Despite my good intentions I did not fit in all the riding that I wanted to at the weekend. I was keen to get out on my nice new bike for some long rides but things just didn’t work out that way. Real life intruded on my triathlon world and more important things took precedence. Now I am stuck in London with my road bike for the week as I really don’t fancy commuting on the tri bike. Apart from the risk of damaging my new baby, it just wouldn’t be safe on aero-bars in London traffic.
I was hoping to be able to compare my times on my lovely new bike to those on my old road bike but all I managed was a quick 35k ride on Saturday. Obviously this is not a statistically significant sample and should not be used to draw any conclusions, but I will anyway.
Since I am not used to the new bike, or indeed aero-bars, I was very tentative on any tricky parts of the ride. The ride itself was not very well suited to a triathlon bike as it was quite twisty and hilly. On the straighter bits I was down on the bars putting in a bit of effort. By the end of the ride I was feeling much more confident on the bike, the bike itself handles very well and any lack of confidence is due to my inexperience (and cowardice) rather than shortcomings in the bike.
After the ride I compared my time with the time I managed flat out on my Giant the weekend before. The results? The Giant was exactly 14 seconds quicker. Considering I have been riding that bike for a few years and was absolutely hammering it to go that fast I think the Focus is going to be much quicker once I am used to it. One problem is the limited time I have to adjust. Weymouth Middle Distance is only 2.5 weeks away which only leaves two weekends to get on the bike. Not ideal, I know, but it will just have to do.
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