Ok cool glad to see there is some tilt there. Yesterday's 30 mile ride went perfectly fine. No pains at all. I got the seat height right, adjusted the stem up enough that I wasn't reaching too far on the handlebars... overall it was a good ride.

When these tires wear out and I'm ready to upgrade I'll definitely look into the lighter options. For now though I'll consider the extra weight resistance training

....

I went through and tabulated the adjustments I've made to my bike since getting it. Here's the list if anyone is curious (and i'm no former bike mechanic though I do have a background in problem solving and have worked on my own cars since my late teen years).

1. Brakes, ajusted pads as well as adjusted them so they'd sit a little closer to the rim for better stopping power. By default they were too low and took way too much pressure to get the bike to stop in a short distance. Now it's near perfect.

2. Seat, raised it. No big deal, but learning that inseam * .88 formula helped get it dialed in near perfect. I think another measurement option for me is to keep in mind I can just barely touch the ground on my tip toes when the seat height is right.

3. Raised the stem. A little nervous about this one, but I figured it out fine and got everything raised, cables adjusted to the new height, and it bolted back together nice and tight yet with enough of the stem still in there so no real risk of it coming out.

4. Front & back deraileurs. Adjusted the front one on the back screw a couple turns... adjusted the back one a couple turns on the right screw and a turn or two on the left. I did this because when going from 2nd up front while on 1st in the back down to 1st it would miss and the chain would come off the front! Also in the back I was having problems getting into 7th. Now it's buttery smooth on pretty much all the shifting. Sometimes while in 3rd up front when I shift from 7th in back down to 6th it takes twisting just a hair past this to get it to engage... but that's pretty minor as I was having to do that on every gear when downshifting before.

4. Oiled the chain. I figured what the heck.. I just used some gear oil on it and I think that helped the buttery smooth shifting I now have.


The only real problem I have left with the bike is under normal or heavy pedaling the right pedal or something in that area has a creak. It's once per revolution and it's from that area and not the left side or steering or anything else. I'm going to read up more on one of the many sites that help diagnose problems like this... but I'm thinking the pedal just needs oiled. Hopefully that's all there is to it. I'll find out this weekend.


For $150+tax this has been a great intro to road bikes. Too bad I didn't find this thread till well after getting the bike, but it's been very helpful for tips on adjusting things and so on.