And so, it ends...

Nothing serious, like, I'm just talking about the lengthy saga of actually getting a road bike!

I decided to get one about a year ago, but, due to financial constraints and there never being any bikes in my size in any shop in Dublin, I held off. Finally, I placed my order about two months ago or so. However, when it arrived last week, there was a small issue;

However, this was easily solved by the addition of this to the equation.

Finally, we have a wheel sitting nicely in its dropout and a new mech hanger to attach :)

Giving us something that looks like this.

And a little more aero-barred up.

I have little intention of using the aero-bars that much for the next while, I just wanted to try them out. I got them for longer distance stuff so I'd have some more hand positions and something to collapse onto when I get particularly tired :D They'l also come in useful if I do any time trials or triathlons, both of which I intend to do at some point. Cos, you know, I can't get enough punishment from doing 3p...

On the road it's... strange. Very strange, in fact. I've gotten very used to my fixed gear with 175 mm cranks. Now, I have about 15 usable gears, and 172.5 mm cranks. And yes, those 2.5 mm actually make a lot of difference. It just feels like I'm not putting out the same torque with each turn, which is correct. And changing gears doesn't quite compensate either. It'll certainly take some getting used to. Forgetting the initial shock of having a freewheel and not actually having to compensate for this when starting off, it's a damn nice bike. It rolls really well, and I can really tell the weight difference between that and the fixie (it's about 2.5 kg lighter, with pedals, cages and computer). The first time I took it out, I didn't feel like I was going that fast, but with the same feeling the second time, I was doing my usual 30+ kmph speed, into a horrible headwind, in driving rain.

On that second time I did one of my usual 20 km loops slightly slower than the fixie, but the fixie ride was done pushing for a time, in good conditions. Given the same incentive, I reckon I should be well able to blow it out of the water. I'm looking into finding a nice 16 km stretch of road that I can use for some prolonged higher intensity stuff (16 km being 10 miles, which is a standard time trial distance).

More pics of both bikes and of the room they now have (well, for a week) can be found here. 

Didn't get out for a long spin on it this week, due to being knackered and fed up of getting soaked, but should get out a fair bit during this week. There's a large conference on that most people form work are gone to, so it'll be a nice quiet week for a change!