16°C, still and bright. High pressure is in control.
Well, it feels like I’ve been shot, not that I ever have. Okay, it only feels like I have. I pulled a muscle in my ribs last weekend while lifting floorboards.
12°C, fog.
Only the second trip out with the new bars fitted. You probably can’t see but they’re flared bars. It’s subtle but a definite improvement, there is a larger flat section behind the hoods to rest hands which is nice. The wider hooks section is not as dramatic as my Kona Jake’s but it still gives benefits. There is more leverage for times when the surface is poor, potholes or long grass.
The drop is more too. The original.bars we shallow such that riding on the hooks was not much lower defeating those fast descents when you want to get your head down.
12°C, bright and dry. Light wind.
The sea defences are made of muddy clay. Today the surface is firm gum and deeply rutted by cattle hooves. That’s quite a difficult surface for a ‘cross bike even with 38mm tyres. I had to walk some sections. If you have front suspension, you wouldn’t have any trouble with this surface.
16°C, bright sun, dry.
It’s pumpkin time! Does it look odd to you that the fruit are all laid out evenly on this field but there are no leaves?
I have have a strangely sore knee. It’s awful when I kneel down on it, a problem because I’ve been doing DIY today. At least that job is done; I rewired the telephone point so the router is now at the centre of the house. Trouble was, that moved it a long way from the desktop computer. The solution was to run a long Ethernet cable under the floor and down to the router. All done now.
27°C, 0 cloud, light breeze.
Thought I was getting tired of cycling yesterday but then did this fun short route this morning. Everything was right, felt fit and happy with the bike. The photo above is the stop at Aregnu spring to fill up. There follows a steady climb and a thrilling descent.
Ideally, this bike needs a longer stem; the 175mm cranks felt right though. I’m saying that considering that frame in the box at home. 180mm cranks are hard to track down, so perhaps I should settle with 177 5mm instead.
31°C,full sun.
This one left me tired. The route extended into the next valley east and came down to the coast via Montecello.
27°C, bright after this morning’s thunder.
Good distance for an end of afternoon outing. Postponed this morning’s outing because of slow persistent thunderstorms. It was exciting, however, to watch the lightning bolts strike the sea from bed.
That poor Kona is getting creaky once it’s warm. The bars are slightly bent but the handling is great. I can only look forward to my own Kona Zing’s first rides.
27°C, patches of thick cloud clearing later.
The trunk road was mostly clear and cooler this morning making the climbs easier. A blast down from Lumio was a scream!
This year I have 2x 750ml bottles and made full use of the springs at Zilia had Aregnu. Wonderful.
30°C, fierce sun and thunder at end.
It’s that bike again. I’ve hired this one before but.some bits have changed. The gears and.wheels are new. It handles very nicely apart from a bent bar and slightly too short stem. The reach is a little short for me such that my knees can knock on the bars on steep climbs. 12cm would be better than this 10.
I have a frame the same at.home which remains unbuilt. This will spur on to get that project finished.
I’m encouraged by the handling, the bike holds true on straights and corners and feels light at the front end. No doubt this is helped by the Aksium wheels (which I will use at home also).
