Yellow bike—First ride report
I finally picked-up Yellow Bike after work on Saturday. Seana went downstairs there to retrieve it for me while I chatted with a woman about her Seven Alaris.
Sevens are just such beautiful bikes. The pictures on their web site just don’t do them justice. The welds are nearly invisible, the curves in the chainstays and seatstays are damned sexy, and all the details are just perfect.
Interestingly, she had won a pair of shoes at Park Ave Bike Shop’s spring sale a couple of weeks ago, where I’d helped a friend buy her first bike. Even so, the Seven lady brought her new shoes (which perfectly matched the light blue decals on her bike) to Full Moon Vista Bike & Sport to get cleats for them and have a cleat fitting.
I was explaining to her that I’m four or five years away from a Seven, but had taken my first step with a $100 Craigslist bike, when Seana came up the stairs with a yellow Trek 1000.
“You paid $100 for this?”, she asked.
My mind kept doing stutter-stop resets as I looked at the filthy bike hung with dirty worn out components and toe clips on the pedals.
But it had two matching wheels.
I want the wheels, said part of my head.
Where’s my Terry saddle, Thomson seatpost, clipless pedals, Blackburn cyclometer and brand new components?, asked another part.
Kyle rescued me by telling Seana, “There are two yellow Treks downstairs. The other one is his.” Kyle also brought up a cheap ($55) wheel that I’ll use on an interim basis. (Although the hub is Shimano-branded, it even has a plastic nut and a plastic lever on the quick release. Yikes!)
Even the lady with the Seven agreed, that despite missing a wheel, and still having no bar tape, my yellow Trek is much better looking than the other one. And everyone thinks I got quite a bargain.
I towed Yellow Bike home and got out one of the three tires that came with it, mounted it on the interim wheel, and went for a short shakedown ride up and down Anderson Ave, trying to beat the coming nor’easter.
I threw a leg over and clipped-in. Whoa, went my head. The reach to the bars felt really far and, of course, they’re below the level of the saddle. The saddle height seemed okay, so I pushed off, clipped-in my left, made the quick right on to the sidewalk in front of the building and headed off around the corner.
Now, remembering that it’s been since the early 80s since I’ve been on a road bike, and that was just one day, all I can report are the first-impression differences between Bike and Yellow Bike.
Yellow Bike seems comfortable enough, at least on a two-mile ride. It’ll take a bit of getting used to the position. And given that the stem is seized in the headset, I can’t change the bar height, nor can I replace the stem to adjust the reach. That said, I don’t think I need to change them anyway. More rides and more miles are certainly required.
The bike shifts like a dream. It may be bottom-of-the-line Sora dérailleurs, but the upgraded ST-R500 brifters do most of the work of shifting. And they are silky smooth, requiring just the right amount of pressure to click from one gear to the next. It felt so nice that I just couldn’t keep from shifting.
And I mentally patted myself on the back for doing such a good job of adjusting everything. Shifts are all but instantaneous. I’m used to there being a hint of slop in the mechanism and a bit of a delay when shifting Bike. Yellow Bike snaps them off cleanly, quickly and crisply.
Pedaling is silky smooth too. So I’m wondering what all the hub-bub is about with uplevel component groups. Some day I’ll find out, but for now, I’m delighted with the drivetrain.
Power transfer is the next thing I noticed. I push on a pedal and things happen. The bike is very responsive, even with cheap wheels. The cyclometer wasn’t working, but the bike felt really fast. I spun up to a pretty good cadence in the middle ring and small cog (42-12) and seemed to fly up the slight incline at the other end of Anderson.
There seemed to be none of the dragging an anvil sensation I experience with Bike. And on that same section, I never get past fifth or sixth cog on the middle ring (38-16 or 38-15) on Bike.
Yellow Bike handles significantly differently than Bike. At the same time it seems both quicker and slower to change direction. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s something I’ll be paying attention to.
Finally, the ride seems better than I expected. I can’t tell how good is good without many more miles under varied conditions, but I can tell bad right away. And it’s not bad. It feels tighter and more pulled together than Bike.
And that’s it. I rode up and back twice on Anderson for a total of about two miles. I really wanted to ride and ride all night, but the cold front had moved through, the front brake needed adjusting and with no bar tape, the bars were slippery. This also meant that there are no bar end plugs. Any sort of mishap could mean they’d take core samples of my legs.
Prudence winning out over desire, I carried Yellow Bike up the fire escape and called it a day.
Wrapping up
I spent a couple of hours today putting the finishing touches on it. First I wrapped the bars. It was less difficult than I thought. The wrap didn’t come out looking too bad either. It’s obviously not a professional job, but the mistakes don’t jump out at you either. I’m very glad that I didn’t buy the adhesive-backed stuff. It made fixing things a lot easier.
Meanwhile, I’m not stressing about the wrap job since I’m not sure if I’ll keep these bars, not sure if I’ll want some padding under the wrap, and not sure if I’ll want a thinner or thicker wrap or a different color, material or style. If I like this stuff, I can take it off and rewrap with it. And I have a second box too.
Next I ran the cadence sensor wire from the cyclometer down to the chainstay. I used a different technique this time and it went much better. If it bothers me, there are a couple of things I could neaten up towards the top, but again. For now, it’s fine.
The cadence magnet I mounted with a couple of wraps of electrical tape. I did this because the magnet fell out of the plastic thingy that you mount it with. Plus I’ve learned from Bike that the magnet shifts when it’s zip-tied to the crank. If I can stand the way it looks, I’ll leave it this way. I can’t see it when I’m riding anyway…
I remounted the speed sensor on the fork too. I had used the crummy zip ties on it and after losing the wheel because of them, I’m not making the same mistake.
Next, I removed one more link from the chain. When I first cut it, I intentionally left it a link or two long, just in case I was measuring improperly. I think it’s still one link long, but I’ll ride it like this for a while and see.
After that, I swapped the cassette. The factory cassette was a 12-28, I bought a new one like it, and that’s what I’ve been using for setup and adjustment. I also bought a 12-23. I ride a 13-23 on Bike when I don’t have the snow tires on it, and It’s just about perfect. Actually, for that bike, perfect would be a 9-speed 13-23 so I could get an 18-tooth cog in there too.
Anyway, Yellow Bike’s chainrings (52/42/30) are a bit larger than Bike’s (48/38/28) and I had been concerned that the resulting higher gear ratios might be a problem. My test ride on Saturday indicates otherwise, so I popped on the 12-23 and put the 12-28 away for hilly rides.
Last, I filled the water bottles. On Bike I just buy a 24 oz. SportPak bottle of Poland Springs and reuse it until it gets gross. Pitch into the recycle bin, and repeat. Yellow Bike gets a nice set of Nalgene On-the-Go bottles.
In any event, it’s all ready to go as soon as the nor’easter stops and the roads dry up. That’s not supposed to happen until Thursday, just in time for my three full days in a row of work. I’m planning to take the long way to work each day. We’ll see how it turns out.
Actually, I also have to get a cheap rack for it too so I can put on my Tailrider trunk bag. Especially since there’s only one decent tire on it right now, I want to have flat repair stuff with me, along with some tools and my lunch, of course. Maybe tomorrow I’ll swing by Towner’s.
New wheels
Yellow Bike will be getting new wheels soon. I felt bad having to buy an interim wheel, but it also means I’ll have a set to go with the tires that came on it when it comes time to sell it. Buying a good set of wheels has always been part of the plan. I’ve advanced those plans by about a year, with a little help from my parents.
I told the story of losing the wheel over the Easter dinner table last week. When I got home from work on Tuesday, there was an envelope in the mail from my parents. Inside was a check and a note, “From us to you.” When I phoned, my dad said “We’re hoping you’ll buy a set of wheels with it.”
Okay.
I’d planned on a set of Mavic Ksyrium SL3, but even with my parent’s contribution, they’re out of my budget range this year, especially since I also have to buy new wheels for Bike later this year.
I’ve heard good things about the wheels from Neuvation Cycling and have decided to try a set of their R28 Aero 3 wheels, in silver. (For the record, I’m also aware of the issues they had with the hub flanges in the R28 2 series. The 3 series uses different hubs.) The Neuvations are supposed to be quite strong and fairly lightweight. I could probably shave another 50 or 60 grams per wheel if I remove the 16 (count ‘em!) decals that adorn each rim.
I’ll be able to order them after payday later this week, so it won’t be until late next week at the earliest before have them.
Meanwhile, I’ll be able to put a few miles on Yellow Bike and, after the new wheels come in, I’ll be able to tell what kind of difference a decent wheelset makes.
