Spring service, Part two
On Thursday after work, I rode in to Full Moon Vista on the Portland. A bunch of stuff happened, and I rode out on Yellow Bike.
Yellow Bike’s brakes are better. The rear caliper will need to be replaced to do any better. Its wheels are true again. And its shifting has been tweaked.
What they didn’t do anything about was the the seized headset. Chris just didn’t want to tackle it. He was afraid it would lead to having to cut the stem and fork from the bike, and removing the parts from inside the head tube may damage the frame.
I’m not ready to risk lethal damage to Yellow Bike, so I’m glad Chris stopped where he did.
I dropped the Portland off for its spring service. It should be done early next week. Mostly brakes and bearings are its issues.
While I had both bikes at the shop simultaneously, I had the fitting adjusted on them each. I like the pedal-to-saddle relationship on Yellow Bike. It’s more comfortable, I can make more power because my position on it engages my muscles differently, and I can spin circles much more easily on it.
I rode Yellow Bike in the trainer and Kyle took notes and measurements. We both like that aspect of how Yellow Bike fits, so we left everything alone and moved to the front end.
Since the quill stem is seized in the headset, we can’t move the bars up and closer, where we’d both like to see them. Kyle rotated the bars up, the brifters back down and it’s a lot better—probably as good as it’s going to get.
On the way home I was thinking that maybe different bars could help too. Ones with shorter reach and a tighter bend to the hooks. I’ll have to ask.
Then it was the Portland’s turn in the trainer. As it turns out, its saddle was 2cm further back than Yellow Bikes. So first, we moved the saddle forward by 2cm. That seemed to help. I could feel different muscles engaging, my pedaling went from pumping up-and-down to spinning circles, and my cadence came higher. All things I wanted to happen.
Then we went to the front. I wanted the bars a bit further out and lower on the Portland—just the opposite of where I wanted them on Yellow Bike. Kyle agreed. We swapped stems and spacers and soon, I was feeling longer and lower—exactly where I wanted to be.
Then we turned to me. It seems I don’t keep my back straight. I bend a little from the waist, and a lot in my mid-spine. So I have something to work on too.
