Originally Posted by
CJ C
thats the reason i picked the el cheapo bike i did. I dont want gears (shifter, delrailers, cables and all) and dont want shocks (i am not going down a rock hill), all that extra fluff is just more to break and maintain.
Its a bit hard for me to maintain a high cadence, with all the stops on my commute (plus having just one gear).
I always use lights to practice my accelerations -- good for redlining. However, if there are just way too many lights, you may want to get a map and look for a different route. When I lived in South Carolina I had a bike commute of about 9 miles, but about 3 miles of it was on a very narrow two-lane road with a lot of 18-wheel truck traffic going at over 55 mph; on more than one occasion I had to jump off the road (thanks to my mirror). I found a new route, it was 16 miles, but much nicer roads.