What a great commute day! After the bonk on the big bike earlier this week I decided to take my lightest bike, the 2006 carbon/aluminum Felt F65, and wear the light commute bag. I took the trail-to-trail route and caught both lights (one of the underpasses was flooded, necessitating a street crossing).

While it's not as light as a modern carbon fiber bike, it's still super light and with the 700x25's pumped up to 90psi I was skipping over the pavement like a stone across water. There must have been a slight tailwind 'cause my speeds were 3-5 mph over normal. There was one section where I was doing 24mph where I usually do 18 on a good day.

In fact, at one point I hunkered down and the air rolling over me reminded me of the sensation of moving through the water when I used to swim laps in my 20s. It was about 65 and sunny.

I ended up leaving work 45 minutes late. It cooled down to 90 from a high of 95. The sun was low enough that it wasn't hot on my skin. I rode into a light head wind and just took it easy, but the lightness of the bike made it a quick ride none the less. Worried about bonking, before leaving I hydrated and had a handful of unsalted peanuts and a handful of cheesy crackers.

The Felt has Shimano Ultegra components, and while the brake lever is twisted to shift (along with a long paddle that is pushed) the twisting required is slight and much less than the lower tier Shimanos that came on my Charge Plug. The Felt is a 2x10 and after reading a post about 13-speed 1x's vs 2x's I was really paying attention to how much shifting is required to go up and down the gear ranges. I'm very happy with a compact double and even the triple on the DropHopper as the multi ring set-ups let me shift to lower gears faster. Perhaps an e-shifting system would allow for multiple downshifts with just a few quick taps of the shift button, but I will stick with cables for now as I don't have to charge the cable system.

I just felt so fast this morning...it was a thrill!