Testing new bike tires

[bill_schubert]

I'm a little tired still even after resting and a little bit of a nap.  I did an hour of trail riding on my mountain bike with its new tires.  The tires are much less knobby.  Like changing from bubba truck tires to normal street tires.  They have a lot less resistance.  They are also not slip proof.  The one thing about my mountain bike tires is I could go up a curb or a trail of rocks or through a bunch of sand and the bike would stay right under me.  Between the shock absorbers up front and the soft knobby tires I didn't have to pay much attention to terrain.  Now I do.  

Still not as stiff as my road bike and I didn't come close to slipping but at least now I feel like I need to pay attention.  That is fine.  I've got about 35 years of experience on various bikes so I'm pretty safe.

I drank a lot of water.  This was riding in about 88 (31-ish) degrees sunny and fairly humid.  I took it easy and drank about a quart per half hour while riding about an hour at a not too fast speed.  So it was safe.  But I did feel wiped out by the end so I'm still acclimating.  

Tomorrow I'll go down to the air conditioned gym we have and do some elliptical and weights.  Then maybe some road biking on Saturday or Sunday when the traffic around here is quiet. 

Fortunately I'm not sensitive to the air quality as Dana is.  She can hardly breathe.  I've got a bit of a runny nose but not nearly bad as that.

Comments

[sleepybadger.livejournal.com]

I want to ride my bike more, but since things have been opening back up, there's been so much traffic. Zen said we could bring the bikes over to a local forest preserve that has bike paths so maybe we'll give that a shot. I don't think I could do it in 88 degree weather but I pretty much start to melt anything over 75. :)

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

I like road riding but have become a little more wary of traffic over the years and am always looking for routes I can ride from my house that are not too dangerous. The trail thing is great but is just up and back. I don't much like up and back. I like creating a circle and roads are better for that. So always a hard choice. I've got a pretty safe road ride mapped out and a decent trail not too far away.

The temp requires acclimation. I'm usually fine when I'm riding with the wind blowing across my skin to cool me off. Bad when I stop, though.

[stainsteelrat.livejournal.com]

When on the road do you feel like wider tyres are extra work?

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, they absolutely are extra work. Lots of energy efficiency lost in fat tires. What I had on my mountain bike were classic knobby tires with 60 pounds of pressure. They nearly reached out and grabbed rocks when I was climbing a hill but created a huge amount of resistance. The combination of the tires and the shocks created a significant loss of energy compared to my road bike with narrow-ish tires and stiff, non shocked, frame.

I've still got the shocks, of course, but the hybrid tires roll a lot easier. They are inflated to 100PSI so they are harder too which means less resistance. Still not nearly as energy efficient as my road bike but safer on the sandy trail and good enough.