Old School = New Bars, Plus New Tires

Have really gotten into the rhythm of commuting now, even in the rainy weather there is no thoughts of if, just what am I going to have to wear or bring. Must be spring as we are having a few more dry days and rides, though we do continue to have those wet days, too.

The sunny mornings, especially, are such a nice treat.

Around the water front there are definitely changes going on, as well. Way more cyclists, artists and meandering people. Huge lines form at the many food carts placed around downtown. Outside of the heads down, no slowing down speedster cyclists and the 3 abreast stroller pushers I really enjoy slowing down along the waterfront area and watching and taking it all in.

The bike room at work was overfull a couple times this week, must be the nice weather. I've been working with our facilities team to locate a secure overflow area. We happened to have a old, unused storage area in our parking garage, so we have a bike rack coming (the one in the picture is no good). To keep my life simple, I've decided to use the overflow as my standard storage location. See, my bike has a nice window view, too.

I decided that riding in the drops of my ergo style handlebars was not working out, so I began a search for some old school drop bars. Ideally, I looked for the same brand and model as my road bike as I know those fit and work well for me. Being the Nitto Model 185 is a product of the late 80's and early 90's, my search was not turning up a lot. There are certainly a many newer models, but I'm stubborn. Finally, I found one online store in Japan that carried a version of the Model 185 in 40cm (many other bars seemed to start at 42cm, which is too wide for me). Done.

Loving the Continental SportContact 1.6" tires so much, I wondered if I could find a narrower set, since Continental's site listed a 1.3" tire. Must be relatively new as when I first bought mine, the 1.6" was the only size available. Well picked up a set of 1.3" tires and put them on. Discovered that not only are these narrower, they are also shorter, so there was a huge, dork gap between my fenders and tires. Fortunately, I still had the full fenders that use to be on Evan's road bike (he wanted me to switch his to RaceBlade fenders).

Well, a few hours of trial fitting, adjusting, making new brackets the SUB  has well fitting fenders to compliment the new skinny tires. Looking forward to some fast riding now.

More Wet Riding - Gear in Review - Closing in on 1000 Miles

Wednesday's ride, rain and a few breaks, but mostly wet, definitely grey. Good thing I love biking, otherwise I probably would have joined the majority and found an alternative mode of commuting - lol.

Short Gear in Review - Continental Sport Contact Tires
I am convinced the Continental Sport Contact tires (26 x 1.6) have the lowest rolling resistence of the tires I have run on the SUB. These are like the 4th set since last fall that have been on the bike. My quest was to find something durable (aka flat resistent) and have a low rolling resistence.

The first set, way back when, was a pair of Forte' Gotham MTB tires, 26 x 1.75. While definitely better the original 2" knobby tires, they are still on the heavy side, which makes pedalling feel heavy. Now, I rode these when I still had the original 175mm crank arms, so some of my comparisons may be off.

The next set of tires I tried was a set of Kenda Kwest (26 x 1.50"). Overall, I liked these tires, fairly easy pedalling and they were holding up pretty well. Pretty well until the rear decided to become flat prone, even when the bike was just sitting in the garage or bike room at work. Maybe they do not do well when loaded with rear panniers? Anyway, these were only on a couple months or probably somewhere around 300 miles.

Being tired of flat fixing and not really finding any punctures, I decided to try another tire brand. At my local REI I wanted to purchase a set of Continental tires, but they were out of stock on the model I wanted and decided to try a pair of Serfas Drifters (26 x 1.50").

I thought these were doing pretty well, until I had put a lot of miles on the road bike and gotten much more fit. Returning to the SUB the bike just seemed to be slow and actually a bit harder to pedal no matter what gear I was in. For a few commutes I shrugged it off as psychological because I really would rather ride the road bike (gotta love denial).

Well, after doing some freewheel coasting behind Evan, I thought the bike could do better. I did a bit of research on Continentals including available sizes and reviews. Checking inventory with REI, I headed down and picked up a pair of Sport Contacts. Well, I would not have believed a tire could be significantly slower than another, but I am now convinced and reaffirmed why I love Continental bike tires.

Freewheeling wise (coasting) it has sold me. The SUB is easier, smoother pedaling and it can maintain speed while coasting. The Sport Contacts are about $10.00 more per tire than the Serfas and $15.00-$20.00 more than the Kendas, which means in this case you do get what you pay for. For daily commuting, the Continentals are the way to go. If I wasn't daily commuting the tires would likely be a much less issue for me.

I will note that all of the tires advertise some level of puncture resistence as a commuter tire group. So far, only the Kendas have not lived up to my expected level of puncture resistence. However, that may be due to low life duration and that may be due to being overly loaded when running with my panniers.

Today, Thursday, was basically rain; grey, wet rain with some wind thrown in for the afternoon ride home. While not horrible, I am certainly tired of so much rain. Evan agreed as we rode in the morning. I must say that having a riding companion is nice, having a conversation makes the distance go by even faster.

The worse part of all of this rain commuting is the amount of work to keep up maintenance on the bikes. Chains and brakes get so grungy so fast. Plus the grit and dirt seems to cake up on the drivetrain, the lube acting more like a magnet than a repellant.

To lighten our spirits we had a mini rain water fight at a stop light. This is basically shaking our arms so the rain flies off the rain jacket sleeves toward the other. Hey, might as well make the most of it, you know. The bike riding is the part of day I most look forward to. Riding as commuting is just a great part of my day.

I have been logging my riding in a little list where I record some notes, weather and distance. To date, I have logged 905 miles just commuting. Looks like I should hit 1000 by the end of April. Funny, as a vehicle commuter I paid absolutely no attention to how many miles I accumulated. What a nice feeling, because it even sounds like a lot for riding just 4 months. Evan and I were talking, because he probably has more miles than anyone else at this school as far as bike commuting. I have only driven him one day because he was ill, he is pretty pleased with that accomplishment. I'm pretty proud, too, for his commitment and that he enjoys biking.

A cool, foggy morning greeted me on my ride in. What I love about a morning like this is the quiet, the calmness. You cannot help but slow down, look around, take in the moments along the way.

Yesterday's SUB ride showed I needed a few adjustments. Cleat alignment tweaks for my shoes and, since my strength is up, a modification to my rear cogs to fit my current level. Today another test of the adjustments.

Foot position and pedal motion much, much better. I did not have any knee issues at all, whether seated or doing some standing pedalling. The utilitarian SUB sure seemed to roll slow, though, compared to the road bike. Are these tires rolling with that much resistance? Is the SUB really that much harder to roll along? Have to think about it.

Seems so light out these days, having been trained to commuting through the darker winter days. I stopped a few times to take some pictures and to just look. There were two close calls today. The first, along SE Lincoln, a bus turned from 52nd onto Lincoln cutting off a cyclist riding in the opposite direction of me. He yelled, but that's about all he could do, the even already happened. Then not two blocks later, a car cut across Lincoln cutting me off. All I could do was yell, "Hey!" and I moved left to pass behind the car. Is it the fog?

The SUB did great, again, today and the new shifter location is working out great. The one bad thing about bike commuting is it ends - lol.

Well, decided to go ahead and test a different set of tires. So, I replaced my Serfas Drifters with a pair of Continental Sport Contacts. I've always had great experiences with Continentals on my road bike so let's see how they do in SUB mode and size. That's the other great thing about bike commuting is that changes can be more easily evaluated because I'm riding the same route and have experienced many different weather conditions. So it seems easier to determine if an issue is me, the bike, the weather; or if something I changed is an improvement or just a change.

Over the almost 900 miles that I have ridden now, I have been doing my own human behavior test. I either wave or if they are close I say, "hi." I am finding that the cyclist today seems to have not learned how to respond as most do no absolutely nothing. I probably still have fingers I can use to count the number of people who have reciprocated. Sad, really, just sad.

The other phenomenom I have noticed is that there are cyclists who have adopted an almost driver like approach to their commute. They are head-down, hammering along, zipping around everyone else, not slowing down much around pedestrians, short-cutting, red light running. Maybe they have commuted so long that they figure they have seen it all, maybe they are late, would be an interesting study. I know some use the commute as a heavy work out. I work harder going home, because it is uphill. I don't like being overly sweating going, so I am glad I have a mostly downhill ride to work.

Anyway, I am enjoying the journey of each day, seeing the changes across winter to spring - from nature to people, there are definite seasonal changes going on.

Too Many Flats!!!!!

Wow, no sooner do I get back on the SUB, ride with Evan to his school, then ride to work, then I check on the bike in the afternoon and what do I find?

The front tire is flat! The only saving grace is the fact it is sitting in the nice, warm bike storage room. I think that means the last 4 times I've ridden the SUB, I have  had a total of 6 flats.

Time to buy new tires, for sure. So, the SUB is sportin' Serfas, 26 x 1.5. Funny, the Michellin Kenda 26 x 1.5's I took off are actually wider and taller. Bad as buying clothing, each tire manufacturer interprets a relatively standard size differently.

One funny thing about these tires is they remind me of the 70's and 80's muscle cars and their raised, white lettering on the sidewalls (haha - vroom, vroom).

Oh, I suppose you noticed that the SUB now has its original flat handlebar back on. The reason I did this is because I was not highly happy with the amount of braking effort that was required with the Tektro drop-bar levers. I felt a little at risk, so I put my original bars and the original MTB brake levers back on. Much better braking feel and response.

I figure my wrists will be okay since any longer rides I'll likely use the road bike. I do need to put a longer stem on though. When I stand to pedal, the handling on the front is a bit weird to me.

Seems like quite a few more bike commuters out these days. Again, a guy passed and said, "Wow, those are some awesome lights!" Go Dinotte! Yay for my B&M headlight.

So, how's my hip/back pain? PITA! Apparently my whole pelvis is out of whack, high on the left side, forward on the right. My awesome chiropractor/accupuncturist got things moving back, but I'm going to need a few sessions. Still pinches a nerve when sitting, including driving.

It was kind of a fun excursion getting to my chiro doc. Left home with Evan by bike and we rode to his school. Then from there I decided to go ahead and ride to work. Then I walked across the street from work and hopped on our light rail, MAX, heading back east out to 102nd Avenue. From there I walked a few blocks to the doctor's office. Then I reversed the MAX ride back to work.

Looking forward to being mostly back to physical okayness, hate this current hip pain stuff, for sure.