August 25th, 2018
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As planned, today I took a "first real test ride". I didn't want to
go too far, or fast, or hard, as the bike has very, very few miles on
it at this point and early toothing problems are still a very real
possibility and I didn't want to get stranded or hurt. This turned
out to be a wise idea because, after about 30 or 40 minutes, I noticed
that my left crank had started to work its way loose. This should be
a quick and easy fix at the co-op tomorrow, but for now it means that
I'm not doing any further riding.
That issue aside, I was extremely happy with how the bike performed!
I rode up and down my nearest hill a few times, along a section of
cobbled street, and along some gravel trails, and didn't encounter any
obvious problems. As I've mentioned previously, the bike just feels
strangely easy to ride, like I have to put less effort into pedalling
than I am used to. I'm very happy with the front brake performance,
it's much beter than my other bike, which is great.
My handlebars are currently bare, i.e. in want of tape. I did find
that I definitely noticed this in my hands, and this can only be
ascribed to the different posture I have on this bike. I was
surprised by the extent of the change. On my other bike, I am more or
less 90 degrees bolt upright, and the handlebars have black rubber
grips like an old three speed. I have been on ~3 hour rides on this
bike and had not the slightest inkling of hand discomfort at all. On
the Franken-Peugeot I still want a mostly upright position, but wanted
to experiment with a little bit of a forward lean, as having a
slightly arched back apparently makes occasional bumps and things more
comfortable, because an arched back flexes somewhat like a spring, or
so people who do long tours say. Since I want to use this bike for
longer rides this sounds like it might be something worth taking into
account, more so than the usual stuff about "getting aero". I tried
to glance at my reflection in windows I rode past to judge how upright
I was. More upright than 45 degrees, that is for sure, but perhaps
not as much as 67.5. In other words, leaned forward more than a
quarter of the way, but not half the way. I would not have expeted
this to make such a difference in the amount of weight my hands have
to bear, but apparently it did. Maybe with good bar tape, this will
be just fine. I didn't notice any discomfort in my back or neck, and
didn't feel like my visibility was substantially impaired. I may
still tinker with the bar height, but not by much.
Because of the hand discomfort, I did experiment with changing my hand
position around on the bars during the ride, which is something else
people make a big deal about on long rides. Moustache bars offer
something like 3 hand positions[1]. On my bars, there is not much
difference between them at all in terms of how the rest of my body is
positioned, but each position is relatively comfortable and offers
quick enough access to the brakes.
The saddle is sprung, which is a first for me. On the whole I have
found it pretty comfortable. On an unpaved surface, I did once hit a
series of small bumps with just the right timing to induce some
resonance and ended up bouncing quite a bit. This was not
uncomfortable as such, just not something I'm used to.
These tires (32mm front, 35mm rear) are the narrowest I've ever
ridden, although not by a large margin (my other bike has 37mm front
and rear). I do kind of feel like I can feel a difference on gravel,
but otherwise it's fine.
With single speed bikes it's very easy to get obsessed with the gear
ratio, since it's about the only thing there is to tweak
drivetrain-wise. This may still happen to me, but I think my first
stab (a ratio of 42:18, or 2.33, translating to 63.4 gear inches on
a 622x35 rear tire) is pretty good for me right now. I can pretty
easily climb the hill I encounter most frequently on quick grocery
store visits, without having to stand up out of the saddle, but I
also haven't yet felt terribly speed limited. This might happen when
I try a longer journey on a paved bike path. My gearing is just a
little lower than Sheldon Brown's recommendation for general street
use ("a 42 tooth chainring with a 16 or 17 tooth sprocket" [2]), but
it's also just a little higher than the "road mode" gearing of
Rivendell's discontinued Quickbeam (which was 40:18), so it seems like
I'm definitely somewhere close to the general opinions of people I
trust.
As I said, all in all, I'm very happy with the bike and hope I can get
the crank sorted easily tomorrow.
[1]
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/deakins/handlebars.html
[2]
https://sheldonbrown.com/singlespeed.html
