I knew it was going to rain today so whenever that happens I usually don't plan on any long road trips. That said I decided to try to dance around the rain cells and ride close to my home. After checking the radar I still figured I might get lucky and just see a little drizzle....
Well...didn't get so lucky it seems. No more than two minutes after I left my building it started coming down pretty good. Not a down-pour but a steady moderate rain. I did say I wanted to test ride the Trek Conduit in the rain and it seems I was now getting my chance. I really wasn't wearing rain gear though. Didn't think that was going to be a problem since I was wearing a cycling wind breaker but turned out that I had a lot to learn about riding in rain. The main problem turned out to be my hands. Should of brought along the full finger gloves. Cold rain ( 56°F ) makes your fingers feel like ice cubes in no time flat. Not to mention I have no strategy for keeping my my feet dry. Looks like I'm going to need some good waterproof shoe covers if I decide to commute to work.
I already own a good waterproof rain shell ( with hood ). If I had decided to extend the ride I likely would have stopped and put it on since I had it with me in my rack/box. Since I was but minutes from my home and already having problems with cold hands I just decided to bale and then beat feet back to home base. No problems with the Conduit and no problems with any of my lights ...thankfully. While out I also rode another good spot for testing a suspension seat post. On the way back to my home there is a particularly bad section of side walk that I use to ride sometimes on my other bike ( since it was uphill and on a busy road ) and so I thought I would take that sidewalk and give the Thudbuster a really good acid test. The Thudbuster works but being the perfectionist that I am I'm starting to lust for the more plushness of the USE seatpost. Just the other night I was checking out a YouTube vid on the
Shockstop suspension seat post that I mentioned before. Good video. They had the bike setup on some sort of treadmill with "a bump" somehow added to it. The camera was able to show you just how much the seat would travel when hitting the bump. The Shockstop seat post just sucked up the bump like it wasn't even there. Damn, I would love to have that. Doesn't help that it is also the most aesthetically pleasing suspension seat post I've ever seen....that subject to be continued.
Back to the subject of riding in the rain; I have some rain gear but looks like I need more. I have full finger gloves but they're not waterproof. What I have would be okay for a short ride in the rain but if caught in a cold rain downpour I have a feeling I'd need something way more waterproof if I'm riding some distance and don't want my hands to turn to ice cubes.
I've only ridden in a cold rain one other time, probably 15 years ago. At the time I had dropped my car off at the local shop to have something fixed and rode my bike home ( ~ one mile ) once again at night. While I did have a good cycling rain jacket at the time that was about it. On that night it was raining buckets. Oh yes, remember that one very well. I couldn't wait to get home as it was absolutely miserable. Anyway, even with the best rain gear I will likely still have problems riding in rain but only because I wear glasses. If I'm going fast enough, even in moderate rain it gets really hard to see with droplets all over my lenses. If there's a fix for that I haven't come across it yet.
Going to rain all night. I might go out again only this time with the rain jacket, rain over-shorts, some dishwashing gloves and my old shoe covers if I can find them ( haven't worn them in years ). I'm tempted to try RainX on my glasses but since my glasses have an anti-reflective coating I wouldn't want to risk damaging the coating.
Originally Posted by
2old
Don't be overwhelmed by the seeming complexity of a mid-conversion. Ir's so easy (IMO) as to be intuitive. The most difficult part is removing the cranks and bottom bracket which is easy if you have the appropriate tools. I built a BBS02-equipped hardtail four years go and it's still going strong.
Good to hear these motors can last. I'm really tempted to buy the BBS02 kit / battery. Just not sure I really want to convert my MTB and sadly I really don't want to drop major coin on a new ~$3-4K e-mountain bike. It's May already and I've yet to get a MTB ride in this year. Just keeps raining when ever I feel I want to do a MTB ride.