New bike goodness

I've ridden the new bike to work twice now, making for two round trips (including the shake-down run coming home Wednesday evening). I'm finding little adjustments to make in things like handlebar angle, shifter angle, and minor tweaks on the shift systems that are part and parcel of new bike break-in processes.

I didn't give much thought to performance expectations when buying this bike. I figured it would be roughly as fast a the Raleigh, perhaps a bit faster since it has more and closer gearing steps that would make better use of my preferred cadence range. This morning's ride to work involved a stop by the bank to make a deposit. The bank branch closest to my commute is at Hurstbourne Parkway at KY22. It's MUCH faster for me to go directly to Crestwood on 22 from there rather than go back south to my accustomed Westport Road corridor for the later segments of my trip, but KY 22 is not a bike-friendly road. The speed limit is higher than on Westport Road, despite that it's narrower and has shorter sight lines in many places. Once past Chamberlain Lane, it's two-lanes all the way (with a couple of wide spots that have become turn lanes).

I've ridden KY 22 from Hurstbourne or so to Crestwood a few times, and I don't mind it once in a while, but I prefer to avoid it. I rode it this morning, though, as I didn't want to ride all the way back over to Westport Road with that extra mileage and time.

I found that I was going as fast as I do on my Vanguard on 22. The tailwind may have helped more than I thought, of course--the headwind I fought all the way to work yesterday certainly took its toll on my average speed. In general, though, this bike may be a touch faster than the Vanguard over this particular course.

The new bike's saddle feels narrow to me, but that may be primarily a function of being used to the Brooks B-66 sofa on the Raleigh. The handlebar position feels fairly good, if unusual after so many miles on the North Road bars on the Raleigh. The stock grips are pretty decent--they are inexpensive imitations of some of the Ergon grips I can get for this bike in another month or two when the 2011 stuff comes out. Ergon has some similar grips that also add bar-ends, and I may consider them for this bike at some point.

Speaking of Ergon, I'm due to receive my Commuter Team goodies in the next few weeks. I'm pretty excited about it--I'm looking forward to trying their new pedals, grips and gloves on the Raleigh. When the pedals are available, I'll probably get a set for Jenn's new bike, since she is riding to work wearing street shoes to save changing time at the office. I'm also looking forward to the backpack, surprisingly. I've mentioned that I haven't been a backpack person when I'm on a bike, since I've been on recumbents for so long and since I figure that weight in a pack is on the bike AND on me rather than simply on the bike. However, I see some versatility in using a pack that doesn't come as readily when using panniers for all one's carried stuff.