old and busted...new hotness

I was pretty nervous taking the new bike out this weekend. Besides knowing that it would cause a stir at the start of the ride (this site is not the only place that I've mentioned the new bike more than once :P), I wasn't sure I would be comfortable with the gearing and handling differences right away. I didn't really have time to ride it Friday night, so I'd be leading a group my first time on the bike. The last thing I wanted to do was make a spectacle of myself by running the sweet new ride into a ditch during the first mile. :)

I shouldn't have worried. The bike's steering is more sensitive than I'm used to, but not so much that I couldn't adapt. It took me a few miles to figure out what gear would be best for holding 15-16 mph on the flats, but I was fine once I had that down.

And speaking of that, let me just take a moment to sing the praises of my new components. They're smoother, quicker, and almost dead silent. I'm not sure if it's the new (ie, clean) chain or the component upgrade that quieted things down, but I can totally sneak up on people now as long as I don't coast. :) The only time it's a little bit noisy is when I'm cross-chained on the small gears front and back, or right after I make the transition between chainrings in the front. Good thing BSG showed me during the fit how to nudge the front derailer* , or I would have that was something which needed fixing. Which is probably why he mentioned it, come to think. The short-reach shifters were also a great idea...they really do fit my hands better, and I can actually get a grip on the brakes from the drop bars now.

As far as performance goes, I can definitely feel a difference. The lighter bike didn't make as much difference on my climbing performance as I had hoped it would, but it does help. Depending on the grade and whether I had found the right gear, my climbing speed went up at least 1/2 a mph at the same level of effort. Flats and descents improved by about the same amount, and I was able to hold onto higher speeds for longer. There were a couple stretches where I was able to hold onto 20-21 mph for a few miles. Without a tailwind, even! :) The biggest difference I noticed, though, was in acceleration. It's a lot easier to get a burst of speed out of this bike than the Pilot.

Of course, part of me was afraid that this is only my imagination...I want the new bike to be better, and therefore it is. After looking at the graphs from the two rides this weekend and comparing them to the graphs from the last time I did both courses, I do think that at least SOME of the improvement is not just in my head. To wit:

Club ride--8/11 on the left, 9/8 on the right:

This comparison is a bit misleading, because I am dumb and I forgot to press the "stop" button on the GPS on Saturday before I loaded the bike in the car and drove away. So it was still recording as I started driving home, and that explains the top speed of 40.1 mph. The new bike may be fast, but it's not THAT fast. :)

However, you can see that the most miles were covered at 16 mph on the first ride, and 17 mph on the second. (I should also note that ~14 miles of this route occur after the "official" ride is over...there's a smaller, slightly faster group that rides an additional 7 miles out to the smoothie place, then back again. So our beginner ride does not actually average 16 mph...the main part of the ride is more like 14-15.)

And now, the more significant of the graph comparisons. This was still a group ride, but there are several pace groups and I'm not responsible for anyone but myself. So, I just did the speed I was comfortable with, riding primarily with one other guy who's about my speed. I rode with the same guy both weeks, so that's also constant. Here's that one--9/2 on the left, 9/9 on the right:

On this one, the high point of the bell curve is shifted TWO mph to the right in the 2nd graph. There is also more activity in the 20-25 mph range, which is nice to see. I had hoped that my average might be closer to 20 overall, but my recorded moving average ended up only 16.8 mph. Still, it's almost a full mph faster than last week. I'm also pleased to see that nothing under 14 mph gets over a mile of road in the 2nd graph, unlike the first one where 13 and 14 mph had a significant presence...mostly in the "hills"**. I'm still dropping to the low 14s on the longer inclines, and there was one uphill right after a stoplight where I dropped to 9 near the top. It was about 22-23 miles into the course, and I had sprinted through the light right before I hit the hill. I was a little bit scared that I was completely used up right there, but I recovered by the next roller. I took that one at 17 (had to redeem myself) and felt fine for the rest of the ride.

Anyway, the scale on this comparison is also a bit different on the 2nd graph than the first...the high distance is 5.5 miles instead of 6, so even though the peaks are taller in the graph, they might be shorter if they were to the same scale. There's probably a way to make motionbased display them to the same scale, but I'm either not smart enough to figure that out or I'm not yet ready to pay $12/month for the standard subscription. And I still haven't figured out how to make the Training Center software display anything to my satisfaction, so this is the best I've got. :) As a general comparison between weeks, I think it paints a fairly accurate big picture...particularly because the overall shape of the distribution is nearly identical in the befores and afters. Considering the terrain was exactly the same and the weather was similar, this makes total sense. Bottom line? It appears that I am faster on the new bike, but only a little.

Song: Watch Me Go (link removed)

Side note: The naming poll is currently neck-and-neck. Need more votes! Make your voice heard! :)

*with either the compact double or Ultegra (I'm not sure which makes the difference...maybe both), I don't have to hold the lever to upshift the front like I did with the 105 triple. However, if it gets noisy after shifting, moving the whole lever micro-adjusts the derailer.

**I'm being charitable here...there is a little bit of rolling terrain on the course, but nothing is very long and the inclines don't even hit 4%.