April 13th (Afternoon)
Today's ride took me downtown to Pioneer Park for my Tuesday Dog Obedience class with Duke. The ride was a quick 15minutes of riding time, but a long 10minute wait for a train!!! So, yes, I was late for the class...
From work, I took Hillside down to Notre Dame, which I then took across to Columbia, and then downtown to Pioneer Park. The ride was a lot of fun. Not too tough really, as it is pretty much all downhill with a little flat section on Notre Dame. High speed of 75kmh, although I was reminded that cyclists can get tickets too!!! Coming down Columbia, though, at that speed and then trying to stop was a bit surprising as my rotors heated up so much that my braking power was quite reduced! Yikes! Time for bigger rotors I guess!
April 14th (Morning)
This morning was awesome! 6° and sunny, no wind, no clouds, just perfect! The ride down Juniper hill I could only get 69kmh out of it today (max is 70°). Not sure what else to do to get any faster speeds out of this hill, I can't pedal any faster!!! Slick tires would help for sure, but I need the blocks for the dirt trails on the way home... Just not steep enough I guess.
I felt good today, with my average gear ratio probably being 2:7 which is pretty good for me. The ride up Hugh Allan was good, made it farther in the middle ring than before. Soon I should be able to make the whole hill in the bigger combo. I raised my seat by about 1", and felt like a giant! It was much better for power I felt, and it did help a little bit with the numb backside issues I've been having lately, but for sure it did not eliminate the issue at all! Hopefully that will go away with time, I've only been riding for a month or so, and I sort of just 'jumped' in rather than taking it slowly, so I would assume this might take a bit. I'm doing some research today on saddle adjustments (http://www.sheldonbrown.com/saddles.html, this guy has a lot of good tips and info that I've tapped into already) to make sure mine is set properly, or to see what little changes I could do to help.
I have decided to start riding from TRU soon. Maybe next week? The #7 bus gets to the stop at the entrance to TRU off of Magill at about 7:25-7:30, so that should be enough time to ride up Hillside and get to work? Probably about 2x the distance, so it would make sense that it would be 2x the time! I might start that on Monday, or mid-next week we'll see how I end this week.
I looked back at some of your old pics, and you're right, you're sitting too low. Hopefully your seatpost had enough extension in it. Personally I like the seat a long way up so to get the legs almost fully extended. I think from my road biking days I try to get some weight on the bars and legs instead of the butt.
ReplyDeleteThere you go! Yeah, I had it pretty low at first, and then even lower for going down some of these trails. However, after yesterday's ride and now this morning, I do agree that higher is for sure better! I brought it up even a bit more this morning, so my leg is just about extended (but no 'hip bobbing' still!). Thanks!
ReplyDelete