No More Titanium

I took the titanium bike back to my friend Rick today. With the beginning of the new month, the bank account is flush again, and I took my own bike over to the bike mechanic to have it worked on. (I feel a bit sheepish about that now, because it took him only 10 minutes to fix it, and he charged me a whopping $8.)

After a handful of rides on Rick’s bike, I thought I’d give some impressions. The two big differences between his and mine — besides the size — were the titanium frame and the triple crankset.

The titanium frame had much the same effect as the steel frame I tried a few months ago. It smoothed out the roughness we encounter on our roads around here. But compared to the steel, the titanium was even smoother. That loose gravel I mentioned that we hit on Sunday was swallowed up by the titanium and the 25 mm tires. I know if I had run into the same conditions on my aluminum bike with the 23 mm tires, I would have been able to feel every pebble.

I’ve also concluded that if I ever get another bike, it will have a triple. The reason is simple: better gear selection. My Allez has a nine-speed compact. While some of the gears have a single-tooth spacing, others have a two-tooth gap. One has a three-tooth gap. On the Airborne, most of the gears were spaced only one tooth apart. For me, that had the effect of more precise gearing throughout my rides. As I told Rick, “I always feel that I’m in the right gear. With the compact double, I feel like I’m between gears sometimes.”

Of course, the triple made climbing hills easier, although I did not get a chance to try it out on some of the really challenging hills around here — the hills that I have trouble getting all the way up on my own bike. I did take it up some of the steeper hills on my Saturday morning route, and it made a couple of testers seem positively easy.

I used the 12-25 cassette for those hills. Another wheel had an 11-23. So that one would have gotten me a little bit more speed on the flats, when I’m in the 11-tooth gear, but really — my highest speeds come when I’m coasting down hills anyway. One tooth difference between cassettes doesn’t mean much.

So I enjoyed my time on Rick’s bike, but I’m eager to get out on my own on a Fourth of July morning tomorrow. Maybe, as Rick suggested, the perceived differences between his and my bikes were simply due to a “placebo effect,” and my own bike won’t feel much different, after all.

A New Ride (Temporarily)

Went out Saturday morning for my ride. Even got an early (for me) 7:30 a.m. start. Lubed the new chain, clipped on the computer, put in the water bottles, and got on. But on my first attempt to shift, even before I’d left the driveway — SPRONG! — the shift cable broke where it joins the right side shifter.

See that cable that’s parked under the right handlebar? The one that just ends? Yeah, that’s it. (Click to make the photo bigger.)

Son of a!@#$%^&*! This is the second time this has happened to me. The first was in the fall of 2010. And I know what it means — it means I’ll be buying a new shifter. Trouble is, they’re expensive, and after some unexpected costs this month, we find ourselves with too much month at the end of the money. I’ll have to hold off on the purchase for 10-14 more days.

But what good is being in a bike club if it doesn’t have members with spare bikes? A couple of emails later, my friend Rick agreed to let me use his 10-year-old titanium bike. He’s riding his new carbon fiber Cervelo, and is even faster than he used to be. And he used to be fast.

I picked up the bike Saturday afternoon, and rode it around the block to see what kind of changes I’d have to make to get it right for me.

Right off the bat, a pretty major one. My bike is 56 cm. Rick, who is a big, tall guy, rides what appears to be a 61 cm bike. My feet reached the pedals, but just barely.

I lowered the seat all the way, and moved it up as far as it would go. It’s still a bit big, but I can ride it with a modicum of comfort now.

I skipped the club ride Sunday. They were going to do the Dam Loop — one of my least favorite Austin bike routes — and it was going to be hot!! today. Because I was on a new bike, I opted to do the Saturday morning route I would have done yesterday. If my shifter hadn’t broken.

Riding a familiar route on an unfamiliar bike makes the experience seem brand new. The bike is an Airborne, titanium frame as I’ve said, all Ultegra, nice Easton EA 90 wheels with Michelin Krylion tires, and a triple crankset with a 53-tooth big ring. The model is the Zeppelin, of all things. Airborne apparently got out of the road bike business, because their website features mountain bikes and such, with their cross bike model the closest thing to a road bike. As Rick once told me, “Back in 2002, this was state of the art.”

The Airborne Zeppelin.

I think I’ll like my experience with the triple. My average speed for today’s 29.5-mile ride was 15.3 mph. (Just an estimate, since the bike is not equipped with a computer. I know the route distance, and noted my start and end times on my watch — then deducted time stopped at lights to get my total on-bike time.) Anyhoo, it did get me up some hills with a minimum of fuss.

That average speed compares nicely with my recent speeds on that route. In fact, it’s a smidgen faster than most. I’m looking forward to riding this bike over the next two weeks. I’ll post an update on riding a triple titanium later, after I’ve gotten a few more rides under my belt.

A Change of Biking Pace — The Catrike

In the last post, I mentioned that my friend Don Bynum doesn’t ride a conventional bike — he rides a three-wheeled recumbent, a Catrike. I first saw one of these years ago, when a guy rode one on the first century ride I did. I was impressed by its quickness.

Don likes to tweak those of us who still ride our “prostate crushers” and proselytizes for the three-wheeler. It bears a closer look, methinks.

Recumbent bikes come in two- and three-wheeled versions. The three-wheelers can have either two wheels in the rear — a “delta” — or two wheels in front — a “tadpole.” I think it’s safe to say, without any empirical corroboration, that the “tadpole” trike is the favored variety. A seat (and it’s properly called a “seat” and not a saddle, because you sit in it like a chair) is slung in the middle. The pedals are mounted on a boom that sticks out in front. The resulting balance is excellent — and you don’t have to be moving forward to stay upright.

The Catrike “Road” (Click to enlarge.)

Don tells a familiar story about adopting a recumbent. Conventional upright bike saddles hurt too much. He says he spent about $1500 over a five or six-year period on “anatomically correct” saddles, but “a 10-mile ride would leave me completely without feeling in my ‘tender parts’ for a couple of days.”

He rode a two-wheeled recumbent, but when he decided to move to the Hill Country of Texas, he got the Catrike. “Since I was obviously going to be riding in hilly terrain and getting clipped back in if I needed to pause to keep my heart from exploding, or to enjoy some sight, getting back going was going to be very difficult [on a 2-wheeler],” he said. “There is a great benefit in this area, where hills of 18%+ grade are not uncommon, to being able to simply put on the brakes, relax for a minute, then just start up with no ‘clip-in drama.’”

Don on (in?) the Catrike Road.

During our ride, Don often pulled out into the traffic lane and sailed by the rest of us, even when we were motoring along at a nice clip. On downhills, the thing simply takes off. Don says he’s comfortable hitting speeds above 45 mph, even on curvy roads. He’s posted several videos of him flying down grades.

Its downhill speed is obviously helped by its weight. Don says the Catrike Road weighs about 32 pounds, and he loads it up with other equipment. “I purposely carry more water than I need and often ‘bail out’ my fellow riders who go off into the hills with only two half-liter bottles on board, where no 7-11 can be found,” he said.  ”I often carry six 700mL bottles and can add three more in a bag on the luggage rack if needed.”

That extra weight is also a big disadvantage. Whenever we hit even a slight upgrade, Don fell behind. The Catrike is geared low enough that he can climb most any hill he encounters, and often pedals up hills his diamond frame friends are forced to walk. “It needs lots of gears and the low end needs to be really low,” Don said.  ”I think my rear cassette has a 32 tooth low gear.” But he says he’s getting better at keeping up with other riders, and on our ride, he would pull in to rest stops less than a minute after we arrived. And he admits it does have a harsh ride on rough pavement.

What about safety issues?

The Catrike is low to the ground, no doubt about it. That means it can be hard to see. Don says the big problem there is riding alongside parked cars. Where a road biker is perched high enough to be seen in a rear-view mirror (and theoretically avoid being doored), the Catrike is down out of sight. But he contends that most of the time, that odd appearance works to his benefit.

You won’t be able to catch much of a draft when following a trike.

“The thing looks so weird that it seems to register on drivers’ addled brains when even a large Harley, much less a Cannondale road bike does not,” he said.  ”My big traffic problem has, so far, been people stopping me to inquire about what the heck it is, how much it cost and where to get one — most turn pale at the response to the cost question.” (MSRP on a Catrike Road is $2,950, according to the Catrike website.)

Another important safety consideration — always wear cleats. “There is a natural tendency to, in a moment of crisis, try to put one’s feet down to help stop,” Don said.”  The result is very likely to be running over your own feet and legs, pinning them under the front axles so badly that another person must lift one front wheel off the ground, help get one leg out, then go to the other side and repeat the process.” With cleats, the rider just focuses on braking.

But you’re not likely to fall off a Catrike (Don cautions that delta-style recumbents have a higher center of gravity and are more susceptible to rolling). And even mossy low-water crossings are not a problem. “You get wet,” Don said, “but a steady hand and just coasting through seems very safe.  And if you hit the water at 25-30mph it is very cooling as well.”

Don says trike owners are probably going to have to become their own mechanics, because of the very long chains found on recumbent bikes. Even though the drive train components are the same as you find on an upright bike, bike shops generally aren’t good at setting up recumbents, Don says.

Finally, Don urges trike owners to get out there and ride: “I regret that most Catrike riders seem to be absolutely freaked at the idea of a hill bigger than a freeway overpass in Houston or a ride longer than 10-15 miles.  But that is their loss.”

Build Your Own Bike Poll Results

When I asked last week whether you would be interested in building your own bike — or modifying an existing one — I didn’t realize that I’d touched a nerve. Apparently, a lot of riders out there have at least considered modifying a bike, but a good number have already done so — from scratch.

The final results of the poll are in. We had an n of 75. Here are the numbers:

(Click to enlarge.)

Just a reminder — because the respondents were not randomly selected, the results of this poll cannot be generalized to a wider biking population. That said, I think the numbers are interesting.

A custom-built carbon fiber framed bike by Alchemy Bicycles of Austin.

Twenty-five percent said they already have built a bike from a custom frame. Another eight percent say they plan to do that. I guess making a bike your own has a lot of attraction for a lot of cyclists, and I can empathize with that. The inspiration for the poll, Tim at An Old Guy on Two Wheels, has finished his custom build and has been riding it around town already. He loves it, and that is as it should be.

An old Trek 10-speed modified with brifters and updated components.

For the 26 percent who aren’t interested in working on a bike of their own — well, there’s still time to change your mind.

Would You Build a Bike From Scratch? (Poll)

My friend Tim over at An Old Guy on Two Wheels is getting close to finishing his latest project: He’s building a randonneuring bike from scratch. He had the frame custom built, and gathered together all the components for it. In recent days, he’s been apprising us of his progress. It looks like he’s going to take it out for a serious ride sooner rather than later.

Tim is an accomplished bike mechanic, and I wasn’t surprised when he first revealed his build-from-scratch plans. I, on the other hand, have often thought about refurbishing my old Raleigh 10-speed, just to do it — not that I would make it my regular ride, or anything. I just don’t have Tim’s know-how when it comes to working on bikes. (Although I’m getting better — been paying a lot of attention to online videos and some repair books I have around the house, and have done some bike repairs to the Allez that I wouldn’t have tried a year ago.)

Anyhow, I think it’s a cool idea, to either build a bike from scratch as Tim as done, or fix up an old beater into something rideable. Believe me, I’ll get around to it.

How about you? Have you ever considered building your own bike? How about taking an old bike and modifying it into something different? For example, turning a 10-speed into a fixie, or restoring a vintage bike to its original condition?

Weigh in on the following poll, if you will.

I’ll report the answers next week.

Steel vs. Aluminum

A couple of weeks ago, my friend David mentioned that his steel Fuji was still available for me to test ride a while. David now rides a carbon fiber Giant Defy Advanced, and loves it. But he loved his Fuji, too, and thought I would enjoy comparing it to the ride I get on my Specialized Allez. So, I swung by his house to pick it up.

The bike is a Fuji Marseille from the early 2000s, and in some respects, is similar to the 2008 Allez. It’s the same size: 56 cm; it has a nine-speed cassette, although his is Shimano Ultegra and mine is 105. The Allez has more carbon fiber parts, with fork, seat post, and seat stays all being of that material. Only the Fuji’s fork is carbon. The Fuji’s top tube is horizontal, while the Allez’s slopes. David runs 25 mm tires on the Fuji, while I am currently sporting 23s.

Digging through some Road Bike Reviews from 2004, I found the bike variously described as comfortable, a good century bike, not fast or light, built for distance — not speed, a great bike for club rides, and smooth.

The whole point of my trying out the Fuji was to see for myself if there is a difference between an aluminum-framed bike and one of steel.

I had my answer after my first mile: Yes, there is. The steel bike rides smoother.

The difference was most apparent on chip seal roads. Those aren’t a lot of fun to ride on the Allez. The Fuji flattened out the rough spots. Of course, on asphalt roads, both bikes ride about the same, in my opinion. On really rough roads, that are pocked with potholes, or have uneven, patched pavement, the ride is just as bouncy and jarring in the Fuji as the Allez.

I’ve taken the Fuji on several club rides, as well as rides in my neighborhood on my usual 15, 18, 19, and 27-mile routes. Besides the overall smoother ride, I noticed other things:

The steel bike is heavier. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, although the proponents of steel frames will tell you that the modern frames are only fractionally heavier than their aluminum or carbon fiber competition. I weighed both the Fuji and the Allez on Casa Niekamp’s bathroom scale (okay, you can draw your own conclusions about the accuracy of the measure!) and found the Fuji weighed a commendale 19.5 pounds. The Allez checked in at 16.5. However, I weighed the Allez without pedals or seat bag, since both had been moved over to the Fuji. So the weight difference might not be that much.

That heavier weight showed itself in two ways: Riding into the wind is tougher. I have to work a lot harder than I do when tackling a headwind on the Fuji than the Allez. But on the plus side, I can go downhill faster in the Fuji. On some favorites in my neighborhood, I noticed a 2 mph speed difference between the two bikes — the Fuji owned those descents. Curiously, I didn’t notice much difference when climbing up hills. The Fuji is responsive, and will answer the pedals promptly.

Left: The Fuji Marseille. Right: the Specialized Allez.

I think part of the credit for the smoother ride goes to the tires. The 25 mm Michelins on the Fuji recommend a maximum pressure of 102 pounds. I ran them at an even 100. My Allez is currently running 23 mm Vredestein Fortezza SEs, with a pressure range of 115-140 pounds! I run those at 120. The combination of skinnier tires and higher pressures probably has a lot to do with the harshness I sometimes feel on the Allez.

What I see from my standard riding position on the Fuji.

Now, because the Fuji is a borrowed bike, I didn’t do a lot of tweaking to make it fit me. David is about an inch shorter than me, so I did raise the saddle height. His arms are also shorter, and the Fuji sports a short stem. David threw in the original stem, which is about the same size as the one on the Allez, but I didn’t put it on. It turned out I really liked the more upright riding position the short stem gave me. As my time on the bike wore on, I realized that I could clearly see the front wheel’s hub ahead of my handlebars, so I probably should have swapped stems. And whenever I stood on the pedals to accelerate or climb, my knees tended to bump the handlebars, and I was too far forward to climb efficiently.

Overall, I really enjoyed riding the steel bike. For me, comfort is an important criterion for selecting a bike, and the Fuji was the more comfortable of the two bikes. I’m not ready to pull the trigger on a steel bike just yet, however. For me, it didn’t quite live up to its billing as an excellent bike for century rides, and I think anything that can be comfortable for that much time in the saddle would be comfortable for the shorter rides I more commonly do. But fit is everything, and if I could be fitted to a steel-framed bike for maximum comfort, it would certainly be an option to seriously consider.

Going to Try Something New

I’ve had my bike for four years now. It’s a good bike. Not as fast as many, but no slouch. It’s got an aluminum frame, but lots of carbon add-ons, like the fork, seat stays, seat post. But every now and again I get a hankerin’ for a different look and feel to my biking.

That may have come, courtesy my friend David. As we rode together last weekend, he mentioned, “The Fuji is still sitting in my garage. You can try it out whenever you like.”

What’s different about David’s Fuji is that it’s a steel bike. Now, I’ve had some experience with steel. My 1981 Raleigh 10-speed is steel. But because the model was not one of Raleigh’s high end bikes, it was built heavy. I started my current road biking efforts on the Raleigh five years ago, and I can still remember when another friend of mine, who’d been biking for a long time, picked up my bike while we were taking a break. He did a double take, and raising his eyebrows, said, “That’s some kinda weight you’re hauling around, Bubba.”

In turn, I hefted his titanium LiteSpeed. It was like picking up an aluminum beer can, without the beer. I was astounded that a bike could be that light. It was my first realization that a 26-year-old bike might not be the state of the art model that it used to be — if in fact it ever was. Since then, I’ve developed some ideas about what I want in my ideal bike.

I’m thinking either titanium or steel. Titanium is probably out of my price range, but the lightness of it appeals to me. Steel bikes made in 2012 are a lot different than the ones made in 1981. The steel used now doesn’t approach the old one in heaviness. A lot has been written about the supple ride quality of a good steel bike — a quality that I missed out on with the Raleigh, because I didn’t have anything against which to compare it.

David’s bike is probably not as light as the titanium number, but it’s  2005 model, so was built to be lightweight steel. It feels no different from my aluminum bike when I lift it.

I stopped by David’s house after work today to pick up the bike. I’ll be riding it over the next two weeks or so, just to see if there is any difference between riding it and riding my current bike. I haven’t thrown a leg over it yet — I need to move my pedals over to this bike (David rides Looks, while I use Shimano SPD-SLs. They’re not compatible). I’ll also have to determine if the really short stem will work for me. David threw in the stock stem just in case it doesn’t.

As I get a feel for the new-to-me ride, I’ll be collecting my impressions in order to do a full and thorough review. And maybe determine if a modern, lightweight steel bike is in fact what I need to be saving my pennies for.

Favorite Bike Websites

Spent some lazy weekend time (when not riding) perusing websites on the iPad. Weekend mornings before of after my bike rides are a good time for that. And of course, the websites I poked around on had to do with biking.

I think most regular readers of this blog will have figured out by now that I’m no speed demon. I like to go fast, but don’t work to get faster — that’s not one of my biking goals. What I do like are longish rides, preferably on roads out in the country away from heavy traffic.

I’m intrigued by randonneurs — those folks who routinely ride 200, 300, 400 kilometers or more on a single ride. I’m not sure I’m up to their kind of on-bike torture testing, but the websites I’ve seen encourage me that maybe some day I can at least try it. So a couple of websites I spent a lot of time with last weekend were rando oriented: Velo Orange Cycles and Peter White Cycles.

Velo Orange is an Annapolis, Maryland company that sells bike parts and equipment that appeal to long distance riders. They also have a limited selection of frames. It’s all good and well to navigate their site and get a feel for what they offer the long distance rider. But if you dig a little deeper, there’s a nice selection of articles about their style of biking. Click the link for “Tech Info.” You can learn how to install various pieces of gear they sell, like their elk hide handlebar covers, as well as get a feel for their philosophy about stuff like handlebars, headsets, and bottom brackets. I’m not mechanically adept, but I find these articles to be good reads. Velo Orange also has a blog on the site that covers their product lines as well as cycling for fun and distance. I like their “Rando” frame, and the pictures of various builds of this frame. If I’m ever destined to get another bike, it could very well be one of these.

Peter White Cycles is up in New Hampshire. He specializes in building wheels, and guarantees them to hold up — even under tough conditions. White offers  frames as well, geared toward long distance riding, commuting, and a bicycle lifestyle. In addition to frames, he stocks various components, such as cranksets, bottom brackets, cranks, chains, lights, racks, bags — the whole gamut. But even if you’re not interested in his inventory, take a look at the tab on his website called “Articles.” He’s got a very personal take on bike fitting, and is passionate about choosing the right light for night cycling. His comments are priceless, too, such as, “If you’re not racing, what the heck are you doing with a racing bike?”

So if the “traditional” approach to cycling appeals to you, you might want to check out these two websites. Even if you’re not sold, you’ll probably take away some useful information.

How Many Bikes?

I thought I’d piggyback on the theme of the last post about getting a new bike by asking the question, How Many Bikes? That is, how many bikes do you think you need, and how do you use them?

Now, I’m well acquainted with the old joke about the number of bikes you need equalling n + 1, where n is the number of bikes you already have. But seriously, how many do you need?

I’ll start. I have three bikes, my Allez, which I use for 95 percent of my riding. It’s a road bike, and goes on road rides. I do not use it for grocery runs or other utility types of riding. Then there’s the mountain bike, an old Trek hardtail. Since I am not a mountain biker, I tend to use this for errands and shopping, if I use it at all. Mostly, it just hangs in the garage. My third bike is the old steel Raleigh 10-speed, which I had long thought about upgrading, just to do it.

Lately though, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Trek isn’t being used much for errands and shopping. I’d just as soon be rid of it. And the Raleigh — I doubt I’ll even get around to fixing it up. Vintage bike collectors tell me it’s not worth much anyway, and one has tried to dissuade me from putting money into it.

So that leaves me with one bike — the Allez. And that’s fine with me. It does what I need it to do, and does it acceptably well. As I alluded to in my last post, I’d be happy with something better, but there’s really nothing to dislike about the Allez. As the song says, I think I’ll keep her.

How about you? Do you find a need for more than one bike? How do you use yours? Or do you find that your bike collection is missing one, because there’s a certain biking role that’s not being filled by any of the ones you currently have? Given the kinds of riding you do, what would be the optimum number of bikes to own?

“I Need a New Bike”

A little scene happened on our Sunday club ride that I think lots of riders can relate to. (Names have been changed to protect the writer of this blog).

I sat down at one of the tables outside the Starbucks where we begin our rides. Two women came over to me.

“Hi,” said one. “I’m Lanie, and I’m going on the B ride today. This is my friend, Melanie.”

Melanie wore a jersey from a well-known bicycle training studio.

Lanie turned out to be the wife of one of our club’s A riders, Milt. But she hadn’t ridden much on her own. Melanie was there to lend moral support. The ride would be on a rural road with rolling hills. I welcomed them both, and promised that the ride would not be too fast for them.

As usual, the pack held together for the first few miles, and Lanie and Melanie did a nice job of hanging with it. Both were well ahead of me. But I caught up to them at a stoplight that everyone else had managed to miss. From there on out, we made a compact group, along with Brad, another B rider.

We reached the rollers. Lanie dropped off the pace. She had trouble climbing the hills. At one point, a sheriff’s patrol car caught up to us, passed me, and sat behind Lanie as she struggled up another hill. We were barely traveling at walking speed. I shifted down to my easiest gear to maintain my position behind the squad car. The deputy was very patient behind Lanie, and finally turned off on the first side road that we reached.

“I thought he was going to ticket you for riding too slow,” I joked.

“I know,” she exclaimed. “These hills are killing me.”

The rest of our ride — about a 30-mile round trip — went smoothly. Melanie showed she could leave us behind whenever she wanted, but mostly stayed back with Lanie. With only three miles to go, we had to negotiate two tough hills in a semi-suburban neighborhood. When I told Lanie we had just climbed the last hill, she didn’t believe me.

Back at Starbuck’s, Lanie talked about her riding.

“That was a hills route,” she said. “Milt told me it was mostly flat, with some easy rollers. If I’m going to keep riding routes like that, I need a new bike.”

“What kind do you have?” I asked. I hadn’t paid close attention to what she was riding. She did a double take.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“What kind of drivetrain do you have?” I continued.

She stared at me. Melanie jumped up and went over to the bike. Lanie followed. In a minute, they were back.

“It’s a Specialized Dolce with a triple chainring, Shimano 105,” Melanie said.

“It’s got a carbon fork, and a carbon seatpost,” Lanie added.

“Well, that’s a decent bike,” I responded. “Your drivetrain is one level up from mine.”

“I’ve got about 250 miles on it,” said Lanie. “Milt says when I reach 1,000 miles, we can talk about a new bike.”

“You don’t need a new bike,” Melanie chimed in. “Just ride more. And ride more hills.”

“Ugh. I’m too old for that,” said Lanie. “This getting old is for the birds.” (She later admitted to mid-50s.)

The A riders started to arrive. When Milt pulled in and sat down, we told him about Lanie’s new bike strategy.

“That’s fine,” he said. “When you get 5,000 miles on it, we’ll talk about a new one.”

We all laughed, and Lanie grimaced. Melanie mentioned riding hills more again. I sipped my egg nog latte and mused about the common desire cyclists get after they’ve ridden awhile. A new bike will solve everything.

I don’t need a new bike. I’d like one, of course, but I don’t need one. We have better things to spend our money on now anyway. But I remembered that I’ve been in Lanie’s shoes before. Almost as soon as I started riding, I decided that with the “right” equipment, I could become pretty good. I pored through catalogs and bike company websites, drooling over carbon fiber wonder bikes that weighed a feather and sped like rockets. But I learned that it’s not the bike, it’s the engine.

I’m sure Lanie will get a new bike one of these days. She’ll take it out and ride the rollers with us again. And she’ll find that regardless of the level of equipment she has, the rollers are still hard.