Wow. Just wow. I rode a loop with downhill single track after a hearty 8 mile climb in "poser SS mode" in one of my future middle gears on the QB: 32-17. I started off just figuring I'll do my usual 10 mile connector route to Woodland Park and back, but felt great so headed up Rampart to the top of Lovell Gulch. Some good hearty standing to climb for the last couple miles. Naturally the hardest was nearest the top. Grin.
Additional things I tested: -- Single track climbing. Though short, it told me that I'll easily handle what I need to with 32-22 (for long technical climbs), and most of what I'll be doing with 32-18. -- Fixed likely makes no sense on the trails, as there are just too many places that my pedals bashed in my brief testing on the downhill. -- It's stunning how quickly the legs get used to climbing in lower gears when the mind tells them "this is all we've got." No doubt the weighted slo-mo rock squats I started doing a month ago help significantly as well. But Grant is right (shocker!) -- I really do shift way too much and I, at least, am far wimpier for it. So my new gearing plan is to copy David Cyclotourist's 16-18 Dos Eno and 22 non-sealed freewheel. On a more esoteric note... It was awesome! I loved it. Simpler. More like running. On a bike. Far easier to enter the contemplative. Awesome! With wild grinning anticipatory abandon, Patrick -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
