Climbing Day

[Mark B]

Went out with the local bike club and did a more challenging ride today. Nothing super steep for any length of time, but enough to let me try out the gearing a little. The road triple with mountain bike gearing is way overkill. A regular road triple should be more than sufficient for these bikes. I tried riding some different gears today and found that I can climb pretty fair on a 42. There might be something to the road compact double. The bike climbed like a mountain goat. The motor, on the other hand, struggled at times. The bike has become almost one with me. I don't struggle with handling at all and starts have become pretty easy, too. Today, I stayed pretty much middle of the pack with the roadie group I rode with. I pushed a couple people harder than they wanted me to.. They just didn't want to get beat up the hill by the funny looking bike. The last climb we did, I have to admit I stopped about 50 yards from the top. Not that I couldn't have made it, but a bad idea shift down to the 30 tooth was almost disasterous and my heart rate was uncomfortably high and there was this.... convenient shade tree. I stopped a second to catch my breath, took off and ended up catching right up to the pack.

Mark

 

[JonB]

i did my first "real" climb yesterday. It's a hill inside Copenhagen that rises from 8m above water to 31 meters above water in 1100 meters. I know some of you have real mountains, but this is a big hill inside Copenhagen.

it was easy to climb it. I was in 4 gear almost all the way, but i did run into trouble when the lights turned to red. Starting is still not so easy for me, and starting up hill is scary. I am very happy that we have bike lanes in Copenhagen, it makes it much easier to ride the bike in "traffic".

I now feel alot more confident accelerating and even turning at high speeds. Slow sharp turns are still not comfortable. Riding at high speeds downhill is also no longer a problem.

I generally try to ride it half an hour to an hour every day. I ride my upright when i have to go anywhere, because locks are still not satisfactory on my cruzbike. And i have no lights and no reflectors on the cruzbike, so i dont feel like using it for anything but joy rides.

Today i rode in the yard of my housing complex because i had to ride after dark. I did lots of turning, and i got better at turning.