Shakedown

Just built the Soma Juice up again as a Winter bike. What better way to give a bike a first ride shake down than a night ride?
Fortunately a very uneventful ride.
Conditions couldn't have been much better. What ground water hadn't evaporated or run off from Saturday's deluge was frozen or on it's way to being so. I was a little surprised when I went to take my first sip from my hydration pack only to find my valve frozen. I didn't realize it was that cold.

post-ride


I did really like the Avid bb7's. The power was there, and I prefer the lever feel to Juicy's.
I still do not like WTB Weirwolf 2.55's. Sure they're great if you're trying to stay on top of snow, but for being so big, they shouldn't need so much air not to bottom out...and they're heavy. I'll have to switch to tried and true Ignitors, since the fatties aren't giving me any extra cush.
I might have to swap the cranks. I'm running 170's on it now, but I've grow accustom to the extra leverage 175's provide, so we'll see how it works out over the coming months.

On a lighting note, my helmet light was much brighter than my bar mounted light. They're identical lights and batteries. I think it might have been that the bar light was exposed to the cold being strapped to my stem, where as the helmet light's battery was tucked away in my leaky hydration pack. The cold might have effected the flow of current.

Finally, one good thing about all the doping scandals in pro cycling is I get killer deals on disgraced and disbanded teams cycling caps!