So the Salsa project is somewhat complete, so I decided to take her out to ride last weekend. Saturday I pulled up to the trailhead at Warrior's Path ready to ride. I'm always a little nervous about the first ride on a bike that I've put together and Saturday was no different. With my dog in tow, I took off on Darwin's Revenge and 100 yards into the trail my chain breaks. What a way to start a first ride! I pick up my chain and head back to the parking lot to fix it. I get to the car and realize that I don't have my chain tool. Luckily for me, there was a guy parked next to me who just happened to have one along with a quick-link for me to use. I didn't get his name, but I thanked him profusely for his help and headed back into the woods.
I rode the rest of the trails will little incident. I did drop the chain a few times which turned out to be the ONLY problem I had with it on Sunday when I rode with Bob, Rick and Sean after the workday at Bays. It was the first time I had ridden the new trail out there, and I have to admit, it's a good trail. My chain came off about four times during our nine mile ride, so I'll need to do some adjusting soon. I think I just need to space the front ring to be more inline with the smaller gears since that is where I had the most trouble.
One thing is for sure though, riding a bike with gears is waaaaaay tougher than I remember. When I built this bike up, I thought it would be nice to have a bailout gear for those climbs. Instead I found myself being a little lazy, not preparing and maintaining momentum on the short steep stuff and I found it incredibly difficult to keep the front end down on uphill switchbacks. Early on I found myself shifting far too often and getting tired much faster. I hope I get the hang of this soon, it's a little discouraging.
I finally ordered another charger for my camera battery, I think I lost the last one on the beer trip, not quite sure though. Nonetheless, I can now snap a picture of said Salsa Project and post it here.
Don't be discouraged. It takes a while to get back into the swing of things. Gears are hard. Way harder to master than singlespeed. And you probably were actually shifting the right amount. Its what those shifty bits are for ;)
Keep up the good work.