no pics I'm afraid, I'll try and add some but I've been up to my eyeballs with work.
New blog is published (won't cut and paste here in it's entirety), objectives and outcomes, to tantalise you
Just to recap, the Cruzbike build was finished in mid-March and then the weather turned crappy again, but by the time the Woodman came round, I’d managed to get about 350km of Cruzbike in my legs on a mix of short local loops of 25km and turbo trainer sessions of an hour to 90mins. I think I’d had two longer rides of about 50km each as well.
The woodman, on 14th April was going to be my first real test of the combination of bike and rider I’m intending on deploying on my summer tour. All is not lost if it goes tits-up and I find the thing un-rideable, as all the components came off a road bike frame which is now sat in the bikeshed awaiting tidy up.
Aims for this ride
- Test the comfort over long distance/duration. The woodman is 112km, vs my longest planned tour day of 146km, and a club ride of 160km.
- Test average audax speed on the new machine. Barring mechanicals, p*$nct%res, route screw ups, I normally expect an audax speed of about 25km/h
- Test the gearing on hills, the route heads out amongst the rolling lanes of Essex and has about 850m climb on the routesheet
- Enjoy a day out in the sunshine
....
As usual a great route and a great ride, superbly supported by the weather, although I was down to dregs of water in the bladder in the last 15km, and not confident at that point to pull the bottle out of the cage on the move (since then a newly acquired skill).
Learnings
- The S40 is a great long distance tourer, and I can’t foresee an issue on tour, respectable audax speed maintained (5 hours elapsed for 112km)
- The stock seat cushion is far too squishy, leaving bruising inside my shoulder blades – ventisit pads on order (hopefully here for the upcoming long weekend)
- The 12-28 is a bit ambitious for touring. 12-32 now purchased, but not yet trialled
- Fun was maintained
