Today’s ride home was fantastic. 4.5 miles in 23:45. Going through the new Athens Roundabout was quite fun, and the pedestrian/bike lane allowed me to totally blow by other cars. I had a close call with a red Dodge minivan who decided to pass at a bad time, and he almost had a head-on collison with an oncoming car. They had just tarred some of N. Blackburn Road near Dairy Barn Lane, so some spots on the big hill were a bit sticky. Overall a great after-work commute.
Rode the World Voyageaur in this morning. 6 miles in 27 minutes. I loved every minute of it. Now I’m really looking forward to the ride home.
I rode the mountain bike to work today. I put the knobbies back on a few days ago, with the expectation of eventually hitting the trails soon. The knobbies were pretty slow, but I managed to get to cover the 6 miles to work in just under 30 minutes. On the way, I goofed around with my Flip video camera. The video below is from today’s ride.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of riding my bike to work. I took the long way home yesterday, making the 6.77 miles home in about 33.5 minutes. I had a real hard time with some of the hills on the Yukon. It felt at times like I was dragging an anchor. On the road bike I can get up the hills a lot easier, despite not having the low gears of the mountain bike. Chalk it up to skinny tires I guess. I did switch to the Serfas Drifters, which are 1.5 inch tires, so we’ll see how that works out next time.
Yesterday’s totals were about an hour of riding and 12.8 miles, according to my bike computer.
I rode my Giant Yukon mountain bike to work this morning. I had originally thought that I would ride the road bike in, but I’m pretty anal about it getting scratched up on the steel bike racks in front of the library. Not to bash our students any, but they tend to throw their bikes around like somebody else bought them, and in doing so their wrecklessness can often rub your ride the wrong way.
Giant Yukon in front of the Park Place Fountain
In preparation for riding the Yukon this moring, I swapped the Serfas Gator tires for the Forte VersTracs. The Fortes have a ridge down the center of the tire, thereby making the rolling resistance a little less. I’ve left the Gators on for a while, figuring that as a mountain bike, it would need the knobbies for the singletrack. I’ve been on the singletrack once this year, and I probably road off-road a total of five times last year. The VersTracs do roll a lot faster than the Gators, but I’m very much used to rolling fast with my road bike. I felt very sluggish on the mountain bike, even though it only took me 27.5 minutes to make the 6 mile trip. I was also a little disappointed that I had to dip into the granny gear on the bike to get me up a few of the hills, as the smallest chainring on my road bike is a 39. I do have a 32 in the rear on my road bike, but I usually can tackle these particular hills with a 39×28 gear. Dipping into the granny on the mountain bike was kind of puzzling, but I guess the rolling resistance is significant enough to make pedaling harder.
As soon as I can, I’m going to swap out the VersTracs for the set of Serfas Drifters (26×1.5) that are hanging on the garage wall. While not quite as fast as my road tires (I run 27×1 1/4 on my road bike), they should be a bit faster than the VersaTracs. I imagine the VersaTracs are fast for some folks, particularly when compared to full knobbies, but for someone who rides a road bike more often than a mountain bike, the resistance can be pretty frustrating. I wanted to hammer on the way to work, but the tires just left me flat.
Here’s the route to work: