Singlespeed Experience

Yesterday was the maiden voyage of my new singlespeed. I wanted to take it to a trail that I knew pretty well with moderate short climbs, so I ended up at Peter's Canyon. Matt, Andrew and Corby also came along to ride a few laps.

The plan was to ride one loop, then trade bikes with Matt so he could try it out.

The gearing on the bike was a little tougher than what I wanted, but that's ok. I was hoping for a 32-20, but ended up with a 34-20. Singlespeeds that are already built up and ready to go are really tough to find.

I went to 3-4 different shops before ending up at The Path in Tustin. They had a great selection of singlespeed bikes and I ended up buying the Kona from them.

Anyways, enough about boring details ... TO THE RIDE! ...

The bike was making some odd noises on the way to the trailhead, but I'm chalking most of it up to the "breaking in" phase of a new bike. I need to tighten one or two bolts and tighten the chain tension, but other than that I think the noises were fine and normal.

The gearing felt really good up until the first serious climb. I was stuck on some of the flat sections going a little bit slower than I would have liked, but it was still fun. I noticed right away that when I'm in a lower gear on a flat section that my pedaling is very choppy. It's not a smooth motion all the way around at all. Hopefully riding the SS more will help my cadence and technique.

I was prepared for two climbs and the first one didn't disappoint. I made it maybe up 5% of the climb before coming off. Hahahaha. It was a miserable failure. I knew I'd have to stand to make it up, but I just couldn't do it. When I went to stand I had no momentum going into the climb and so I pretty much stood, came to a stop and unclipped. At that point it was useless trying to start again.

Going over to Big Red was a big odd as the rigid fork in the front causes every minor bump and drop to be felt to the max. You really FEEL everything. My head kept bouncing all over because it feels like riding off a 3 foot drop and then landing hard on the bike. It's that kind of an impact even on little things.

The climb up Big Red was the opposite of the first climb. I fell way short of my expectations on the first climb and way exceeded my expectations on the second climb. I only made it about one third of the way up Big Red, but that was a lot farther than I had expected to go.

I ended up walking the rest of the climb and finished the ride just fine. It's worth noting again how rough it is riding on a rigid fork. I'm used to riding a hard tail, but riding rigid in the front is pretty crazy. Hopefully I'll get more used to it.

The second note is that my chain come off on one of the climbs. What the heck? It's a SINGLESPEED! Chain problems aren't supposed to exist. I guess I just need to tighten the tension for the chain and I'll be fine.

The last note is that I let Matt borrow the bike on a second lap around the park and he cleared Big Red. Yeah, yeah. I have nothing more to say about that. Hahaha. I was riding his bike behind him and I was pretty impressed. It is not an easy thing to do at all and yet he did it. I'm starting to wonder what he can't do.

This is for Andrew ...

It's a picture of me when I first started biking.

Two things to note about the picture.

1. I have a gut and about 20 more pounds on me. Yikes.
2. For some reason it looks like I'm "excited". I think the shorts were just really baggy or something. Hahaha.