Inaugural 'Winter Bike' Ride

Finally took my winter bike out. Of course I waited long enough that the roads are completely dry and clear now, even on small streets. Which is actually pretty fortunate considering I forgot to install a small but crucial detail on my winter bike called "fenders".

The first few minutes into the ride I kept getting that paranoid feeling that there is a car creeping up on me from behind even when a visual check established there is no one there at all. Then it hit me - it's the noise of my own knobbies on the pavement! D'oh!

The winter bike feels very weird. I feared that since I got it used, it was going to give me a lot of trouble even after all the tinkering, but the fears so far have not been confirmed. It's mostly solid mechanically except for a few shot cogs (will probably just get a whole new wheel, the one on it now is crappy) but I'm too used to the bike I've been riding for the whole year. I was one with that bike, I knew exactly how it would feel and behave. Not the case with this one. I instantly feel it has a number of advantages over my usual bike: it's lighter, has a more aggressive and hence "faster" geometry. Still, it'll take me a while to get used to the whole new handling... will probably have to do a bunch of tweaking to get everything just right. So now I'm reminded how newbies feel when they just get on a bike for the first time in ten years...

This bike also has ridiculously low gearing. The largest of the three chainrings is teeny-tiny - the smallest I've ever seen on the bike. I have another set of chainrings lying around, but it took me forever to properly set up the front derailleur on this thing and the thought of having to do it all over again is just intolerable. Maybe I should convert the whole thing to a fixie or SS, given that the STX shifters are not working very well, even in this mild (around 0 C/32 F) weather (funny, but the Altus shifters from the 90's on my other bike are just fine!)