Just a quickie update – but Angelina has NOW hit the road! No photos – I wasn’t sure I wanted it memorialized!
H and I took Vlad and Angelina out yesterday. We actually put Angelina’s clipless pedals on Vlad (my friction-downtube-shift-pedal basket bike I have ridden up to now), because I was decompensating about having to learn BOTH the click-shifting AND the clipless pedals. We went to a flat road in San Anselmo, and trade back and forth. H actually got the exact same shoes (and clipless pedals) that I got on Angelina to put on Vlad when he swaps over to Vlad as his bike – so this was pretty easy.
Of course, Angelina was a little miffed when I put the pedal baskets on her, but I explained that it was just for a little while…
I got used to the click-shifting pretty easily. Everyone told me this wouldn’t be a problem, and they were right. I also really like the idea you can brake and shift at the same time – what a novelty. Angelina’s gearing isn’t as “low” as Vlad’s though, which has me a little worried. I got her into her “easiest” gear, and it’s still about 4 “gears” higher than Vlad’s lowest. OK, so I’m a sissy and I love my granny gear. She is DEFINITELY faster on the flat. It’s also odd – I can feel (even in the baskets) how my power pushing the pedal transfers almost immediately into forward motion. I didn’t really understand the whole “bike geometry/material/etc.” thing until I switched back and forth between her and Vlad. H actually noticed it even before I did. He really enjoyed riding Angelina – I wonder if he’s going to just get himself a new bike!
I got the hang of the clipless pedals fairly well, though I made H switch with me when we were on Sir Francis Drake (so that I didn’t have to do a lot of stopping and starting with them). I think it’s going to be okay. H said that I did well enough that he’s going to keep the clipless pedals on Vlad and just put the new ones that he bought (the same ones) onto Angelina and be done with it. I think he thought I was silly to be so locked up about learning the shifting and the pedals together – but he was patient with me, and did agree it was a good idea to do it how we did it.
So, Angelina has actually been ON THE ROAD. Yay!
One new You Know You’re Iron When (courtesy of Maria M-Dot): “You know you’rean IronTeamer when you find yourself getting peer-pressured by your teammates to get cheek-swabbed for entry into the bone marrow registry.”