Back at It

Don't break your ribs kids.

Goodness.

It took a week to be able to sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time, two before I wasn't forced awake every morning by searing pain, three before I could put any weight on that side, and four before I felt safe twisting my torso very much. I forget how long it takes. I always think 3 weeks, but it's more like 4. And then you still feel a little fragile. It's right about 5 now and I felt well enough yesterday to try to get back into the habit of riding every day.

It helped that I have a brand new bike to ride.

I guess it's not brand new in the standard sense. I've been collecting parts for it for like 3 months, but this past week, I managed to get them all together, get Glen to assemble them...

...and Eddie to fit me. And, Monday afternoon it was time to get in some miles.

It felt super, super awkward. Like 10+ years of new technology, all at once. The most notable things were as follows. On flat ground, the wheels seemed super light, despite being bigger and having fatter tires. The fork actually works, so when I stand and pedal, it bobs, unless I lock it out. The tires have 22 psi in them, but it feels like 30. And, somehow they're still really squirmy when I stand and pedal on pavement, even with the fork locked out. I feel like a trucker with those wide bars. The bars are slightly higher, so the front jumps up off of the ground, despite the larger wheels. The wheelbase is slightly longer though, so the back wheel isn't where I expect if I try to drop off of something. Fortunately, I've only tried to drop off of curbs so far. It's fast, but doesn't feel fast. I just find myself spun out, unexpectedly. The slightly higher bars make climbing noticeably awkward. I may need to put a dropper stem on it if I don't get used to it soon. My hands both went numb almost immediately and would do so over and over until I adjusted the left grip, at which point neither hand went numb again. The seat feels like I'm sitting on a board, despite being squishier than the old seat. This may just be because I've been off the bike for 5 weeks. I usually grab the seat tube bottle, but I have no seat tube bottle any more. It's super, super quiet. The drivetrain feels super, super solid. Shifting is a million times better than on that 11-52 cassette I had on the old bike.

I'm not really comfortable on it yet. Some of that will require adjustments. Some of it is just newness.

I mostly stayed on pavement and gravel, but I did hit about 100 feet of singletrack between the Silver Comet and the not-yet-paved connector.

I apparently ran into a turtle at one point.

So, yeah, awkward as hell. Don't break your ribs, take a month off, then try to ride a completely new bike, if you can avoid it.

If you can't, well, make the best of it!