On Wednesday, September 10, 2025 at 9:44:44 PM UTC-5 Patrick Moore wrote:
I’m at the stage where I no longer like working on bikes; I’d much rather ride them. So adding a fourth bike to my stable, even a very nice road bike, will have its drawbacks in that regard. I was happy when I whittled my stable down to 3 customs that suited my own kind of riding very nicely — short, =/< 30 miles, but agressive — I was surprised to find that Sunday’s 40 mile ride left me feeling the next day no different from one of my usual 20 mile fixed gear out and backs on a windy afternoon. Only, one of the whole points of this new kind of longer but slower riding is to go further afield, and this means longer and steeper hills; and at 70 I no longer feel like, or — to be honest, am capable of — grunting a fixed gear even with 25% IGH gear reduction up steep mile-long hills as I could do back when I was a youthful 60-something. My experience, now in my "youthful 60-somethings", has been than total bike weight, within a range, hasn't made much difference in how I feel climbing steep grades. Even being a relatively light person, a few pounds don't significantly change my total package weight. It's really about having a gear that lets me ride at a comfortable cadence at a climbing rate I can maintain, on a frame and cockpit setup that puts me in the right position and (in combination with the tires) feels "lively". That "lively" feel is pretty elusive and, for me, not perfectly correlated with weight. My Heron road bike, the prototype first frame, has super heavy seat and chain stays, not especially light frame tubes, but a very supple fork. I love the feel of it and most of my climbing PRs are on it. My approach to the scenario you've painted would be to find a used bike that seems close to what I think I want, ride and tweak it for a while to see if it really is what I'm looking for, then make a decision about spending more on something nicer/more custom. But, I still like doing all my own wrenching and enjoy the tweaking process. Ted Durant Milwaukee, WI USA -- 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 [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/fb7ad256-16d2-4422-a38a-83002d2a4333n%40googlegroups.com.
