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| A very different looking and feeling day Monday than it has been. |
Monday it was cooler- in the seventies- and the Northwest wind was blowing hard. The humidity was down, but not gone. There were gray clouds hustling Southward on the wind, and it looked almost exactly like a November day. Except it was warmer. But a LOT better than the weekend was! Time for a proper test ride of the GRX Limited.
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| The Trolley Car Trail. I really miss doing this climb. |
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| Shirey Way: Like an urban Level B, but it IS gated, so is it really an urban Level C? |
I decided that I did not want to do battle in the wind with an unproven to me drive train with gearing I was unaccustomed to. So, I did an urban ride with lots of off-piste' trails and paths. It started out as my old route to Andy's Bike Shop which was a commute I really enjoyed doing. That's probably the main thing I miss about working there, to be honest. I really enjoyed riding that route.
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| These varieties of sunflowers come out in August and have a special meaning for me. |
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| Hartman Reserve: How trails ought to be. Pavement is not necessary. |
I veered off my old commuter route and headed down Shirey Way to the now two-track through the old quarry area. This used to be a wider gravel road which people lived on. I remember at least three homes along this road which are now gone. At one time, I walked this road in the 1980's back when people thought there was devil worship going on back in the woods there. Funny how times have changed.....
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| These deserted streets used to be filled with "river houses" which were small cottages up on stilts to avoid flooding. |
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| A hint of blue sky and Sun as I rode across the dike on Black Hawk Creek's West side. |
Then I went through Hartman Reserve which has preserved the area between the town and the river in its rustic state for decades now. There used to be sand and gravel quarrying back in here, but that's been long, long ago now.
I ended up coming back through an old, abandoned urban area where the homes used to stand on pilings and high foundations to avoid flooding by the Cedar River which runs hard against this part of the wild urban bits of Waterloo and Cedar Falls. The floods of '93 and '08 saw to it that this area was abandoned accordingly.The residents were bought out by the Federal Government and the homes were removed. All that is left are the streets which ran through here.
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| Running some American Classic tires on the Standard Rando for review. |
So, what about that GRX Limited gearing? Well......it is going to take some getting used to! Running in the big ring is mostly as before, but when it is time to dump into the inner ring- Whooo! Spinning like a whirling dervish. The difference in cadence is shocking and then I have to dump a couple gears in the back to get to a more normal for me cadence. While doing this I lose momentum, and that's not good. I will have to relearn how to use a derailleur drive train because of this set up.
I know this may seem very unlikely to most of you, but I am very sensitive to a straight chain line. Once things get off a bit back there, I can "feel" it somehow. I "know" when I'm in a straight chain line, and I cannot tell you how I do this, but I have proven to myself that I can do this by checking myself on several occasions across many different bicycles. So, shifting is affected by that, since I probably will not feel right shifting into a cross-chain situation off the big ring. That means I shift the front a lot, and that is why I really prefer a 46/36 combo as it maintains cadence better.
But other than that, it is great shifting and I am happy with the components. The brakes are bedding in yet, but they seem very quiet and I am sure they will end up much like the ones on my Nobel GX5. Nuff said...
So, next up: Gravel Time!
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