Miscillanious Stuff

I've been riding a lot more lately, almost exclusively road riding, and I've had some good days, and some bad days. I have to charge my Garmin and download the rides I've done, because there are two that I want you guys to see. One of them is the shop ride, and that was one of the bad rides for me. I was getting over a respiratory infection, but I couldn't wait to get back out and ride, so I figured I would just hop right into a 24 mile ride with almost 1,500ft of hills. Yeah, smart. I blew up halfway through because this one guy was really pissing me off with his being all over the road and making it so you had to pass him by going into on coming traffic. We had a talk with him after the ride. Either way, it is a B & C level ride, and for the second half of that ride, I was the C group.

The other ride I wanted to post up was a 31 miler that Isaac and I did on Thursday. Awesome ride! We went to Valley Forge and did an extended loop that Isaac had never done (the one we did, Ted) and then we did the Audubon Loop and followed that up by heading to the dog park in Phoenixville. My knee got a little tender on the way back, but overall, we had a blast. I even broke my 85* heat limit. It was 92*.

Over the past few weeks, I've been making little adjustments to my Tarmac because I hate it. I don't really hate it, but I've never been really comfortable on it. That's why I almost bought an R3 earlier this year. But since I decided to keep the Tarmac for another year, I also decided to make it work for me. Firstly, I need a BG Fit, badly. Isaac doesn't have time to give me one, so I've been slowly doing it one step at a time. My saddle height was waaaay to low. You can tell by how many As I used that it was really low. Like 2.5cm. That adjustment has increased the amount of miles I can go without knee pain from twelve (12!) to 26.

I also ordered a zero set back seat post because I probably should be on a 54cm Tarmac because of my reach, but since most people size on height, I'm riding a 56cm. With my seat jammed all of the way forward, I'm still about 2cm away from optimally fitting on the damn thing. Hey, guess how much further forward a zero set back post will move me. No, seriously, guess. Did you say 2cm? Awesome, give yourself a cookie.

While I'm listing complaints about my Tarmac, I hate the handle bars. they have a weird shape to them, and they do that stupid nonsense where the hoods are flat when they're lower than the top of the bar. I like my hoods flush with the top of the bar. It's just more comfortable. When I changed my bar tape the last time, I adjusted my shifters to make my hoods flush, but by doing so, I made the drops borderline useless. I didn't used to spend a ton of time in the drops, so I didn't care at first, but since I flipped my stem I can comfortably get in them, so now I notice all of the time. Zipp makes a really nice aluminum bar with a traditional drop. What's really cool about it is that the traditional drop is less than 1cm lower than the shallow drop on my Specialized bar. I'm ordering that on Monday in a 44cm width. I'm probably going to throw some Roubaix bar tape on there too.

Lastly, for the moment, is my group set. It's last generation 105 with an Ultegra rear derailleur and Sram 11-28 cassette and 10whatever the cheapest Sram chain is. I think 1050, but I'm too lazy to look that up. I've said before that I would have a hard time getting ride of it because it shifts so perfectly, that I couldn't really justify it. Well, about that... It still shifts perfectly, and is as smooth and flawless as any Shimano group I've ever used, but there are two things that are killing me. 1) I can't do the standard gearing anymore. When I'm used to it, it's fine and I can climb well with it. When I'm not used to it, It breaks me. My knee can't take the big gears and I waste all of my energy for the next big hill on the first one. I'm done with it. 2) It's not Sram. Every time I shift, I want it to be, and no matter how many times I tell myself it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, I just prefer the way Sram shifts. I find myself up shifting with Sram just to do it. I'll let you know what happens with that. If anyone wants a 105 gruppo with Ultegra RD, minus a cassette, make me an offer.

There's still a little work left to do. I adjusted the preload on my King's because there was a ton of flex. I adjusted my brakes for pad wear. I tightened down my headset because it was loose. The bike is filth, and the drivetrain isn't any cleaner. Little stuff, but it's coming around. Once I get the post and bars, I'll put up a post on if I feel any better.