One week out from the Tour De Lopez

The Tour De Lopez is next Saturday, April 27th.  I am not really where I envisioned I would be, crashing on March 12th didn't help any.  I thought I would have more miles, longer rides and more hills that I have and that I would have dropped some more pounds.  That said I have been riding, done some modest grades and even riding a truncated version of what I thought I might do is still riding the event.  And I've paid for it and there is beer.

I had been putting the majority of riding in on the newly acquired Trek 520 which had the bonus of adding Kilometers to the clunker challenge, however lately the human bike interface has been rather unpleasant.   To the point I wasn't sure I would be doing the ride at all.

On Friday the shorter seat binder bolt for the Novara arrived and it still has space between the two halves so I am getting it tight on the post, unfortunately the cool Shimano 600 post I picked up has a long narrow areo section that means I can't get it low enough in the seat tube, so I am back to the stock seat post.  So much for all that sanding.  I really should have know as I have to have my seat posts set pretty low on a 58 cm frame, less than the classic fist full, for the fit to be right.

I was able to take the Novara on my 4 km loop this morning and like most West Seattle streets it has its share of expansion joints, potholes and ruts, in other words plenty of opportunity for the post to slip if it wanted to.  It held firm.  And although the saddle new and leather and hard it was not as problematic with my derriere as the saddle on the Trek.

Trek stock narrow bars

Novara 44 cm VO bars

No surprise I find the wider bars more comfortable and don't notice the tightness between my shoulder blades I get with the Treks bars.

My feet also much preferred the sneaker pedals on the Novara, the stamped steel pedals I slapped on the Trek tend to trap my feet into one position and I just like the wider platform of the MKS.

In the next week I hope to get a longer ride in on the Novara, tackle Avalon, my mile long 6% grade gold standard hill, and to wrap the bars on the Novara. And fingers crossed the seat post remains firmly in place.

Ride. Smile. Repeat