Time to put things to good use... with the GR300 taking over, it was time to hack up the old Marin Nicasio+. Everything's on a budget this time. Weight is not a concern. I set out in mind for a practical smooth ride. Speed is definitely not on the agenda for this build. Even if all beefed up with weight, it should be something that can take on some unpaved paths.. No stupid moves on full on MTB trails though... ok or maybe... ;)
Debating between decked out with front and rear racks or not... but decided to forgo front for now. I'm not touring so it's kinda pointless to load up front and retard steering and adding on further to the clunkiness. Rear bags and panniers have its cons too of course but....
Anyway racks or no racks--The past year of riding and removal of fenders from the Stanyan has told me one thing--- FENDERS must come back on this build
No fancy Honjo or Gilles Bertould or even SKS this time. Looking up and down-- value for money seem to be these from Shopee/ Lazada. I know I'm gonna bitch when it comes to installing and was already thinking that later on the struts will be changed to adjustable ones or hacked up with some c-clips/ darumas if I decide to cut away the loops or straighten them out.
And here we go again... Of course no self respecting fenders will let you install them without a fight. So out with the Dremel tool again for some mod...
Anyone that installed these parts will definitely know-- the front will
always move to the opposite direction with the rear. So getting one
end aligned means more offset to the other. You literally have to bend
the m#th@rF%^ker back with some brute force and or twist the center
fixture to the fork. Ditto for the rear but not so bad as the end just
behind the seat tube/BB is a fixed point.
Not having damuras and c-clips at this point means the only way to adjust gap to wheels is via bending of the struts... That's always gonna be ugly no matter how balanced you can get both sides to be.
As with all parts installed -- shakeout ride and more tweaking back home... Yea.. gaps at both ends of front and rear nearing the splash guard is a little wide. Especially at the front wheel, which meant a little toe overlapping than I would care for.... More strut bending time again.
The panniers arrived the day before... an item I kept on my Aliexpress cart for like 1-2 years? Finally sprung for it just before Xmas. Not Billingham quality but also not some cheapo knock-off andpretty good quality and workmanship I must say. Now just to season up the straps a little. To tone down the edges for a nicer "worn" blended look.
Oh-- and those funky colored lock-on grips are here too. Wasn't expecting too much at the price point but they seemed sturdy enough for this intended build and the graphics adds a nice splash to the bike. Helps to convey the"un-seriousness" of this ride.
Recycled old parts swapped over to here ---
BROOKS C17 --el cheapo version, test-piece harassed into being sold to me cheaply10 yrs ago.
SURLY Tubular Chromoly Rear Rack - Heavy AF. but can load up to 36kg
9s Shimano bar-con shifter - set to friction mode to gel with the Microshift rear dee because I'm again too cheap to buy the Microshift flatbar shifter after removing the dropbar levers that came with this bike. Again some old shit from my bike bin
SOMA Clarence bar - one of my many funny bars collection that won out on this setup. I find the original 680mm a little short especially when the bike is a bit loaded at the back and extended it out to ~720 with some Control Tech bar-extender. Not something I would ever do with MTBs but its ok here...as its all easy cruising with little of the mad crash prone stuff I do on mtbs.
$$$ spent on this hack up
Tourbon panniers - USD$86
some cheap funky grips - SGD$10.56
Unbranded Thermoplastic fenders - SGD$ $21.30
"Avid" 5 levers - SGD$9.80
New cable housings and cables - SGD$13.00
Decathlon Kickstand - came with this bike when i bought it used... not exactly necessary but convenient to have especially if the bags are weighted down and not leaving it lying down in the wet on some days... or when taking out the cooking "toys" to prep a meal or coffee.
Last but not least- -a tad of personalization. Key chain name tag from my Boracay vacation in The Philippines eons ago... and oh, the refuse to die 20 years Cat-eye blinker as a backup here that some kind LBS owner gave me on a rainy day much like this last day of 2021 when I was heading back from his shop in the evening, cos mine kaput back then... I'll always remember these little acts of kindness in my cycling journeys.
Some final thoughts? Upgrade the brake calipers to those hybrid mech/ hydraulics like the Huin Tech R1 or TRP Spyre? Normal ride speed the mech calipers work just fine but when loaded-- I could appreciate a little more stopping power.
Or should I break out my fossilized Shimano DCLs-- the most hated flatbar integrated control in the world and swap to full hydraulic?-- hmm but that would mean changing out rear dee and all. Nah.
So here it is... and the start to the Lynskey GR300 complete bike build.
Given the current global shortage of everything, the kitted option of the Lynskey GR300 is a wise decision to save headaches and waiting time over my usual part by part purchase after a frame is decided upon
Slapping on the main components together is a no brainer. Those can
easily be googled on Youtube which I won't spend too much time unless I
do find some things are truly lacking -- like road brake bleeding.
So as usual with my writing, this would contain tidbits from experience and little hacks to troubleshoot or refining of things on a bike.. with many of the lesser talked about preps and finishing on various parts on a bike.
Unpacking Day: Well packed and all delivered...
As with building any of my own or for others in the past... having a proper list of every part weighed prior to assembling makes it easier when deciding what's worth changing out later.
Trust me-- if u are incessantly changing things on your bike afterwards because of weight related concern, this saves a lot of money. I couldn't care less about weenie-ing but still its a good habit and for general referencing later on.
Not gonna post all the weights of individual component. Just this one. Tires.
Lynskey switch it out from their stated Kenda Flintridge Pro to the Booster Pro here.
Both 40C but the Flintridge was reviewed as a heftier tire @ ~520gm/ pc... or 1.04kg/ pr. so the weight savings now is quite significant.
A whooping 335gm for a pair! But something has to be compensated which I suspect is some squirmish-ness from the sidewall, apart from overall thinness of the tire. Let's see.
Headset
Unlike customizing part by part, there are stock items which may not be up to par when buying a whole bike like this.
The supplied FSA Orbit C-40-ACB is simply not up to my expectation. Headsets are often a fix and forget component until it comes time for maintenance or change of bearings. But if the sum of all it's parts is not right, there can be all kind of creaking and looseness that cannot be properly tightened down.
Having seen how this can affect parts like unequal wear on the steerer tube or in the headset cups over time, I'm all the more paranoid given that this is on a carbon steerer tube.
The FSA is a headset design with poor interfacing for the top half at least... So I checked with the usual suspects of my FBC gang -- and gotten a good old CaneCreek "Forty" integrated, IS42/28.6/H9 | IS52/40-SHORT COVER in exchange over a bowl of beef noodles.
Yes, the basic Cane Creek "FORTY" series is already way better, no need Hellbender or the "110", although the additional brass compression ring from the 110 would have been a nice touch.
When assembling the FSA headset into the headtube with the fork, no matterhow hard it's tightened, there was a pronounced shakiness. Some may say "you need to have the compression nut installed to hold things up. Yes and no... For an initial fitment check of headset parts-- slotting up everything should give a certain level of tightness. Secondly I was troubleshooting this same configuration on another GR300 already built up with the same FSA Orbit headset. That one has everything on it including the compression plug.. The looseness was still rather obvious even as the whole stack was tightened up properly...
Homing in on the issue being at the top half of the headset. It seems the c-ring may just be sitting/ floating on the underside of the top cover, rendering it unable to be tightened down to the headtube integrated top cup. Having lots of interfacing of spacer stack and stem doesn't help to narrow the problem either-- but more on that later...
Using both c-rings to check... (blue ring = Cane Creek, silver ring = FSA)
The FSA compression ring basically floats over the internal surface of the top cover. Whereas the one on the Cane Creek actually has a recess under the top cover that can hold it snug in place. Note the additional brass seal and the machining on the Cane Creek (middle pic) in contrast to the rather plain looking FSA ring and inside of top cover
Raw unfinished machining marks still on the FSA compression ring
Contoured internal stepping to allow for a better fit when between bearing + steerer and fully anodized for more than just an aesthetic finish...
It's not just about aesthetic on the Cane Creek but every profile machined has a function. The double step on the insides of the Cane Creek allows the forming of a better taper when slotted between the bearing and steerer for a better fit and has been anodized... If there is uneven wear over time which can occur due to steerer tolerance or if things are somehow loose/ misalignment of bearing and cups-- the wearing off would be easily noted and user can be made aware the next time they check.
A comparison below of the top cap and compression ring of these 2 to show the difference...
To cut it short-- on goes the Canecreek for now, followed by the temporary placement of spacer, stem and bar (all just lightly tighten) as they will be lots of taking out and adjustment while bike is being set up.
Crank...
Since the bottom bracket was preinstalled by Lynskey, next comes a relatively easy part.. The crank.
For years I wondered why Shimano uses a cheap plastic pre-load piece for the non-drive-side (NDS) crankarm. By now there are some very nice after market metal ones which I have bought a couple but never had a chance to use yet.
On the left- after market aluminium preload nuts. Right preload tool and original Shimano preload nut (plastic)
Rubber mallet, tap straight in. New cranks are usually a little tight... Check crank is snug against the bottom bracket and stop.. Swing crank from pedal insert... should be freely spinning (3-5 rotations).
Using the after market preload nut, I now understand why Shimano stick to their cheesy plastic piece.
Similar to headset starnut/ compression plugs-- its for preload-- not to fully tighten up the entire assembly by itself..
It was really difficult to use the aluminum one as the slightest turn tend to overdo it (spinning the crank -- you can feel its not free moving when too much preload is compressing on the bearing)
So it was back to the good ol' Shimano plastic thingie... As what i have always done.. screw in till hand tight + another ~15-20 degree turn. Done!
Next is the alternating bolts at the rear which are the ones to secure the crank.
The other reason not to use after market metal preload nut is that as the crank is being tightened down with the alternating bolts behind-- it squeezes down and would slightly compress the preload piece which works ok because it is plastic. But metallic preload nut would resist that compression and hence may affect proper crank tightening/ assembly. Note that with alternating bolts, as one is tightened, the other will loosen, until there is a certain amount of torque applied.
Brakes
Next came the dreaded part... Brakes.I had no flipping idea that nowadays everything came prefilled and basically makes it a plug and play of one end into the lever side if hose length need not be trimmed. Even the T90 barbs came preinstalled. All these is probably made easy for internal cable routing which seems to be the trend.
Mulling for awhile.. looks like hose length still needs shortening, so another barb will have to be fitted, which is why Lynskey packed these spares in.
But first, some brake-adapter Origami.
Front was straight forward... took me a couple of minutes to figure the rear though... and to
tighten everything is going bottoms up from the frame... bit of a mind
twister from the usual nuts and bolts
2 countersunk M5 attaches the adapter (for 160mm rotor) to the caliper (top pic). The adapter comes with 2 other funny bolts that has an appendix. These goes into the frame's flat mount and screw the adapter from underneath the frame (see bottom pic).
Shortening of brake hose (top). Tightening of brake cable to lever and bleeding
Next is where yours truly has royally screwed up ... Note the yellow plugs that seal the opening at the levers (see top left pic of left lever). DO NOT REMOVE THIS until you are ready to insert the brake hose. And DO NOT PRESS YOUR BRAKE LEVER at this time.
There is actually another piece of plastic under the lever to prevent it from being accidentally depressed.
Of course my natural instinct was to pull out anything that's not supposed to be there, both the white ones under the lever and the yellow plugs. And just like any curious kid I went to squeeze the lever next. Since prefilled, its pretty obvious what happened next was mineral oil all over the floor. Frigging noob me!
So what went from a supposedly simple plug and play-- end up needing a bleed. Learned something here again after looking at all the parts of the lever.
Owing to the confine of space housing shifter and brake parts, the reservoir is in some pretty odd shape with weird meandering to channel the hydraulic fluids along.
This means probably a lot area to trap air bubbles internally. Now, most videos of Shimano road hydraulic brake bleeding on Youtube are made by wannabes simply trying to promote their channel but hasn't a frigging clue. All they tell you is go tap the brake lines and squeeze the levers a few times and that's it!
Do yourself a favor-- watch the one that actually works by Parktool here .. it is ultra important that you need to tilt the oil cup a couple of times at different angles to let the system be able to completely "burp" the air bubbles out.
The small amount of space in a road lever reservoir in contrast to mountain bike brakes means that even a couple of air bubbles can translate to a huge amount of lever sponginess and modulation differences!
Anyway , back to the brakes, really all there is to do is only to push the cable in and tightened. The olive is already installed inside the lever.
Be VERY CAREFUL not to overtighten the nut (see bottom left pic above). Note that it says 5-6 Nm but most people at home even ifwith have a torque wrench, will probably not have the 8mm wrench adapter head needed in this case as it is an uncommon tool. Exercise caution. Once tight, stop. You may or may not be able to screw the thread fully in. That's ok. If at all it is better to have a leaky hose that u can tighten again rather than....
The problem with overtightening is that the whole contraption will crack. This is made of either plastic or carbon fiber depending on model but whatever it is, its gonna be some frigging expensive replacement part which is not easy to find!
This is the pic of a Shimano carbon fiber lever my friend came across from his customer that cracked due to over tightening.
Looking for where the cable gets inserted in Shimano shifters has always been a thing ever for me since I started using STI and their now discontinued DCL levers on mountain bikes where brakes and shifters are integrated. Bloody Shimano excel in hiding the tiny cable head like some kind of ninja fetish. Here on the GRX600 its side loaded behind the whole braking and shifter levers.
What really got me was how this entire expensive part is all but over 90% made out of PLASTIC! Anyway that's what it is these days.. Good old days of solid bike parts are a thing of the past. We are getting planned obsolescence shoved down our throats. Even good old metal parts--soon they will stop making things that goes with them.
I almost peeled off the white piece of thin plastic thinking it was just one of those stopper holding the cable in a brand new lever before installation is complete. Luckily this time I left it alone unlike the yellow plugs for the brake.
Found out later that is is actually a crucial part for proper shifting!
Next the rear deraileur went on the hanger of the bike. What I didn't realize was that in order to adjust the shifting properly, the hood has first got to be rolled back to secure the cable in place.
Thought all that was needed is just to make sure the cable was in the recess channel. WRONG. DEAD WRONG of me.
Cable-end prep
But first, let's get another pedantic endeavour of mine out of the way... Prepping cable ends for
shifter (or cable actuated brakes). This eliminates the "cable stretch"
often mentioned which just simply isn't true. Modern cables are all
pre-stretched. Its the wedging of the outer cable housing i nthe end caps that causes
problem over time coupled to an uneven cut end. All it takes is to file/ dremel flat the ends off a cut and removing a couple mm from the outer plastic housing.
Rotors and Adapters
Isn't installing a rotor straight forward? Why need to talk about it?
Yes and installing center lock rotor is even simpler.. just screw it in and tighten with a cassette lock ring tool! Viola-and done for the front.. then the rear.... WAIT! What? The tool wouldnt fit?? WTF..
Unlike old days when rear wheel hubs had 135mm OLD using QR, nowadays most bikes are using Thru Axles which are 142mm or longer.
Ok maybe I had the short type of tool-- so I was frantically looking for a longer lock ring toool from friend...
But the alternative is using another kind of lock ring that utilizes a bb tool to tighten and of course I gotten a couple of these quick from one of the old FBC geezers again ;)
Moving on... let's get the tires on and out of the way... Still not a convert of tubeless, so its prepping in good old fashion. Small things like powdering your tubes to sticking a cut out from an old tube to sit in between the valve and the rim goes a long way...
The other thing is avoiding those thin cheesy plastic good-for-nothing rim tapes. They only serve to get you a puncture from the rim side especially if spoke holes have not been properly finished (which should be checked anyway regardless of tube or tubeless setup). I only trust Zefal cloth tapes for normal size rims like this. For super wide rims between 55-100mm used on trials or fat bikes, those I have other ways of dealing with them.
Alignment and clearance check
There is nothing worse than getting a frame only to realize the rear triangle is mis-aligned. Having seen badly offset frame which affects the chain line, that is one of first thing I check with just the wheel put on. But this time the tires are on as well so the clearance can be gauged at the same time.
Rim is nicely aligned to the back of the seat tube. Clearance of the widest point in tire at seat stay is 10mm each side and 10 (NDS) and 12mm on the drive side of chain stay. Ok as due to the asymetry of the NDS chain stay-- its not a misalignment. the 40c (aka 40mm) measures out to be a tad wider on the Kenda Booster Pro @ 41mm
Lots of masking tape and velcro as parts wll still be taken in and out.. pointless for cable ties now.
One little part on the chain stay that stumped me for awhile as this little cutout from the solid asymetric yoke just behind the bb. Figured it out finally... to slot a cable tie to secure the shifter cable!
Steerer
The part I absolutely dread in all bike builds-- - The cutting of the steerer tube. More so in this case as this will be the first ever carbon steerer to cut in my entire life. Tools all ready. Mr Lady Finger supplied me with his steerer sawing guide and a carbon sawblade just in the nick of time.
Carbon sawblade which is really more like a very rough abrasive but soft to not fray the carbon parts
I was about to hack by clamping with an old stem otherwise and use some normal 1/32 hacksaw blade.
The hack way if you dont have the proper tools...
and... identification. Not foolproof but if u ever want to proof a bike is yours-- chances are thieves would not have swapped out your steerer and notice this...
Rear Wheel + Cassette Anomaly
Was troubleshooting at this point why I cant get the shifter to work properly (but not realizing its because I was trying to adjust while the hood is rolled up). Reckon its a fortunate thing because this actually led me to discover another problem. Pressing both brakes and forcing the bike forward, there was some considerable shake. I attributed it at first to the still headset and stack issue up front still not totally overcome.
Yet the amount of movement was more than its possible for the headset issue. So I thought maybe its because of new knobbie tires on tiled floor and its the knobs that rolled or slight movement due to brakepads not bedded in with rotors. But on my other even knobbier tire bike-- none of this slop was apparent.
So I just started pulling at everything... and DARN! ...the cassette was shaky on the freebody. Pretty sure I tightened it before putting it on the frame. Double chekced and yes the lockring is tight!
Took out the wheel instructon sheet and read it. I know that some wheels you need to work with a supplied spacer.. checked the wheel box, nothing. This was the case with all the mavic wheelset I had in the past.
HED says "No need for spacers with Shimano 11 spd" but as seen below in the video... the wheelset says otherwise. Luckily I have a boatload of spacers-- they are the same size as those for bb and I have amassed everything from 0.1, 0.2 0.5, 1.0 all the way to normal 2.5mm ones over the years.. so no issue to shim any thickness. Anyway all that was needed here is a single 0.2mm piece.. Yes!
Slap on the saddle to the post and ...first complete rough cut of the bike..
Things outstanding at this time
Shifter/ Deraileur adjustment still not quite done
Bar height and control settings not optimized
Final steerer cutting after 2. is finalized
Still a wee bit of annoying headset shakiness... hmm
Bar tape wrapping
Point 1-- fren pointed out to me that hood need to be pulled back down to be able to adjust the shifting properly and with that know, pretty much it was solved in a a few minutes. Since I brought my bike over, he did just that with this awesome mechanical skills which certainly far exceeds mine.
Point 4- -the sloppy headset was simply irritating the heck out of me when I got back home.. Bloody No matter what I did, it just wasn't perfect. Then it started me thinking.. could it be more than just the headset itself. Then I remmebered something from long ago...
... years ago when Chris King refuse to pay for the Aheadset patent, they could not use the c-ring design. So their headsets came with a Delrin ring. For a long time I never really thought it amounted to much but one time when i didnt put that, a slop was detected on the whole headtube/headset assembly. so it was diligently put back on and I never thought much about it..
Now as I sat mulling-- could a piece of old Delrin solve the current problem? The reason was at this point I had 30mm of spacer under the stem and another 20mm above it.. Part of the problem might be an improper pre-loading of the compression nut. dueto all the interfacing of these surfaces. Star nut would just pull things together as it is being tightened but compression nuts works in a different way and would not exactly be pulling the the bits up properly and possible leaving some tiny gaps.
headset top cover>10mm spacer>10mm spacer>10mm spacer>Stem>10mspacer>10mmspacer>C-nut
But first thing was sorting out the final cut of the steerer so that there is little to no spacer above the stem in order to make it easier for the compression nut to do its work properly.
Yup, couple of shakeout rides followed by anothe steerer trimming. Final spacer stack.. 25mm then followed by this piece of Delrin before the stem pops on and another 5mm of spacer on top.
headset top cover>10mm spacer>15mm spacer>10mm spacer>Stem>5mmspacer>C-nut
Headset shakiness-- GONE! Once tightened properly-- the spacers need quite a bit of force before they can actually be rotated unlike before the delrin ring was inserted.
Now in retrospect the Delrin ring is pretty much acting like a compression washer in many nuts and bolts application and that's how it has made things work.
Damn! Five thousand dollar bike needs a bloody 5 cents piece of plastic to make it all work well.
Last bit here are all the little things I have learned over time. Nothing sky shattering...
Top one is a mountain biker thing... roatating the seat clamp away from adding a piece a of old inner tube to prevent ingress of water and dirt into the seat tube. Taping of cables where it would be tied to the guides on the frame to prvent rub and wear on housing over time. Home made cable guides where they are needed.
Yes the fork can run internal cabling but I chose not to. Because when you wan to take out the fork the next time-- it will always be tethered to the brakes unless everything is removed. Internal cabling is really just a pain in the arse and in this case it really serves no aesthetic purpose hiding just a few inches but leaving the top and bottom all still exposed.
Swapped to the 26" front with the Advantage 2.25" this week. It's
definitely slower on the road. The full front and rear change to the
Continental Race King 2.0 already had an obvious increase in rolling
resistance over the 1.75" Gravel Kings previously on the bike.
Rullet aka Reverse Mullet... Now who would put a smaller rim in front? Why yours truly of course.
It's bigger than when the Gravel King was up front with a 27.5" hoop, diameter wise. But now, just a tad smaller. I eye ball it to be about ~3-4mm lower compared to the Conti Race King. Width wise the Advantage of course trumps them all.
Yesterday GnR loop near the house was all flat. About 20km in all. 25psi front and 35 psi rear. Basically it just felt like a rigid hardtail and reminds me a little of all those time riding rigid fat bikes too. Front soaked up most things. Rear did kick a little but nothing really unbearable. And I could have lowered the pressure in both wheels further.
Have to wait till another round to do a trail proper... climbs and descents all in, to see if I actually like this combo better. In any case going back to the 27.5 is just a minute quick swap. Rotors on both front wheels are playing nice and doesnt really need to fidget with the caliper after each switch.
The last time a speedometer was on any of my bike was ~12 - 13 years ago... Never bothered with these stuffs on mtb
Late last year after a hiatus of 10-11 years from riding roads, I resisted putting anything on the Stanyan. Errm ok, I tried to revive my antiquated 25 yrs old wired Cateye but then the display was all browned out and the sensor was only intermittently working.
But it was a good thing in a way without having anything on the bar.. paring the re-discovered manual estimation of cadence with old memories when I was riding road bikes...
...and remembering all the various gear inch ratio I liked...
Then I discovered modern tech on phones... Yes I graduated from my cave! Using a couple of bike apps like Map My Ride which gave the stats via GPS tracking.. but I never did mount my phone, its always in the frame bag. Personally it just looks absolutely fugly with a big piece of rectangle on the bar.
Finally got to looking around but was confused by the array of gadgets available these days.
Keeping it simple, I decided to go for the most basic stuff from Decathlon.
A BC-500-- no fumbling with magnets on spokes and another sensor piece on the fork.
Just one sensor on the hub and keep the meter within a 3m distance. All set.A tad slower than the conventional magnet type speedo.. but no big deal.
Jan 2021-- Pushing hard just to finish 10 laps of my "Daily Rabbit Loops" and keep an average of >25km/hr.
By Mar 2021-- it was pretty consistent to easily achieve above 28km/hr average for the same 10 laps..Quite a few days above 29km/hr but anything beyond 29.5km/hr seems hard
Then.... yes.. surpassing the psychological 30km mark came in Jun 2021..
Sliding back?. .Well, not really. By now I have also gotten a "smart watch" - Apart from all the usual speed and distance that can also be uploaded onto Strava, most importantly is the monitoring of heart rate.. Yes a chest strap monitor is more accurate but I'm already cluttering with too many things now.
And new target?- - Work towards that 30km/hr again but at twice the distance previously covered. That is 2 x 10 laps/ session now. While keeping to HR average in Zone 3.
Still some fine tuning to do as these monitoring and the gauge are all age based algorithm. While I'm sticking to the defined range based on my initial settings, think i can push it beyond but let's do that later.
More daily confirmations of the average speed with increased distance ridden.... "28.8, 27.7, 28,8..."
Update: Rain stopped... time for a ride. New tires... knobbies on the gravel rig. Makes for a harder ride.. but judging from the results as compared to the above with 28c slicks on the Stanyan, average speed is ok on these 27.5" Continental Race Kings 2.0".. not too bad I guess ~26.5km @ 125-135BPM avg...
21 Jul- Stanyan @Coastal
Could have gone faster... haven't gotten to a point of being out of
breath. But HR was maxing out so had to drop off a little each time it
beeps. But given the relatively relaxed effort.. Im beginning to wonder
if its better to do a VO2 max assessment and see if fitness level allows
for higher HR range in the training zone...
Update: 21 Aug: Same route but 6 weeks later... more start/stop and a stronger headwind but then again, I dropped 1.7kg from racks and fenders off the bike last week and a swap to a 53t ring over the old 48t....
Reckon with a bit of +/- its a ~1km improvement on average speed... for now.
