Several Firsts

Saturday's ride offering several firsts.

* First solo ride of any distance (50 or more miles) this year. Very nice to decide where I want to go without having to coordinate with anyone else.

* First long ride on Al, the Ibis Sonoma I built up this past winter. Interesting how just a slight tweak of the saddle angle, raising the nose about 1 un-silly millimeter, made the overall fit far more comfortable. (Note: Brooks saddles, while by far the most comfortable to my butt, require exact fine-tuning, especially for the angle.)

* First long ride with STI levers. As a long-time and still-happy bar-end shifter guy, I like variety and have been wanting a common-to-most-other-cyclists STI setup for quite a while. This new setup worked well for me, and getting used to the best shifting patterns with my 50/36 chainrings and 12x27 cassette might have been the biggest challenge.

* First long ride this year with just bike shorts (no tights) and a short-sleeve wool jersey. Ah, spring!

Bike Names, Part One

All my bikes have names. All those names are in some way related to their color. For example, there are:


* Bridgestone XO-1 = Pumpkin
* Ibis Sonoma Ti = Shadow
* Gunnar Streetdog = Carbon
* Bridgestone RB-1 = Sunny
* Ibis Sonoma = Al

Now, what color is a bike named "Al"?

And why might I give it that name?

The first person to guess the color and the why gets some bike part of real value as a gift for guessing!

Mix-and-Match Drivetrains

I am considering a mix-and-match setup on my green/blue Serotta
Atlanta, using Campagnolo Ergo brifters, 9-speed, along with a Shimano cassette and rear derailleur.

What will allow me to do that is the ShiftMate from Jtek Engineering. All responses on the IBOB list indicate that this gizmo gives you indexed shifting as good as "pure" single-company systems.

Considering all the 9-speed Shimano cassettes and wheels I already own, and considering how Campy Ergo brifters should be more comfortable than Shimano STI brifters, sounds like a good bet.

Here's One Bike

This is an Ibis Spanky frameset that I own, and am considering selling.

For more info, go here: Ibis Spanky

How Many Bikes?

"How many bikes do you have?"

Whenever I hear that question, I give a stock answer: "More bikes
than any one person needs."

Okay, I have another stock answer, depending on my mood and my
attitude toward the interrogator: "Are you asking just whole bikes,
or bikes and frames too?"

So, how many bikes do I have?

Not Really Spring

Not really spring now. The weather is far too cold for late May, and the dreary damp, along with major work deadlines, makes cycling right now a future hope.