Beautiful day to ride a bike!

Malvern, UK, yesterday.
The statue is Edward Elgar, who was a keen cyclist. Don’t think he minded me using him as a bike stand.



Pirate pheasant…

So I will post again later once I head out, but I wanted to tell a little story.

I had been wanting to get a new bike to get some exercise on and cruise around town. I was looking for something a little more sporty than a cruiser, but not a full fledged road bike A single speed (Fixie) doesn't make much sense near me as there quite a lot of hills being in a beach town. I also wanted something affordable that I could ride down to the beach and lock it up and not have it be to precious. I should also note that being 6'4 (1.93M) finding used bikes in my size is a bit hard, as only hardcore bikes seem to exist used around me. So I assumed you could still buy 3 speed bikes at an affordable price... Wow was I wrong lol...

A friend turned me onto gravel bikes though, which to me is just everything old is new again, these are basically the proto Mountain Bikes that existed when I was young! relaxed road bike geometry with no suspension and a few gears... Narrowish tires that had some grip on dirt, but not draggy on the street. Many of these are made more for bike touring/camping stuff not racing.

So this lead down a nasty rabbit hole, and ended up buying from a local company called Poseidon which makes a pretty decent bike with decent components that will not break the bank perfect for what I was looking for ( a little more money in the end but its exactly what I was looking for.)

https://www.poseidonbike.com/products/x-ambition-dropbar?variant=43990529605860

I've been riding everyday and slowly adding the mods I need to make it my own.

Below are some examples of my typical rides.

Top one is 5.5 miles one way, the other is an 11 mile loop.

Nice @Foo2rama !
A few pages back I think I talked about getting a gravel bike as my one do it all bike.
And I think I still may, but I just don't ride enough right now to be buying a new bike.
I want to make the move to discs and electronic shifting, and that comes at a price!

Electronic is a huge price jump.

Yeah. The tech has been trickling down over the years. I think you can even get electronic 105 and Rival now.
Which is more than fine with me. I don't need DA or Red...or do I? lol.

Yeah I bought my current bike, a 2011 Giant TCR Advanced SL off of a local "racer" back in 2014 when I moved back to Florida from NYC.
Had a garage full of bikes, he cut me a pretty sweet deal. I paid about half of what just the frame alone sold for new.
It is built up with 10 speed SRAM Force with Red crank.
I really have no reason to get rid of it. Other than I want to just upgrade. But I get out on it once a week, most of my exercise is indoors on the Peloton so it is hard to justify going out and spending that kind of money.
However when I do end up getting a new bike, I do want one brand new and to be re-fit. I'm just not as comfortable as I used to be.
Maybe it is because I'm not in the shape I used to be in. But I'm getting numbness/tingling not even an hour in.
It has been over 10 years since my last fit...so I'm due.

Happy memories, a snap from before ill health put an end to my cycling days 🙁

Taking a well earned break 😀

‘Twas a beautiful day to ride a bike!



i’m on my roadie here, I also have a MTB (Trek Top Fuel), but I have decided to go for something in between and so I’ve purchased a gravel bike that should be here in a few days… I’m pretty excited about it!

I’ll post pictures when it arrives!

My new “gravel“ bike arrived last week, and I’ve had a ball with it: on the road, on gravel, and today, on single track MTB trails.
It really is a great all-arounder.



Riding past the 45th Infantry Division Museum, I had to stop and get a picture of my ‘rocket’ with another ROCKET!! 😁



Mine is a 2023 Cervélo Aspero 5 🥰
54 cm ‘Purple Sunrise’ GRX 2x Di2

… with my trusty bronze/blue Baltic Aquascaphe

Besides the performance of the bike, it’s frame color scheme is quite a charm as well.

Cervélo’s ‘Purple Sunset’ 🥰

… for your enjoyment (if you love the colors as much as I do) !!

I took these the day of delivery in Norman, Oklahoma:

Duuuuuude that thing is freakin' SWEET!
How does it do on the pavement?
If y'all recall, I was considering making the switch to a gravel bike as my all around "road" bike.
Still considering it, but still no immediate plans.