New bike!

I just took my new (sort of) bike for its first trip outside. And...WOW! What an astonishing piece of engineering.

So, for reasons of comparison, let me give some background on my current collection of bicycles. For the last year-ish I've been riding my Lotus. That's right, my Lotus. What? You've never heard of a Lotus before? Well, me either. Don't worry about it. To quote MC..."this is a classic 80's bike boom bike out of Japan". It's chromoly, and relatively cheaply made. Not horrible, but not exactly a feat of engineering either. But, I bought the thing for $15, so I think I came out ahead on the deal. In any case, the bike was my training bike this past summer, it is what I rode for all the training rides, and it survived my Triathlon at the end of summer. It's long, it's heavy, it pretty comfy...but, in the end, it is horribly out of date from a technology stand point.

I also have my old Schwinn Probe...an old (80's) "mountain" bike. I converted it to a commuter bike by going with some skinny-ish tires, flat bar and more road-like set up. Unfortunately, it just wasn't all that comfortable. It wouldn't do what I wanted in terms of double-duty between 'cross racing and commuting...and, it just wasn't what I was looking for.

The bike I have put most of my miles on in the last 4 months is my Bianchi Volpe. It is a 'cross bike, but it doubles as my commuter bike. It's got big-ish knobby tires, full fenders, a rack, panier, and is built like a tank. I love it. It is solid like I can barely explain. I've ridden it all winter, and, with the exception of the recent "incident" with the pot hole...it has performed flawlessly. And, I can hardly blame the bike for the pot hole incident. the thing weighs about 34lbs WITHOUT the pannier on it. So, it is heavy to put it mildly.

The new bike? A Cannondale CAAD9 r5. It weighs 18ish lbs. For those of you keeping track at home...that is about half of what my Volpe weighs. And, is less than half by the time I have the pannier on the Volpe.

I took it for its first ride in the great out of doors today. Holy cow is this thing fast. It's difficult for me to put in to words the difference between my other two bikes and this bike. So, let me give a comparison that seems fair. My Volpe is a little bit like an SUV. It's big, heavy, comfy, reasonably well suited to foul weather, and not terribly fast. My Lotus is like a Crown Victoria. It's big, heavy, long wheel based, comfy for a long journey, but neither is it terribly fast nor does it handle terribly well. So long as I am going in a straight line, it works great. The r5? By comparison, I would say that it is most similar to a little sports car. Light, fast, quick cornering, and fun like you wouldn't believe.

It was a strange sensation, by comparison, to take this bike out for a ride. It was windy today...really windy. And, the first thing I noticed was that I really need to keep my eye on things with this bike. It may have been that the wind was particularly strong. It may have been that I have just completely lost my feel for what it is like to ride on skinny tires. But, man, when the wind would blow it felt like it might blow me and the bike right up off the ground.

The next thing I noticed was how much faster I was...wow. I was EASILY 3-4 mph faster for the same effort on this bike vs. the Volpe. The bike is so light, so quick, so stiff underneath me that it wasn't even a fair comparison. It was like coparing my car to a garden rake. There just wasn't a whole lot of common ground by which I could differentiate the two items.

It was an odd sensation to be on a bike that so quickly and so completely reacts to my input. When I stepped on the pedals, the bike accelerated. Immediately. When I stopped pedaling, there was an immediate and apparent difference in my speed. Same thing could be said going both up and down hills. The bike would react to me hopping out the saddle to climb in a way that neither of the other two bikes would. I could continue accelerating up hill for as long as my legs were willing to go faster...on my other two bikes I always felt like I hit a limit at which I just couldn't do any more on hills. On the other hand, I didn't notice that huge coast and long reduction in speed after a downhill stretch. On the Lotus in particular there was always the sense that I needed to take advantage of the downhill stretches because the bike just wanted to coast for so long at the higher speed when the road would level out. On the r5 I was able to hit a higher speed on the way down the hill...but, when I reached the bottom, it didn't feel like the bike wanted to stay at that higher speed. If I was going to maintain the higher speed, it would be because I was pedaling it at that higher speed.

On the other hand...the bike just seemd to tranlate every single, tiny, little bit of energy that I put in to pedaling directly to the road. I can see, now, why this type of bike might reward better form and better effeciency on the pedals. It does such a great job of translating my effort directly to the pavement that any wasted effort truly seems...well...wasted.

I'm not sure what else to say. What a different bike. What a different way to ride. I'm truly excited to get out on some group rides with this thing. There is a possibility that I will suck significantly less this year.