Today is the day.\u00a0 I’m meeting a friend, Mike, at this house at 5:30pm for a ride into town, a quick bite for dinner, and back.\u00a0 From my house to his is 11 miles, and town is another 5 miles from his house.\u00a0 I decided to take the LeMond.\u00a0 I received the headset spacers a couple of days ago and those were the last parts I needed.\u00a0 The LeMond is completely finished.<\/p>\n
The ride to Mike’s was great.\u00a0 The bike is steady hands-off, pedaling or coasting.\u00a0 No issues that\u00a0 I could notice.\u00a0 The Reynolds 853 steel frame is nice, less jarring than the CAAD8 that I usually ride.\u00a0 Braking action is good, no real difference between this bike and the CAAD8.\u00a0 Both sets of rims have machined sidewalls. and both brakes are dual-pivot so the differences should be minimal.\u00a0 Shifting is crisper on the LeMond, probably because I should lube (or replace) the chainstay to rear derailleur housing on the CAAD8.\u00a0 It’s now got about 2500 miles on the current cables\/housings with no adjustments needed in that period of time.<\/p>\n
There are some rolling hills on the route, but nothing really noteworthy.\u00a0 I was really happy with the wheels.\u00a0 If you’ve not read about them, these are the first set of wheels I built – laced, trued, tensioned.\u00a0 3-cross on the front wheel, 3-cross NDS \/ 2-cross DS on the rear wheel.\u00a0 The wheels are still true!\u00a0 The sunlight reflecting off the polished silver rims and glinting off the stainless spokes reminds me of an old Huffy 10-speed and bicycle adventures too many years ago to count.<\/p>\n
There is a certain amount of pride when you’re riding a bike that you built, and this ride was definitely a special one.\u00a0 32 miles isn’t a terribly long ride, but it was definitely long enough for problems to surface – and there were none.<\/p>\n
I haven’t worked out all of the details of the next project, but look for an 5-speed IGH and drum brakes.\u00a0 Hint, hint.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today is the day.\u00a0 I’m meeting a friend, Mike, at this house at 5:30pm for a ride into town, a quick bite for dinner, and back.\u00a0 From my house to his is 11 miles, and town is another 5 miles from his house.\u00a0 I decided to take the LeMond.\u00a0 I received the headset spacers a … <\/p>\n