Bicycles!

[Eye-Q]

C'mon, we don't believe you own a bicycle and cycle around. There's no way a bicycle could withstand the weight of your balls...

 

[DanRoM]

@ninjacoco: That's great, I hope you enjoy your bike! It's so good to have a little exercise especially in these times.

A few days ago, I took the time to clean and service my bikes - meaning, I adjusted the gears and lubed the chain. Especially on the road bike, the adjustment was sadly necessary because I bent the rear derailleur with the fall I took three weeks ago.
Anyway, my point is: the bikes ride so much better now, again!

 

[altoid]

O hai. I'm feeling super hyper and am in an oversharing mood. Here's my bicycle history for the past decade or so.

Way, way back in July of 2011 I got back into cycling (after a decade-long break) via my stepdad's Trek 7500 Multitrack. It was stolen a year after I started riding it. Two years later, in May of 2014, I found a mint 2010 Fuji Newest 3.0 for super duper totes cheap and rode it for fun and commuting over over three years. I left it in the Bay Area when I moved back to LA in 2017.

In September of 2018 I got a 2018 Fuji Sportif 2.5 and it's done 1,300+ miles since, including two centuries.

Not bad for an exceedingly budget model.

And just last week I got a 2020 Cannondale Synapse Disc 105, and it's a goddamn dream.

I've immediately started looking for hills to climb with all these extra gears and all this extra smoothness.

The plan is to use the Cannondale for exercise and Fuji for running errands. No way am I letting the former out of sight, but I'm perfectly happy to lock up the other while running errands. We'll see if that actually happens.

The Cannondale is also a 58cm frame, which suits me much better than the 56cm Fujis I had before it, though it's certainly quite a bit of bike.

Anyone else on Strava?

 

[Eye-Q]

New bike day for me as well! It's a Canyon Grail CF SL 7.0 (carbon fibre frame and fork, Shimano GRX 600/800 mechanical shifting and hydraulic disc brakes, Schwalbe G-One Bite tires), since Canyon only sells online I had the bike delivered to work and I transported it back home on my cargo bike.

The Grail is an absolute blast to ride, the shifting is so much sharper than my old Cube which I bought used 1 1/2 years ago and abused the crap out of. The Grail's steering is much more direct without being nervous. To add to that when I went a short test ride on tarmac I have been held up by cars going just under the speed limit of 50 kph...

 

[altoid]

I've been overdosing on GCN videos on YT recently, and I'd never heard of a bunch of brands until then, Canyon being one of them (Orbea and Pinarello being the other two I can remember right now). I think the bikes look absolutely gorgeous, and that blue is epic!

 

[Redliner]

Carrying a bicycle on a bicycle.
Also, it looks great!

 

[RdKetchup]

Carrying a bicycle on a bicycle.

 

[MWF]

Junior has been saving for a quality mountain bike for a while but with the Covid thing his chances of spending much quality time with his two pals who are into it before they go off to Uni in the autumn are limited (they are both two years older) so he started thinking about a road bike to partner his hybrid commuter bike.

The other morning we had a nose around Facebook Marketplace for options and stumbled across this little gem. It's a late 90s Dawes Audax Giro 600, less than 100 miles on it since a full overhaul and a snip at £150.

And as the UK Govt is handing out £50 vouchers towards bike servicing we can get a complete overhaul done of his Carrera Crossfire 3 and go on rides together.

 

[DanRoM]

After only about fifteen years, I finally got this on my road bike yesterday:

 

[Eye-Q]

Nice!

Just remember: many other people don't cycle that much in their life so you're way ahead of them. It doesn't matter if it takes one year or 15 years to reach 10k km, it's better than doing nothing.

 

[DanRoM]

I should add that my other bike, bought in 2007, has also about 11k and a bit on it.

 

[Redliner]

I wish I lived in a bicycle-friendly country...*sigh*

 

[RdKetchup]

Finally bought a Trail-Gator. With it, I can now go on bike rides with my 2 daughters.

Unfortunately, yesterday, after multiple warnings about not following too close and always looking where you are going, my oldest daughter ran into the back of my youngest one and crashed. Pretty bad road rash on her elbow, but otherwise nothing broken.

 

[CraigB]

Shit, I'm almost 40 and still do that...

 

[93Flareside]

[

Here’s mine. A 2006 Specialized Hard Rock Comp Disc. I’ve had it since new. I recently started to ride it more because fatty needs to do something. It’s been a drag because there was something up with the gear selector and brakes were needing a lot of travel. I will probably need new pads soon. Either way, I’ve adjusted all so now it stops and changes gears like it’s supposed to. So now I ride more often.

I didn’t realize how easy it was, #5 Allen wrench and a tug on the cables. Easy! Everything is original and the rotors have rust on them because it's been ridden on bike paths in Florida near the ocean on vacations. The biggest problem now is I don't have the callouses to deal with how shitty the seat is. I forgot how bad it is and had to take a few days off last week so the pain would subside. I've been riding my nearly 1 mi (roughly 1.2kms) once a day when I'm not at the office and it has gotten easier and walking has felt less unstable afterwards. So I guess things are happening.

 

[CraigB]

Time for new cables, @93Flareside ! Those make me hurt just looking at them.

Good to hear you are riding though!

 

[Redliner]

[View attachment 3557741
Here’s mine. A 2006 Specialized Hard Rock Comp Disc. I’ve had it since new. I recently started to ride it more because fatty needs to do something. It’s been a drag because there was something up with the gear selector and brakes were needing a lot of travel. I will probably need new pads soon. Either way, I’ve adjusted all so now it stops and changes gears like it’s supposed to. So now I ride more often.

View attachment 3557742
View attachment 3557743

I didn’t realize how easy it was, #5 Allen wrench and a tug on the cables. Easy! Everything is original and the rotors have rust on them because it's been ridden on bike paths in Florida near the ocean on vacations. The biggest problem now is I don't have the callouses to deal with how shitty the seat is. I forgot how bad it is and had to take a few days off last week so the pain would subside. I've been riding my nearly 1 mi (roughly 1.2kms) once a day when I'm not at the office and it has gotten easier and walking has felt less unstable afterwards. So I guess things are happening.

I am a fan of Specialized. I nearly bought the same model in a different color, but it was too much debt to me, so I bought a non-disk Crosstrail instead.

 

[Eye-Q]

This cycling thing might have gotten slightly out of hand - since I took delivery of my new bike on May 29th I cycled 1057 km on that. Oh, and I added about 200 km on the cargo bike since then as well...

According to my cycling computer which I use every time I cycle I've cycled 4918 km with that. Mind you, my first ride with that particular cycling computer was on December 4th 2019 so on average I've cycled around 700 km a month since then...

 

[93Flareside]

Wait, so you go through tires like someone would with a car?

 

[Eye-Q]

Only if people decide it would be a good idea to not pay attention when turning from a side road into the main road when I ride there full chat (around 30-35 kph/19-22 mph) so I have to do emergency braking, resulting in wearing out the tread unevenly.

The brakepads are getting a beating though, but those are just 10-15 Euros per brake so it's nothing which breaks the bank.