Explorer Mode

I tell people that if I hadn't become an engineer I'd have become an explorer. A Himalayan explorer to be precise. While it's a rather romantic idea, it's a little hard and a little dangerous to do it alone. Having good company makes the journey twice more fun and half as hard.

What I'd like to try one day, when I find that elusive partner (has to be a girl, obviously :-P) is to start at a place and walk into wilderness with no destination in mind. Keep heading in the most interesting direction. Once the supplies are down to the last third and if there's no settlement in sight, turn around and head back to the starting point. And start all over again.

This is my dream way of travelling in the mountains.

What's holding this world together?

Friction. 

Ridley Fenix: First impressions

Gifted myself this for my 27th.

Spec:
What's new:
Ridley Fenix frameset (size M)
SRAM Apex groupset
53/39, 170mm
12-23 Ultegra cassette
Deda RHM02 handlebars - 42mm
Deda Zero1 stem - 110mm
Lizard skins tape

From my old bike:
Wheels - Kinlin XR380s with Novatec hubs (20/24)
Ultremo/Durano 23mm tyres
105 Pedals
Selle Italia SLR Team Edition saddle

Weighs 8.2kg with pedals. That's more than 4kgs lighter than my KHS (Flite 220). The WW in me was secretly hoping for a sub 8kg build. Oh well.

First impressions first: feels solid, comfort like steel (seriously), accelerates better, SRAM shifting is cool, internal cable routing is neat.

Frame:
Ridley's bike for the classics - Lotto Belisol rode it for this year's classics. Supposedly mixes the good things of both the Damocles and the Excalibur. Has tubes shaped like the Damocles but is a monocoque construction like the Excalibur. Absolutely doesn't matter at my level but just saying. Internal routing, compatible with electronic and mechanical groups. Weighed 1200g. The fork weighed 400g uncut.

Fit:
I could replicate the exact position from my old bike. But I still could go 1.5cm lower here which wasn't possible on the old one. Still fiddling with the stem height to figure out the lowest point I can get comfortable with. Riding it slammed for now and I feel alright. I'm a sucker for speed. I'll give up comfort if I can to go even a little bit faster. Plus, when I'm out of the saddle, I like it better when the handlebars are lower. A small negative though is that the inner part of my thighs touch the TT sometimes because the TT is fat. Not a big problem right not though. Losing fat should solve it.

Ride:
Like steel. Really. I'm honestly a little disappointed that it rides exactly like my old bike. I was looking forward to a more lively ride. Might be a good thing on poor roads and long rides though.

Performance:
I've ridden a little over 300k so far and all I know is that it accelerates better and does it even better when out of saddle. I'm guessing that's because of it being stiffer. I also noticed a strange thing - at speeds over 30-35, it seemed to me that I needed to put in lesser effort to maintain it. It could be completely a placebo effect though.

I was hoping that I would notice an earth-shattering difference between my entry-level steel road bike and this. Sadly, I don't. However, this could be due to a couple of reasons - different gearing and shorter crank arms.

I'd probably be in a better position to judge after riding more and getting more used to it. But if you ask me now, I'd have made different choices -
1) a 12-25 or a 12-27 (or even a 11-28. see 3) cassette instead of 12-23. I thought I'd prefer close gears but turns out I'm too lazy to shift too often, LOL.
2) crank arm length of 172.5 instead of 170 (this wasn't a decision. I just didn't notice when it was being installed. Noticed only after I got the bike back home. Thought I might as well give it a try, was always curious anyway). The 170 gives me a extra avg cadence of 3 or 4 on my usual rides though without any extra effort whatsoever.
3) Since I'm going to be riding the TfN and knowing how pathetic a climber I am, I probably should have gotten a compact. But as I said I'm a sucker for speed and was used to a 52/42 front from my old bike. I still got the standard. Would have been slightly better if I had gotten the 172.5 instead of 170.
4) Black tape instead of white (although to be fair, it was bought with another bike in mind)

I got a PR on my regular 15km segment. So the carbon may be doing something. Or I might have just learned to pace myself a little better. Donno.

Handling:
Feels solid and well mannered. Never understood what people meant when they talked about "a solid front end" but I think I now know. Did some short descents today on Sharath's Road today and I felt quite confident going into corners at 40kmph (had never done that before).

Shifting:
Coming from a 2300 setup, this is great. Took me very little time to get used to the double tap mechanism. I like it. A small crib is that the downshift throw is longer than Shimano's. A bigger crib is that I get chain rub when in 39-13 and 39-12 no matter how much I fiddle with the FD. A little irritating. Shifting is noisier but I don't have a problem with that. Btw, had to tweak the FD 3 times in 6 rides. I touched the FD on my 2300 those many times in 3 years. I'm perhaps doing something wrong or I probably just have to wait for cables to stretch as much as they will and then adjust it. I also had the chain come off a few times when I shifted to the small chainring. So I have to limit the FD movement even more - more chain rub, yay.

Braking:
Fantastic. I now realize how poor the braking was on my old bike.

Upgrades planned:
1. Will temporarily swap a compact crankset for TfN and get a 11-28 cassette or get a med. cage RD to accommodate a 12-32. Haven't decided yet.
2. Wheels. If I lose enough weight (10kg) before TfN, I'm going to gift myself a wheelset. RS81 C24/C35 or DA9000 C24/C35. Can get RS80s for cheaper but they won't work with 11sp ;-)

Okay, some pictures here.

Thoughts after 10000 km of Cycling

This is inspired by this brilliant post. I agree with most of the points there and can relate very closely to them.

Here are some of my thoughts after completing 10000 km of cycling.

• A good, efficient and reliable bicycle is worth every Rupee you pay. It will make you want to ride. 
• If you want to get faster, get more comfortable. Good equipment is useless if you're not comfortable.
• Core strength and flexibility are crucial to being comfortable on a road bike.
• It can be very frustrating to not be able to ride (through injury or for whatever reason). It can make a cyclist's life really miserable.
• Buy once, cry once. Buy nice, don't buy twice. Not my own but I live by it :P
• Don't blindly accept what people say on forums. Try, evaluate, question and find your own answers.
• The fundamental rule of bike fit - listen to your body and use your brain. Don't go around asking strangers on the forums for advice without trying enough.
• Experiment a lot with the kind of riding you do - slowish long distance rides, faster shorter rides. In time you'll know what kind of a cyclist you want to be. Work towards that.
• If you're like me and like fast shorter rides, see what you like more - sprinting, climbing, time-trialing etc., learn what your strengths/weaknesses are and work accordingly.
• Clipless pedals are absolutely a necessity
• Good shoes make a big difference in comfort and riding pleasure
• While I'm not a big fan of helmets, I think a clipped-in roadie should wear one.
• I will never wear a mask while riding a bicycle. To all those masked bandits - HTFU.
• Get a Garmin. It's a necessity if you're a serious roadie.
• I find naming bicycles extremely lame. Even lamer are references to a bicycle as "her"
• Cycling might seem like an inexpensive affair to a non-cyclist. It's hard to keep it that way if you have a credit card :P
• I want to try out everything that's available in the market (different frames, geometries, wheels, groupsets, components, clothing etc.) and see for myself what I like best. Wish I could afford that :P

I'll add more points as and when I think of them.

I soooo want these

Scott Foil

Scott Foil. My dream bicycle right now. Will build it up with Dura Ace 9000 mechanical and Dura Ace wheels!

And if I had a smaller budget, this:

Canyon Ultimate AL

Will probably build this up with Ultegra 6800.

I WANT I WANT I WANT!

...

Why the fuck is everybody running lately?

Wisdom

Buy once, cry once. 
Buy nice, don't buy twice. 

From a post on bikeforums.

The Sidi shoe sizing saga

So at some point in the recent past I started lusting after Sidis (Sidi is a company that makes high end cycling shoes). Unfortunately, the cycling scene in India is not big enough for shops to stock cycling shoes - they're very expensive and even if they do stock them, they wouldn't stock sizes like what I need. My feet are long and wide. Cycling shoes are typically narrower than normal shoes. In addition to that, different brands have different sizing. I currently own a pair of shoes which are also big for me - about two and a half sizes bigger to be precise. After spending a lot of time researching these shoes, measuring and remeasuring my foot in all possible ways, I made the purchase. Turns out the size chart I trusted was wrong. They're two sizes too big.

Besides getting a good understanding of the cycling shoe world, I also got to know a bit about how Indiapost (and the global postal network) works. The package was shipped from Germany through DHL (DHL is also Germany's postal service btw). The package gets handed over to Indiapost once it lands in India and I received a corresponding Indiapost tracking number. I religiously tracked the package from the Mumbai airport to the Foreign post office in Mumbai to the Sub Foreign Post office in Bangalore. The package was retained at the customs office in Bangalore and I had to go provide a copy of the invoice and my bank statement (wtf?). In the process I sort of came to know what happens in the customs office. So after a week, the package came to the local post office and I paid the stipulated duty and rushed back to office to open the package. Guess what? My feet were swimming in those shoes. I knew it as soon as I opened the box. Disappointing and a big loss money-wise too. The shipping charges I paid + the duty + the shipping charges I will pay to return them aren't coming back. I want to get shoes that fit me by the time my new road bike arrives and guess what I did? I bought another pair of shoes and I will get them in a week. Let's see how that goes.

The last few months ...

have been some of the worst in recent times, one of the most important reasons being a left elbow fracture. I have since been forced to not ride my cycle. It feels like my life has paused.

It's hard to explain what cycling means to me. It's not just the fresh air and exercise etc. that make me want to ride, it's something much more important. On a bicycle, I try hard. I give it everything I have. I push myself - physically and mentally. I explore my limits. It's a different world and I miss it sorely. It's a painful reminder whenever I see people riding.

Edit: found a related thread on bikeforums today. it's interesting to know so many cyclists have similar experiences.

My hand is about 90% alright now and I had started riding last week. The joy was however short-lived. A spoke on the rear wheel broke and I have been forced off my bicycle again. Apparently, the rear rim is beyond repair. So I bought myself new wheels. I was also supposed to get my road bike in mid Feb. but that will now happen only in the end of March or in the beginning of April. Clearly, nothing's going my way w.r.t. cycling.

However, not all is bad. A dear friend brought me my new toy while I wait for my other, my D7000! It will keep me occupied until I can ride again! The D7000 (and the cycle not) in action:

Songs I like for their lyrics

In no particular order.

Bob Dylan - Blowin' in the wind
Neil Young - Heart of gold
Eddie Vedder and Jerry Hannan - Society
Frankie Valli - Can't take my eyes off you
Dire Straits - Telegraph Road
The Doors - Break on through to the other side

I'll update when I remember more.