Single Speed Century: Training Ride 1

One gear, gravel, and grit.

Wednesday I got out for a training ride on the single speed. After a month of being on the down low, I have to start building back up to a fitness level that will allow me to complete a century on gravel. That means I needed to put in a couple of hours at least on the Pofahl.

It was chilly, but Sunny and the wind was out of the Northwest. That meant I needed to go North. The routes to the North out of town are all mostly uphill, so that would also be good for training purposes. Now getting out of town, well that is something else altogether these days.

There is so much construction now with so many routes cut off that I ended up just riding along HWY 63 North on the bike path. Then I went East over on East Donald Street to catch a route North and I was on my way. Things felt pretty good, and I was chugging along thinking about several things on that bright, glorious morning. One of those things was a curiosity about why my front brake wasn't working well.

The Pofahl's front brake, well both actually, always worked so well. So, it was a curious thing now that all of a sudden I had a very weak front brake. In fact, I was so curious that I purposed to stop when I reached Bennington No. 4 School house and check it out. When I did, I laughed out loud!

Silly me! I didn't check to see what rotor size I was using on the Pofahl and make sure the alternate wheel set I swapped in was set up appropriately. So, I had a caliper set up for a 180mm rotor with a 160mm rotor bolted to the hub. Yeah.......that doesn't work out. So, realizing this I did the rest of the ride with only a rear brake, which was fine, really. But it was a good thing to figure out now instead of well in to a hundy.

And that saddle...... yeah, that's not gonna work either. 

More soon......