Riding the Boulder
by Steve ~ June 12th, 2008. Filed under: Riding the Bike.Well, it’s been a terrible spring for cycling. Partly it’s been the weather, partly my own lack of desire to get out on two wheels. After cycling through the end of Winter, the only cycling I’ve done until this week was weekend riding with Mike. The lack of weekday riding has made the weekend rides tough, though. I actually bonked after a 60 Km ride last week. Pathetic! So it was with some relief that I climbed back on a bike to start commuting again at the beginning of this week.
For most of the week I’ve been riding the Giant Boulder, my low-end LBS bike which is solid and reliable (haven’t had any problems over the course of the approximately 1,200 Km I’ve put on it since last year. However, the geometry of the Giant doesn’t suit me as well as the geometry of the Bike of Doom, so today I switched back to the Bike of Doom for commuting. It really made a difference. Despite the poor quality of nearly every component, I find it a very comfortable bike… even it’s cheap ass saddle.
I’m wondering if that’s because the manufacturer is Raleigh? Is it possible that my British body responds more favourably to British bike geometry? I may test ride a few Raleigh bikes at local bike stores to see if that’s true. I’ve been thinking of a new road bike…
Related posts:
Back on the road with the Bike of Doom
Eighteen month snapshot — 3,836 Km
June 12th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
It’s about time - I was starting to think you’d abandoned your project! ;-)
I’ve got to do a few weekend rides myself if I want to achieve 6,000km in my first year of ownership. Since it doesn’t look like snowing this weekend (http://www.weather.com.au/nsw/perisher-valley) I doubt that we’ll be going skiing, so I might attempt a trip around the lake instead.
BTH
June 12th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Just dormant. A small break. 6,000 Km is impressive! I did a total of 6,021 Km in 2007, a bit more than half on the Bike of Doom, the remainder on my “good” bikes. Ridelog here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=p3gIB5AGfR26cTrJeiTrzdA
I sometimes regret I didn’t do them all on the BOD. Anyway, I should hit 6,000 Km on the BOD this year, going at roughly the same pace as The Dude at Maple Leaf Test Rides.
Keep riding. Looking forward to seeing you bust through 6,000.