Monday Catching Up!

It’s been a while since we posted anything.  We’re catching up.

Upcoming Ride News:

One week from tonight!  The Mid-Fall Celebration Night Ride.

This one is the (in)famous “Sleepy Hollow Ride.”  It will be dark and seasonally approprate.  We’ll ride to the covered bridge, and approach it from the dirt road side.  (Please note:  There will be about three miles of unpaved road on this one.)

Start/Finish:  The Hollonville Opry House, in Hollonville, GA.  (ntersection of GA-362 and Kings Bridge Rd.)

Time:  Ride starts at 7:30 PM (sharp!)

Distance:  Approx 41 miles

Conditions/Pace:  Ride goes rain or shine.  Group will stay together at a comfortable pace.

Requirements:  Good strong headlights.  Good bright tail light.  Reflective vest or sash and reflective ankle bands.  Helmets at all times when on the bike.

Update:  The Re-Purposed Bike

We introduced this thing as a completed build almost a year ago, back on the post of 22 Nov 2011. 

Here are some thoughts and impressions after we’ve lived with this project for most of a year.

The base bike and core of this project is a 2011 Giant Escape 1.  That’s not a super-lightweight frame.  We kept the wheels.  They aren’t light either.  Add fenders, a rack, panniers, and a Brooks B-17 saddle, and the result is anything but light.  Of course, this project was not intended to produce a light bike, but rather a serviceable one, rugged and capable.  This was intended to be a bike that could haul stuff, while demanding very low maintenance.  As such, it has worked out very very well.

We’ve ridden it in a lot of rain.  It’s been down a lot of dirt roads.  It’s led a fair number of rides on Peachtree City’s multiuse paths.  It’s been a faithful commuter, going back and forth to the job, while carrying a “short ton” of stuff.  It’s gone grocery shopping.

The bike's handling is solid.  It takes a bit more "authority" to corner it than any of our "fast bikes," but it is predictable and repeatable.  An unlooked for bonus, it doesn't seem to matter whether it is loaded or not, the handling is just about the same either way.

The solid wheels and more voluminous tires handle rough roads (or lack of pavement) with aplomb.

Did we mention that it isn’t light?  It’s not!  But we’ve used it on a goodly number of group rides, and we’ve managed to keep up okay.  We can usually stay well within the “B Group” range, even with a pretty fair load on it.

So far this has been an imminently practical and comfortable ride.  Its low gearing, reliably shifted by bar-ends, has severed well.  The brakes are amazing.  They are a combination of “Drop Vee” road type levers (designed to pull linear type brakes) and Shimano Deore V-Brakes.  They work to haul this bike and its loads to a stop, downhill, in the rain, in any conditions.

In short this project has yielded a very versatile, capable, and reliable bike.  The best testimony we can offer in its behalf is that it is the one bike that is accompanying us on our vacation.  A very similar build would make a superb loaded tourist, and would do so at budget prices.

(See this coming Wednesday’s post for another project update.)