Tuesday, March 15, 2016

TEST RIDE...
13.3 Mile Ride on the Zim Smith Trail
7.2 Mile Ride on the Ballston Bike Hike Trail
Tuesday, March 15, 2016

 Last fall one of the grip shifters on my Kent bike cracked... I ordered replacements for both, figuring I'd install them over the winter when I wasn't riding the bike. Except, of course, the weather was warm enough this winter that I used the bike all winter...

 So yesterday I stripped off the bar tape and spent a while trying to figure out how to get the shifters off - until finally while searching online I stumbled across the vital piece of information: the drop bar on this bike is two pieces, held together by a bolt in the middle. After that things went fairly smoothly - I installed the new shifters, gel pads, and bar tape, cleaned and lubed the chain, and adjusted the gear shifting. All that was left was to take it out for a spin and see how it all came out...

 The Zim Smith trail was surprisingly busy for a a Tuesday afternoon - lots of people walking, with and without dogs, and a fair number of folks riding. I stuck to the paved sections and overall felt pretty good. The only glitch was some rough shifting in the lowest gears, including throwing the chain off the lowest gear on the worst climb. Not too shabby...

 After that I headed over to the Ballston Bike & Hike Trail to wrap things up... fairly easy riding to round out the afternoon.

 There were two spots along the trails where the wood frogs were going full blast with their spring calls, just like the ones Ann and I heard at Green Lakes on Sunday... the first was too overgrown for me to see them, but the second was right alongside the path, so I actually got to see a few of the frogs splashing around.

JMH
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