Escaping Profligacy

One of the things that has been bothering me, in a ghosts-of-Scottish-ancestors sort of way, is that going out and getting the Experiment was expensive. So I've been somewhat grimly expecting to be paying the usual 10x for 10% worth of improvement at the top of a utility curve, at which point I would have to admit to myself that I was being Profligate. (Profligacy is not, precisely, a sin, but one couldn't possibly defend making a habit of it.)

Then March[1] elected to be full of snow, sleet, and similar gloptastic behaviors, and I managed to sprain my right ankle and tear my right calf muscle in a completely un-bicycle related way, so there was this decided pause between getting the Experiment and actually being able to go for a ride.

I got to end the pause this weekend; a 13.7 km loop to the LBS for a bell (the good councilors of the City of Toronto have seen fit to make not having a bell on your bike a ticket-able offence, and it's a substantial ticket) on Saturday and a 37 km loop down to Tommy Thompson to look for the adult male King Eider currently reported as recovering from being very, very lost in Cell 3 on Sunday.

So I knew the Experiment fit; that was obvious from the ride-round-the-parking-lot part of picking it up. That was, after all, pretty much the point; not having to worry about heel strikes on the panniers, and hopefully getting less fatigue out of the whole position-on-the-bike thing.

What I didn't know is that it would be easier to pedal; SRAM Apex is about one notch better as a drive train than the Shimano Tiagra on the town bike, but that shouldn't be worth 3 or 4 kph. (Probably more; I went floating through 30 kph on the flat during the early part of the Sunday AM ride, and I'm in no kind of shape. That would have been a distinct struggle on the town bike.) The Apex gearing, by the by, seems highly suitable to my riding style; I hope I still think that after another month or two, but for now it seems like a good decision.

I also didn't know I'd go 15 km without feeling like there was any need to change hand positions; some of that has to be the notably gooshy bar tape, but wow. That's a huge change from any previous bicycle I've had.

So, perhaps I haven't been profligate; this is seeming like a qualitative, rather than a quantitative, improvement.

I did see the King Eider, and a bunch of other ducks.  I ran into a surprising number of birders from the TOC in the process, too.

 I also discovered that the fairly light carbon tripod I use for the scope has undergone a certain degree of de-lamination in the centre column. This is probably due to pushing its load rating a bit with a large gimbal head and hefty scope, but it ought to have been well within the load rating. I'm not delighted about the tripod, but it does make me feel a lot less like an irrational twitchy person about going with a steel fork for the Experiment.  (I'm also pretty darn pleased I didn't make this discovery due to the scope, gimbal and all, falling off.)

And, hey, finally got in some actual bike riding.

Don't seem to be getting any complaints from the unhappy ankle, either.

[1] tonight's forecast, very likely true from looking out the window, is for between 10 and 20 mm of rain or wet snow or it can't quite make up its mind, followed by 5 to 10 mm of rain on Monday. [2] Sunday morning was lovely, though.

[2] various persons with basements aren't going to like this. it's possible various subway stations aren't going to like this.