'Twas only my third ride of the year, but did 25.3 miles on my new Habanero. What. A. Ride.
For the uninitiated, my previous wheels were a Schwinn World Sport that I bought when I was 14 in 1988. Lugged steel frames, heavy as can be, 52/40 front (originally--put a 34 on last year), 14-28 rear six speed with friction shift FD and an early Shimano SIS index shifter for the rear--stem-mounted; 27x1-1/4 tires. Did I mention it was heavy?
So this year, I decided to get a new bike. My first plan was just to upgrade the groupset a couple parts at a time, but I realized that I would have a tough time doing that--seemed to really be an all-or-nothing affair to end up with a good groupset. Instead, I went for an all new bike with modern dimensions, and I've always been fascinated by titanium as a frame material, so after some Internet searching and review-reading, I landed at Habanero Cycles. I must say that Mark Hickey was very timely and helpful in answering all my question-laden e-mails.
Since I'm no racer, I went with the touring/cyclocross frame, and a triple Ultegra groupset--52/39/30 in front, and 11-28 on a 10-speed cassette in the rear. All together now, "Climb every mountain...." Maybe those gears will change in the future, but for now, these 36 year old legs need some bailout gears, though that 52-11 combo should be fun on some downhill runs. I can't help it--I like speed--I've driven a motorcycle at over 160 MPH...but that was in my twenties before kids... I also went with a Surly Long Haul Trucker fork (it was cheap, and it wasn't carbon...), so that's a potential upgrade down the road, it's fairly heavy, and it's held in by a Cane Creek 100 headset. I had Mark pick some wheels for me, since I really know nothing about them, and I wanted some sort of compromise on price, weight and durability, so I ended up with Mavic Open Pro Silver wheels. They are now clad with Continental Gatorskin 700Cx25 tires from my LBS. I suppose the wheels might be a future upgrade, too, and there's plenty of room on this frame for near-MTB tires, if that fancy hit me (I seriously doubt it).
Now, about the ride. I had it pretty much assembled Wednesday, so before I left for work, I took it out for a quick half-mile jaunt around the neighborhood, if for no other reason than to play with the brifters a little--remember my last bike had stem shifters. It was much too short of a ride to tell anything about the bike or how it rode overall. So, today, I needed to see a friend who lives across town about some church business, and it was fairly nice out, so I figured I would combine the ride with going to see him. I knew it was going to be windy, so the 20-25 MPH headwind for 2/3 of the 12.5 miles over kind of stunk, but it sure was fun riding 22 MPH on that stretch on the way back! All told, I rode 12.5 miles over, took a slightly different route home to avoid climbing a steep, loose-grit-gravel-covered road on the way back (I was on my brakes and stayed vertical the whole way down on the way over), and rode 12.8 miles back, but I spent about an hour talking to my friend.
I definitely still need to make some adjustments to the seat and handlebars, but they weren't horrible, just a little distracting. The part that really surprised me is that despite the skinnier, higher-pressure tires and stiffer frame, the ride wasn't nearly as harsh as my World Sport! The World Sport is bone-jarring, tongue-bitingly brutal when going over bumps, but the Habanero just glides over them. I'm very impressed. I can also tell that between the frame and the groupset, I'm putting more power to the ground. It's just a feeling, I know, but I was going faster in lower gear combos for a given cadence (about 85 right now, but I'm pushing myself towards a 90+ cadence).
TWO THUMBS UP, HABANERO!
Jason
P.S. Before you bust my chops about pics, those will have to wait until I get some more miles in and can decide that I'm ready to cut the steer tube--it's ugh-ly unfinished steel sticking up out of my stem clamp right now. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif
For the uninitiated, my previous wheels were a Schwinn World Sport that I bought when I was 14 in 1988. Lugged steel frames, heavy as can be, 52/40 front (originally--put a 34 on last year), 14-28 rear six speed with friction shift FD and an early Shimano SIS index shifter for the rear--stem-mounted; 27x1-1/4 tires. Did I mention it was heavy?
So this year, I decided to get a new bike. My first plan was just to upgrade the groupset a couple parts at a time, but I realized that I would have a tough time doing that--seemed to really be an all-or-nothing affair to end up with a good groupset. Instead, I went for an all new bike with modern dimensions, and I've always been fascinated by titanium as a frame material, so after some Internet searching and review-reading, I landed at Habanero Cycles. I must say that Mark Hickey was very timely and helpful in answering all my question-laden e-mails.
Since I'm no racer, I went with the touring/cyclocross frame, and a triple Ultegra groupset--52/39/30 in front, and 11-28 on a 10-speed cassette in the rear. All together now, "Climb every mountain...." Maybe those gears will change in the future, but for now, these 36 year old legs need some bailout gears, though that 52-11 combo should be fun on some downhill runs. I can't help it--I like speed--I've driven a motorcycle at over 160 MPH...but that was in my twenties before kids... I also went with a Surly Long Haul Trucker fork (it was cheap, and it wasn't carbon...), so that's a potential upgrade down the road, it's fairly heavy, and it's held in by a Cane Creek 100 headset. I had Mark pick some wheels for me, since I really know nothing about them, and I wanted some sort of compromise on price, weight and durability, so I ended up with Mavic Open Pro Silver wheels. They are now clad with Continental Gatorskin 700Cx25 tires from my LBS. I suppose the wheels might be a future upgrade, too, and there's plenty of room on this frame for near-MTB tires, if that fancy hit me (I seriously doubt it).
Now, about the ride. I had it pretty much assembled Wednesday, so before I left for work, I took it out for a quick half-mile jaunt around the neighborhood, if for no other reason than to play with the brifters a little--remember my last bike had stem shifters. It was much too short of a ride to tell anything about the bike or how it rode overall. So, today, I needed to see a friend who lives across town about some church business, and it was fairly nice out, so I figured I would combine the ride with going to see him. I knew it was going to be windy, so the 20-25 MPH headwind for 2/3 of the 12.5 miles over kind of stunk, but it sure was fun riding 22 MPH on that stretch on the way back! All told, I rode 12.5 miles over, took a slightly different route home to avoid climbing a steep, loose-grit-gravel-covered road on the way back (I was on my brakes and stayed vertical the whole way down on the way over), and rode 12.8 miles back, but I spent about an hour talking to my friend.
I definitely still need to make some adjustments to the seat and handlebars, but they weren't horrible, just a little distracting. The part that really surprised me is that despite the skinnier, higher-pressure tires and stiffer frame, the ride wasn't nearly as harsh as my World Sport! The World Sport is bone-jarring, tongue-bitingly brutal when going over bumps, but the Habanero just glides over them. I'm very impressed. I can also tell that between the frame and the groupset, I'm putting more power to the ground. It's just a feeling, I know, but I was going faster in lower gear combos for a given cadence (about 85 right now, but I'm pushing myself towards a 90+ cadence).
TWO THUMBS UP, HABANERO!
Jason
P.S. Before you bust my chops about pics, those will have to wait until I get some more miles in and can decide that I'm ready to cut the steer tube--it's ugh-ly unfinished steel sticking up out of my stem clamp right now. /img/vbsmilies/smilies/wink.gif
