Going on my first outdoor ride this morning!

Joenali

We've been having team rides now since March but I don't own any warm clothing, so I've been missing them. My coach let me borrow some stuff so I'm going today. It's 39 degrees right now. We start at 8am, but I'm sure it will still be cold. There was frost on the ground when I woke up!

I'm excited to finally hit the pavement! I've been on my trainer all fall and winter!

MarchMom06

It is definitely freezing! I'm planning on running at 8:30, & I need to layer up. Stay warm & enjoy!

MayFlowers22

Have fun!

Sadlebred

Have fun! It was 50 when we started riding this morning. I did my first century/charity bike ride of the year. I got my legs ripped off and am exhausted. What a great feeling!

Joenali

Sadlebred:

Have fun! It was 50 when we started riding this morning. I did my first century/charity bike ride of the year. I got my legs ripped off and am exhausted. What a great feeling!

I was able to hold up the rear of our hilly group ride! Nothing like being last! If it was this time last year though, I would be at home in bed still! Even though I was last I really noticed a difference in my fitness for sure!

Oh! And another question for you. I was talking with my coach and she was suggesting instead of getting a new bike right away, but changing the gearing on my bike because of all the hills around here and I constantly feel like I'm grinding instead of spinning. Now, I have no idea what kind of gearing I have to begin with, but she said something about compact. What do you think? Maybe new gearing and new race wheels, instead of a new bike??

Sadlebred

Joenali:

Oh! And another question for you. I was talking with my coach and she was suggesting instead of getting a new bike right away, but changing the gearing on my bike because of all the hills around here and I constantly feel like I'm grinding instead of spinning. Now, I have no idea what kind of gearing I have to begin with, but she said something about compact. What do you think? Maybe new gearing and new race wheels, instead of a new bike??

Could be good! You can look on your chainrings to see if there is a number that represents the number of teeth. Standard gearing combos include 53/39, 52/38, 53/38 (big ring/small ring.) I run a 52/38. Compact would be something like 50/36 or 48/34. There are quite a few possible combos for compact. Do you know what cassette you run? If it's something like an 11-23 even switching out to a 12-27 would make a huge difference with minimal cost. I run 12-27 on my road bike. You should be able to switch out the cassette without changing any other parts. To change out to a compact would be about $300-400 since you have to get a new crankset. Standard cranksets don't work with compact gearing. The cranksets are specific to the compact gears. You'd also probably want to change out your cassette and chain at the same time to keep everything shifting smoothly.

Even if you opted for $1000 carbon race wheels, you'd still save about $600-700.