Back In the Saddle (Again)

My new bike is a Trek 2.1. It'll be 15 years ago this November from when I last did some major road biking (the El Tour de Tucson, a 111-mile circumnavigation of our fair city). That was on a heavy, all-aluminum Raleigh road bike. The 2.1 is a serious step up.

First I rode Trek's "entry level" road bike, the 1.5, which has Shimano Sora shifters, where the 2.1 has Shimano's Tiagra brand. The Sora has little thumb down-shifters, while the Tiagra has it all smoothly integrated in one component. The rear derailler in the 2.1 is the Shimano 105; another step up. It also has a little bit more carbon composite so your forks, seat post, and seat stays are carbon. All together it seemed worth the $150 premium over the 1.5 and I'm elated with it so far. My longest ride so far was ~16 miles (a round trip out to the base of Mt. Lemmon). It's so incredibly light-weight, yet powerful... I am honestly not fit enough yet to really go all-out on this bike!

The compact style of cranks is a nice innovation, though I wasn't sold on it (marking me immediately as a complete newbie to road racing) initially till I calculated that it actually had a broader range of gear ratios, though shifted slightly towards the higher (racing) end. The front cranks have gears with 50 and 34 teeth, e.g. it's a double instead of a triple. The rear cassette has 9 gears ranging from 11 to 27 teeth. So you have less total gears (and hence less weight), but distributed more evenly with less near-duplicates. If I upgraded to the Shimano 105 on the front, I'd have 53 and 39 and hence a 6% faster top speed (53 ÷ 50). But let me tell you... I am not ready for that! On a ride down from Saguaro East (low rolling hills, no steep descents), I could barely drop it into the highest gear (53/11) and I was freaking f-l-y-i-n-g!

It is a joy to ride this bike. It's also more shock absorbent than anything I have ever rode (the carbon, no doubt).