reserve.  It was great to get out and spin even though we were in the middle of a record breaking heat wave. The best part of both rides is that there are so many side roads and dedicated bike paths in and around Southern Shores, Duck, Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk that I only had to cross one main road coming and going. A few pics and gps map of the first ride to the Wright Memorial below.

 

Geared road bike in the works?

I've been doing a lot more road riding lately than mountain biking. The main reason is that it's easier to hop on my road bike and just ride versus having to drive to mtb trails (most of which are at least a 30 minute drive). One of the downfalls of racking up road miles on my Steamroller is that I am becoming blatantly aware of what a huge difference having gears makes. It has nothing to do with ascents and descents, but rather spin and speed.  My regular Sunday morning ride used to just be my buddy Christian and I, both on single speeds. Lately we have been riding with a couple of other guys though who are on geared bikes and keeping up with them can be difficult at times. There usually isn't an issue as long as we stay in the 16-20 mph range. Once they drop down (or is it up?) a few gears though we have to spin like crazy to stay with them. Anything over 24 mph is pretty much impossible to sustain for longer than a mile (at least for me). I thought about increasing my front ring from a 47 to 52 but that seems like a quick fix and will open up a new set of problems.

So, I'm in the market for a geared road bike. I've owned aluminum and very briefly (thanks to a SHITHEAD THIEF) titanium bikes, so I'm pretty confident that I want to go with a steel frame.  The bike that fits my budget, has a decent group set and isn't too bad on the eyes is the Bianchi Imola.  Bianchi wont allow their bikes to be shipped and there isn't a local dealer, so I might have to order it from a shop up in DC and pick it up. More on this later.

Road Riding

 One of the greatest advantages to living south of the green line in Virginia Beach is quick access to some of the best road riding in the city. While every road and section of VB can be a traffic nightmare Monday through Friday, on weekends the areas known as Princess Anne County and Pungo are quiet and virtually traffic free. Every Sunday morning for the last month, a buddy and I have been meeting at my house and putting in some quality rides through these two areas. We started out with an easy 20 mile loop and have worked our way up to about 35 miles. The goal is to eventually knock out a century or two. Although I have always considered myself first and foremost a cross country type of mountain biker, I have to admit that I like watching those miles tick off and seeing how far I can go on the road. I don't think any leg shaving will be taking place anytime soon and my buddy and I are both riding single speed steel road bikes, but road riding is actually quite addictive. Lots of time on the road bike does mean less time on the mountain bike though. I think, for now, I am ok with that. To get to a decent trail, I've got at least a 45 minute car ride to the Pennisula, longer if I want to get to Freedom Park, New Quarter or York River. 

  I've included two screen shots of our most recent ride last Sunday morning. Average speed was a little slower than normal because of a wicked headwind that seemed to shift to our front with every turn we made. I suspect that my gearing, 47x19, might have something to do with average and max speed as well. Who knows, this new found road riding enthusiasm might just lead to a geared bike in the future.  



 

Night riding

Discovered a new dimension to riding that I cannot believe I waited so long to explore, night riding. A few weeks ago, frustrated by the early darkness and busy family schedule, I decided to strap on the set of lights I use for commuting and hit the local trail. What an experience, the same switchbacks and log crossings that have become almost mundane were fresh & new (and a bit scary). My first couple of rides I used a nite rider minewt 300 on my helmet & a nite rider sol 150 on my bars.
On Monday, I received a new light to use on my helmet, a magicshine 808e. It's rated by the company as 1000 lumens, but the reviews on mtbr say it's closer to 700. Comparing the new light to my minewt 300, well, there is no comparison. The beam is stronger, tighter, and seems to last longer. I charged all 3 of the lights overnight and left them on high while at work, 6 hours later the 808e had turned itself down to the lowest of the 3 settings but was still running strong. I did notice that the casing was hot. After a little search on google, the light relies on air cooling, which will wont be an issue under normal conditions.
Vid clip of my buddy Christian crossing a bridge at Ipswitch on our most recent night ride.

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