Concerning the slim tires, you just have to trust them.
I guess it's almost like skydiving for the first time. You just have to learn to trust your equipment.
Your tires don't look nearly as small as mine. (See images at bottom.)
That's right. Your rims are narrower. But it's actually the diameter of my tires which I have to get used to. It's 28 mm, which really looks slim when you sit on the bike, compared to a usual trekking bike. Not as slim as most racing tires I guess, but slim enough.
Trusting those took quite some time, especially while corning at 25 mph. They will stick though, but if you hit loose gravel, watch out! When corning fast, you want to lean the bike into the corner while shifting your weight onto the opposite pedal. You balance the bike through the turn this way. Always bring the pedal to the top on the side you're corning in order to prevent a pedal strike on the ground.
Most of my routes don't include anything else than concrete luckily. I just have to take care of roadway damages. I really want to save the rims as much as possible and we have some "nice" roadway damages here. I live in one of the most modern countries, but some of our streets almost makes you feel like WWII if you ride on them with such a bike. I guess it's not much different to some US roads.
Bringing up the opposite pedal to the top is something I have to get used to indeed, plus balancing the bike. But I didn't even ride 30 Minutes yet, so I think next week my experience will look different
Proper cycling clothing goes a long way toward both efficiency and comfort. When you start riding over 13 mph, the wind becomes more of an issue with loose clothing. Plus, the bike shorts typically have padding in the rear end for added comfort.
That I need proper cycling clothing was one of the first things I noticed. It's not only that the bike creates a different noise level of the wind flow around my ears due to higher speeds, but street clothes become annoying during acceleration and while driving fast. I actually felt that the clothing was an issue with that kind of winds. But it also is a limited freedom of movement. And the weight certainly also is an issue. Can't wait to feel the relieve of light and tight cycling clothes.
With street clothes on my old, heavy trekking bike, my speed already was well above 15 mph on flat streets. But with the new bike and proper cycling clothing I think I will drive well above 18 mph most of the time on flat streets without problems.
I never ride without a helmet. I mean, I've done a few laps around the neighborhood just cruising like 10 mph, but when I actually ride, I always wear a helmet. I figure it's better safe than sorry, especially given that I often hit 30+ mph on rides, and that's not counting bridge descents which can quickly pass 40+ mph.
There are some short but awesome descents on my route, which quickly pass 30+ mph and likely 40+ mph like some of your bridge descents. But I already felt that I should not ride without a helmet at lower speeds.
I think I will buy the Bell Solar black. It's about 35 Euro / 44 USD. Should be sufficient protection.
If you have a smart phone (Android, iPhone), you might check out Strava. It's a free app that will track your ride and show you the route, top speed, average speed, and other stats. I eventually bought a Garmin GPS for cycling which I love. Today I worked on low heart rate zones, working to control my heart rate better while still maximizing how fast I can go at lower HR zones. I managed a 117 bpm average heart rate with a 16.2 mph average speed. This is my best ever. For reference, my max HR is 190, that I've seen so far anyway. Not a fast ride, today was a recovery ride.
I don't have a smart phone. A friend who also rides professionally also asked me and talked about Strava. Seems to be quite useful. But for now I have to rely on my VDO computer, which at least tells me speeds and times. I only know my heart-rates from ergometer training. It mostly was around 150 at max. setting/power without being exhausted. But it does not tell me much about riding a real bike I guess. I figured out that it's completely different than ergometer training. Especially with my new bike it's going to look different for sure. My max. heart-rate I experienced was 189, on my ergometer. It did not feel to bad, but I did not get above 189. From what I know your max. heart-rate can be calculated by subtracting your age from 220.
I am also thinking about GPS for cycling by the way. I already have three different routes of more than 100 Km to and through different German cities to visit friends. A GPS with a small but nice display would be a very nice feature. So I don't have to "abuse" Google maps/earth too much. But GPS for cycling is still quite expensive. I prefer the GoPro HD Hero first, to record and archive a few segments of my routes.
I created a training plan by the way. Since August is going to be within sight, and so my first 136 Km tour since 10 year as well, I want to be up to the mark. It's not supposed to become a day trip. As soon as I have my cycling clothing I will ride 50 Km a day, 6 times a week / 300 Km a week. While athletic sports for my upper body will go down to 2x 30 minutes a week, with 2 days rest inbetween. The focus will be cycling in future, based ony endurance basically.
---------- Post added 06-16-12 at 03:45 PM ---------- Previous post was 06-15-12 at 09:30 PM ----------
It's raining continuously for days so I sadly still did not get a chance to test the new bike extensively. But today I took a short ride for shopping, at least. On wet roads it seems to work quite stable. And my crammed backpack after shopping wasn't really noticeable on my back. It's interesting how -6 Kg, racing tires and a different sitting position makes such a difference. The bike just is awesome.
I hope the rain will disappear until next week. But the forecast looks bad for now. I wonder what is going on up there. Damn! Not much time left until the summer is over again. And we did not yet have lots of hot days this year. Maybe a handful.
