It's not too cold to learn to ride

ratz · Mar 12, 2014

26F + stocking hat + ski gloves; it's not too cold to learn to ride.

Ok I couldn't take it any longer it was time to get on the road. Our snow is down to 5ft piles from 10ft and the roads are dry and clean thanks to a couple of days warm melting.

So it was time for 30 minutes of hooky from work today. Grabbed the Silvio (gotta name this bike something) off of the trainer and out to the driveway we went.

Now I'm fortunate to live in a subdivision with private roads and no through streets; so 1pm on a Wednesday equals zero cars. I'm unfortunate to live on a steep hill 8% grade hill. So no slow start from my house.

I climbed on; and paddled out of the Garage; first thing I noticed is the step on height is far better on the road than on the trainer. Yeah obvious but it caught me off guard +1. Picked my feet up and rolled down the hill at 15 mph. So far so good nice and stable +2 ; put my feet on the peddles and remember immediately my 5 minutes on the Quest and how hard that was -1. But this time no mental shock just stabilized myself relaxed my arms and took a big arching corner at the bottom of the hill and took off at 18 mph +3. Ok me likie this bike.

I cruised around the neighborhood for about 20 minutes, very quickly figured out that at speed you can steer with your feet and a lean, while stabilizing with your arms. Did a bunch of straight line sprints; I'll take fat, out of shape, in jeans, cold and 23 mph as a positive. Climbing is awesome laying back and if I sit up; hot dam you can power up the hill. +2 for hill climbing promise.

So now the practice starts; if it goes "weird" yep I need 2/3 of the road to correct it, no way I'm clipping in just yet. Under power bikes is straight and true; drastic transitions in power levels induce the oh crap moments.. Left hand arching turns fun. Right hand turns not so much, I need to go ride clockwise circles. Starting from a dead stop was pretty easy without being clipped in, I was expecting harder.

Slow speed maneuvers are going to need the most practices; I'm pretty sure I could go do 20 miles in the country without issue. in Traffic no not yet.

Custom bullhorns functioning perfectly so far; braking and shifting silky smooth, hands comfy, arms straight and relaxed. Running the tubless tires at 120 psi smooth and grippy dead leans felt like I was riding on 700cx28 and these are 25's. As soon as we warm up I'll drop those to 100psi and they should even grippier. suspension made short work of the man hole covers.

43F tomorrow and friday. We will do this again.

Yes this was taking it cautious for me. I'll stop smiling in a few hours.

Rick Youngblood · Mar 12, 2014

Bob, good to hear that you

Bob, good to hear that you were able to get out on your new Silvio. Must have been torturous the last weeks/months.

It's not really that hard to learn these bikes, just takes practice and patience.

Just finished up my 6th ride so far, and gotta say, at this point, the weirdness from the vary beginning with the MBB, is not there anymore. I feel right at home on this sucka. Most notable to date that I can say which sets this bike apart from the other bents I've owne/owned is I can feel a direct power transfer from the cranks to the drive wheel, which for me translates into faster climbing, and faster getting up to speed when power peddling.

Eric Winn · Mar 12, 2014

Bob, my face hurt the next

Bob, my face hurt the next day from smiling so much the first time I rode a Silvio.

And you know what is really cool? It still keeps happening with my Vendetta too and I'm coming up on having it for about a year now.

-Eric

timt · Mar 12, 2014

similar experiences

I'm finding it's nice and stable under power. I get wobbly when I'm not pedaling hard. And when I lose it for a moment, it takes half a lane to recover. That's great if you have half a lane available. Need more time in the saddle.

I did 13 miles yesterday (mostly in a park), with a lot of stops to adjust this and tweak that. I was getting sloppy later in the ride though as I tired. I'll get out again when today's dose of snow is cleared.

Pulling on the bars allows me to really power up the short hills.
I found yesterday that trying to accelerate from a stop on a grade on wet asphalt with pebbles can be a challenge. When i hit the hill rolling it was fine.

ratz · Mar 29, 2014

da Hill? what Hill?

Went out today for another shake down run since it's 39F and sunny; Still not clipped in; just tennis shoes on the clip less pedals. In Jeans and a large baggy sweat shirt.

I made a 5 mile run down one of our steeper hills; and back up it. 500 foot climb 8% average grade. Easily bested my trike climbing time on that hill; in spite of having limited balance went right up the hill at 9-10 mph.

Had made some minor adjustments to boom length indoors last week; clearances on the bullhorns are now perfectly fine; not issue in traffic. Even made an Ivan like maneuver shooting between two narrow snow banks. Not exactly Taiwan traffic; but I was focused.

Observations. Not sure I've every ridden along at 24 mph is jeans and baggy sweat shirt before.

Going down the hill at around 30 mph coasting; arms out in perfect position; the sweat shirt sleeves where dead silent in the wind; no flapping whatsoever; I believe we have a good aero position I could not tell I was wearing a sweat shirt. Pretty calm wind today; 5 mph head wind. This could make getting fit enough to wear jersey much less embarrassing

ratz · Mar 29, 2014

Antoher first ride

So Mrs Ratz took her first road ride today. This was her first Recumbent experience, and she hates the cold so it was a bit of a miracle that I got her outside today and a little risky.

So She did really good and was able to right 200 yards at a crack and did nice nice beginners work got about 30 minutes of practice in and chased by one dog........ But.... there is always a but.... she's a life long athlete, and every thing normally comes easy for her. She ended the session with ye'olde I must have made a mistake look on her face. Interesting to observe because she road way better than I did my first time on a quest, but she just assumed it would be easy. I warned her, but I do recognize that look, I'm sure that the look I had on my face trying the quest.... After her brain has an evening to assimilate the experiences we'll get her out again.

All and all I would put her struggle up there as minor. She'd tell you right now she failed pretty bad.

If she had one major problem it was the bottom seat pad interfering with her ability to sit up and get a foot down stably; so when she got into trouble self rescue was hard. Her Ventisit pad is in route to resolve that.

ratz · Mar 30, 2014

First real road ride.

First "Real" road ride today. Had more problems with bike computer stuff than I did with the bike. But here are the particulars.

16 miles.
14.3 average speed (omitting stops to fidjit with the configuration this would be 18+)
700 ft of climbing
60F
15mph head wind from the south.
Clipped in for the first time.

Lots of lolly gagging while I debugged the bike computer setup.
When I take the lane; I take the whole lane.
ShowerPass Hydro works nice.
I learned how to start up hill with a wet wheel on gravel.
Sitting up is the new standing up.
You can make an entire pelaton laugh if you point out that they all put their bikes together the wrong way.
Really enjoying my pedal choice; it's been years since I road SPD and I like these. Thanks Ivan for the recommendation
I'm going to shatter all my DF records from 5 years ago on this bike.
OMG if you aren't riding road tubeless you are missing out
The Silvio cuts a corners like a slalom water ski; I look forward enjoying that all summer.
All parts of my body could have done 40-50miles today; my biceps pretty much said <20 was a good place to start.

Ivan · Mar 31, 2014

Woohoo! Sounds like everyone

Woohoo! Sounds like everyone is having fun! Congrats on the great first ride! Funny how your arms hurt when first riding huh?

Congrats Ratz, Mrs Ratz, Tim and Rick on your rapidly increasing aptitude!!

Eric Winn · Mar 31, 2014

OK all you road warriors. I

OK all you road warriors. I will point out you now have approximately 11 weeks until the N24HC here in Michigan.

Or if you want to start off short fast instead of long fast the Waterford, MI HPV races are about 7 weeks away. We could shoot for a 23+ mph hour TT.

You guys are fast learners, you'll do great. Any takers?

The DALMAC camping tour is in August if you're interested in 4 to 5 days of 70 to 100 mile days. A couple of the routes include biking across the Mackinac Bridge. I want to do this one at some point in my life.

-Eric

timt · Mar 31, 2014

ratz · Mar 31, 2014

Milestones

Hurdles exist to be knocked over.

Road in the first spring down pour.
Road up hill 10-13% grades in the rain
Took corners at speed with gravel on the ground
Started at a stop light; steep uphill, in the rain, on winter road gravel.

For a whimpy 10 mile ride that was even filled. Was starting to think I under geared teh Silvio; 700ft of climbing at full tilt nope I'm glad the low gears are when I need them.

I've decided I have the NASCAR edition Silvio; I can go in a tight circle to the left completely comfortably. Gonna need to practice turning right A LOT. Rain seems to indicate I didn't use enough grease in the steer headset stack.

I've adopted some beginners road signals. Holding arms up in a turn signal makes me swerve a bit much for traffic. So instead I point an arm in the direction I was to turn; down and aways from the bike at a 45. Bike stays stable and a couple flicks of the wrist and the cars seem to know what I'm planning.

Far more rubber necking by people on this bike than I get on my Trike; wasn't expecting that.

Ivan · Apr 1, 2014

I have become accustomed to

I have become accustomed to rubber-neckers and tune them out as white noise! The Silvio is just too darn striking!

However I will try to return a thank you wave to the many motorcyclists who give me a thumbs up!

ratz · Apr 2, 2014

Didn't expect that

It has been really cold again, so all of my riding has been really short. Something that I didn't expect was the way I am adapting. It appears that short rides spaced out over a few days,let's the brain process the learning and apply it. Length of the ride really doesn't seem to matter. Fascinating.

ratz · Apr 6, 2014

Ok maybe it was .....

We got another foot of snow again. But it was warm and it mostly re-melted in a couple of days. Weather wasn't great so I decided to go do some figure8's and practice my turns. Unfortunately I instead verified what happens when you wash out the rear wheel on ice. So the Silvio is no longer virgin. She's got epoxy missing on the seat pan, a tear in the cork wrap, a scuff on the brake lever and marred quick release. So she is officially a bike now, guess I have to name her now.

The positives are I haves good idea of how a rear wheel wash out will play out on a FWD/MB. It was actually a lot smoother than I expected. The moving feet in the front meant my feet where nice and low to the ground and clipped out smoothly. Body damage limited to my arm.

Fall was was totally related to rider attentiveness not the learning curve.

So hopefully with that fall out of the way we can have a uneventful rest of the season

trplay · Apr 6, 2014

My vote is name her

My vote is name her "Wildfire".

ratz · Apr 7, 2014

Getting on that horse

So Sunday was 63F and all that nasty ice melted. Climbed back on and got 30 miles in out in the country on the milk roads. It was our typical 18mph wind; but it was from the south and warm. So that would qualify as the first real ride. Definitely getting more stable; grip is lightening up; only soreness was from the road rash from the crash. I did accidently setup off the bike alarm and that was exciting. End of the ride legs were somewhat tired; and hands and arms had had their fill. Feels like my current skills is going to stay level for awhile now; seems like I'll need a couple hundred miles for the rest to smooth out.

ratz · Apr 7, 2014

Weather warms the willingness

Well we finally had some nice weather today. Got the Ventisit seat pad for Mrs Ratz bike so she was finally ready to ride again. She got a good 40 minutes session in the parking lot in tennis shoes. By the end she was zipping around working on the simple stuff. She's very much following Kim's video program and methods.

No real problems at all this time, Brain seem to be adapting, and the Brifter Horns are continuing to work well. She did about 70% sitting up and about 30% laying back. She's never ridden anything reclined before so she's easing into it.

The Ventisit solved the problem of her leg catching on the lower seat pad on each pedal stroke; she very happy with that change. Only problem she had so far was the the bottom seat pan is a little wide; she was suggesting that a narrower one would help women get their foot on the ground with better comfort and stability while sitting on the bike....

Watching from a distance; she looked to be doing great; she'd tell you she's got away to go.

I estimate 2-3 more sessions before clipping in.

Eric Winn · Apr 8, 2014

Considering slow speed

Considering slow speed handling is probably harder, I'd say she is doing remarkably well.

-Eric

1happyreader · Apr 8, 2014

wow

Wow,,,, snow free.

ratz · Apr 8, 2014

Bullhorn brifters ride number 3

Ok Lady Ratz has got the bug. Here are some live shots from ride number 3 (total bike time on the road < 1 hour so far). Shows the ride position pretty well for this configuration. Learning curve not hampered by the bars.