I took Wilson out for our first ride yesterday afternoon. I now understand why a good friend of mine always refers to his mountain bike as a tractor. Wilson is fast, tractor, not so much. Tractor is cushy and comfortable, Wilson, not so much. It's been a long, long time since I've ridden anything without fat tires and some sort of suspension. The ride, while a bit rougher, wasn't as bad as I expected.
Hardest thing was the instability or twitchiness of the bike. It doesn't like to go straight. And heaven forbid you take a hand off the bar. We got better as we moved on, but I'm pretty sure local law enforcement would have stopped us for suspicion of intoxication if we would have been spotted.
Not having brakes at your finger tips while aero also takes some getting used to. I had one good "oh shit" moment going through a corner too fast while on the bars. It wasn't too fast for the corner itself, it was to fast for all the sand and grit in the corner. Or maybe it was this combined with the realization I have postage stamp sized slick patches of tire touching the road.
Overall, on our 18.5-mile lake route, we took just over 10 minutes off of our typical tractor time. Good. And I actually felt very fresh at the end. Better. The bad, I'm now scared of hills. Mountain bike has a granny gear, wilson, no such luck. Twice yesterday, I had to stand in the lowest gear to get up a hill. A new rear cassette may be in my future. Wife and I have a one loop date with the IMoo bike course next Sunday. I have a feeling the decision will be made very quickly into this ride.
On other fronts, I'm somewhat back in line with running and swimming as well. Still not 100% health wise, but better. If the weather cooperates, I hope to put in a ton of miles this week/month.
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