Why didn't I ride yesterday? The 287V levers arrived for the Solitude, which means I now have a working bike after setting them up last night. I've fitted the lever for the front brake and hooked it up to an Avid V brake I had in the garage. The rear brake's still a canti but is really badly set up because there's no way of adjusting the cable tension like on flat bar levers. I was going to fit a V brake to the back as well, but I didn't have a road-type brake cable long enough. I might call in at the bike shop on the way home to remedy that.
So, this morning was my first ride longer than just up and down the street: 2.5 miles to work through traffic on the route I usually ride on my singlespeed.
I didn't die! (But I was scared.)
I clipped a pedal on a kerb when filtering slowly through traffic, but stayed upright and on a downhill the pedals got away from me a little and I ended up just having to life my feet and coast to a halt, but otherwise there were no real incidents.
I'm undecided about whether to keep it fixed for SSUK this weekend, or whether to flip the wheel and ride it singlespeed. I think the combination of a new bike, drop bars, rigid forks, 42c tyres and my first fixed off-road ride might be a bit much for me all in one go, especially when I'm not the best technical rider anyway... I'm not sure I fancy riding a fixie loaded up with camping gear through Bristol either...
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