Friday the 21st (Bicycle series part 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUGuEy2cMGQ (recommended sonic ambience)

So it was a Friday afternoon and one which came with excitement as most of my (un-planned) weekends. Excitement as in an infantile rush to go home with the prospect of being able to watch cartoons, lie around under the covers, drink juice and play.......ok it was a bit different for me on this particular weekend: I wanted to pick myself a brand new bicycle taking advantage of the company's 'cycle scheme'  - for which this selection window is due to expire on the 31st of October 2011. Thus a bit of a pressurized feeling to a lazy me.
So as decided, (against the generally falling average temperatures at this time of the year) I decided to cycle it up to the City Centre: where at I remember having seen a few cycle shops during the bus journeys into there. And so I found myself pedalling away into the A38 motorway (after a brief failed stop to buy milk) unsure of whether I was taking the best route into city. Yes, I still use a neanderthal phone with no GPS or Googlemaps. But its got music. So I played Summer Song to receive some comforting warmth out of Satch's decades old, recorded guitar work - and warmth came : with comforting familiarity when I came upon the junction with the turn into Muller road - near The Wellington (pub). Then I thought I probably should have video-ed this from the start.
                     While holding up my poor resolution phone camera with my right hand (video mode on), I did small scale 'ups', 'downs', 'overs' and 'arounds' as demanded by the local topography of each inch of passing land and the random patterns of pedestrians paths which however continued to stick to the pavement (and cycle path); resembling worker ants carrying foodgrains back to the storage chambers in their ant-hills in a formation. The air was cold yet refreshing. The further I pedalled, the lesser I felt the adversity of wind-chill.
I came to observe that the fall in temperature as a result of the initial effect of the wind-chill prompted my legs to pedal faster as an involuntary corrective action. The exertion as a result brought about internal heat generation......and thus the homoeostatic adaptation (is that what it is called?). Such a marvel of Engineering the human body is.
 - Athiests!!! - I hope that my logic encourages you to atleast believe in Aliens ! (if you already don't) -

Since its been days now since I'd written the portion above, I shall skip straight to the point that I was in the city centre now - at Stokes Croft in 30 minutes  from the when i took off from the roundabout at Filton - Yes, slow I was if you know the road that I'm talking about. But hey, dreamy moments with deep breaths of appreciation (of everything in sight) are only an explorer's privilege.
I was a few buildings further down the road to 'The Croft' - the legendary pub which has also served as music venue to many-a-well-known underground metal band and local rock bands. The shop which was visible to me from my side of the road provoked a reflex attempt to tuen and crosss over to the other side but my mind was changed by the sight of a fast Toyota Celica which whizzed past to my right hand side with a sudden horn. It would have been a near miss if I were a couple of feet to my right. So I just decided to stick to the rules and went on to the pavement and pressed the button (signal) and waited for the man to go green - pulling hard at my excitement which wanted to madly leap over the zebra crossing.
And I pulled into the shop with my bicycle, to hopefully test ride the bicycle which had been set up for me since my visit to here on the weekend before. As I was talking to the store manager/owner of the shop about leaving my bicycle at the shop while taking theie 'could-be-mine' hopeful out for a spin - I thought to myself, "What again are we looking for in a bicycle for us?".

Zoning out:
My current bicycle has a heavy frame and fat mountain-bike tyres. The tyres are mountain bike sized (600ish mm half-way across). It has 7 speeds that are driven by 3 speeds (driving gears) i.e. 21 speed options by derailleur gears and old school pad (V) brakes. Gripping on the handlebar is parallel to the prime line of the handlebar with not too far an offset and such that the gripping action is perpendicular to the frame of the bicycle.

The the fork trail angle is forward and not one that I would particularly want to comment on. And the frame itself is all steel alloy construction (including handlebars and fork).
Then what again could possibly have been affecting the bike's performance to me (i.e. the 'Killjoy factor') ?
Oh yeah, it had worn-out parts. It was still riding very well for what it was !!!
Answer - I want something which will be more suited to aid me in getting over my complex....developed when I watch other people 'whizz' past me while I fail to keep up when I want to. Which in turn gave rise to the feeling that the the bike's frame was perhaps a bit small for my limb lengths to obtain my wished-for mechanical efficiency - i.e. energy was out getting wasted and getting redundant as muscle strain. The load transfers were less than optimal - leading to wastage of applied forces which returned to my body as reactions at the various joints. (psssssst Real Answer - I want to take advantage of the 'cycle scheme'. ;) )
"Obvious solution": Get a bike with a suitably larger frame which may allow more accurate usage of bodily and external moment-arms i.e. in pedalling, has a fair gear system which yields reasonable options of gear ratios atleast as the current bike and is notably lighter in weight. Also, bigger tires = greater distance covered per pedal. Thus, a greater force per pedal but lesser number of over-all pedals. The force transferred is manageable by appropriate gear application. Shock absorbers result in trading a part of the work done by application of pedal force with a smoother feeling ride. The arms and the arse are the only counting reaction-return load-paths to the body in this case. (I was not looking for a planetary gear-box as I believe that it would decrease the fun obtainable from the simplicity of a bicycle. Even derailleurs I first thought were"hi-tech" having grown up riding gearless bicycles designed with one 'pot-shot' optimal gear-ratio depending upon the cycle's intent. One trick ponies - which made you work hard if you wanted to do more with them.) Straight forward. But still NOT that much. I will not take you through the gores of numbers and specs as you probably are only reading this either because of your interest in reading, my life or out of your own joblessness. If you however are interested in surgical details - I am sorry, but you cannot have my brain. Google is ready to play your friend.

Coming back:
So I went into the cycleshop.
A Land Rover c 1.9 had been set up for me by the guy at the shop as a result of my visit to there on the week before.

Excited as I was to see this slick and light looking push-machine, I couldnt hold myself back from picking it up one handed - shopping bag style. And know what? My trips to Sainsburys have given me "mendokusai-Ne" experiences when it came to carrying stuff. But this bike I couldve gladly carried home in a bus if only it were the size of a shopping bag. (Yes the shop did have folding bicycles but I am not even looking at them. I have no use for them.) So it really was light. So I put my bike in a corner and pushed the Land Rover out of the store in order to do a spin on a 'circuit' suggested to me by the shopkeeper based upon my needs, as I may have highlighted in a paragraph above.

So I would like to observe that the gearing on this bicycle is much the same as the one on my current "Claud Butler" one. The design model of the unit is different, although it is also made by Shimano. (Every derailleur gear unit that I have seen around here so far is a Shimano.) The wheels were slimmer, closer to a race-bike yet with studs. The were also of a noticeably greater radius (700 mm?). Every other spec looked like it fell into place. Ha, except for the bell. Not like I was expecting a bike to come with a bell. But this design was a one spring armature with no real 'mechanism' inside. Its too simplistic and lame. Also it hurt the thumb when I tried getting it to ring reasonably loud. You'd be better off tying a plate with a 'knocker' to the bike than trust this bell. So these were first observations. I had not yet forced the pedal.
.......And so I did! While I was feeling light and 'efficient' in terms of initial pedal power; my spontaneous thing to do was to apply the brakes - HARD like I had gotten used to with the 'Claud' -till I got them tightened on this same day. So, sensitive as they were set up - the sudden stop caused a good jolt. So I tried the other one. Pretty responsive. I obviously didnt see the point of disc brakes yet. And as I progressed on with the circuit, I came upon the - quite a steep - climb which was partially uneven ground too. As predicted, the bike nailed it quite well and I could tell by the level of ease as compared with the Claud - which would perhaps have left me half knackered.  So while I hit a patch of level ground after the climb, which was the far portion of the circuit, I decided that I would let go of an arm on the handlebar. The bike started wobbling. So yes - I generally do tend to scratch a lot - sometimes let an arm go and play air guitar too - old 'bad' habit that I am Not unhappy about! But it wobbled like nobodys business. Almost like it would even if a bird flapped by - NO - it felt like it would wobble if a Butterfly farted on it! It was that light......while I was still realizing that my bike was already on its way down when I again spontaneously hit the front brake, which now nearly caused me to 'fly away' over the handlebar. Quite dangerous to manage in a traffic-fitted scenario. But the gears were really efficient. So I returned the bike to the store and mounted my own ride home. And whilst lost in thought, I realised that I had unconsciously let go of both arms from the handlebar. Thus I came to realise how stable the Claud felt whilst I was riding it.

Famished, I stopped at Vince's - the pizza take-away: with first hand feel of one more trait which I would prefer that a bicycle possess in order to be considered by me for ownership. (Yes I got bored of overly emoting this so I decided to get to the point and stop. Sadistic pleasure will be miiine, ha !!! )