The second reason is my hands continue to really hurt. This one frankly has me more than a little puzzled and quite concerned. Broadly speaking, several days or even a few weeks of numbness or tingling in the ring and pinkie fingers after a long ride is fairly common. But this is worse in that my entire hand hurts (both of them) all over from my wrists to my fingertips. They just ache something terrible and I have no grip strength at all. I've kept them in a constant state of soreness by riding the DF and by doing other things that are hard on the hands e.g., pruning bushes.
So because the 'bent doesn't put any pressure on my hands I've continued to ride it and it has helped. They're better. Not cured, but better.
So this has obviously caused me to think about whether I'll continue to ride the 'bent. In the past (as is the case now), I've only ridden it when I'm injured in some way. The primary goal is to keep the legs turning over and get some exercise while I let some other body part heal. But I keep pondering the notion that were I to ride it more perhaps I could ease the stress on my aging body.
I see three choices:
- continue doing what I'm doing. Ride it when I hurt but as soon as I'm healthy again go back to the DF.
- mix riding the DF and 'bent - perhaps even in strict rotation i.e., alternating every ride between a DF and the 'bent.
- Go all in on the 'bent, ride it exclusively.
OK, I'm not there yet for (3). As I noted in an earlier post, I like riding DF bikes in a way that the 'bent just doesn't do for me. At this time, the only way I think I'd do that is if I was simply unable to ride a DF.
That leaves the other choices. Although (2) might seem compelling, it has some issues.
- The Bacchetta doesn't climb particularly well. This is due both to efficiency loss in the drive train and the fact that the "stall speed" is around 4-5 MPH. Below that you end up weaving as you climb in a way that's unsafe, especially if there are other cyclists and/or traffic around. As I said in an earlier post, it's very hilly here and I like the ability to be spontaneous as to the direction and duration of my rides. Consequently, I don't like either not being able to go a particular way or shorten my ride because of the hills.
- There isn't a lot of crossover between the DF and the 'bent from a training point of view. Yes, riding either is certainly better than sitting on the couch with a 6-pack and bag of chips but if e.g., I had a hard brevet coming up I'd need to devote myself to one or the other and commit to riding it exclusively until after the ride. So given the fact that I tend to fill up my dance card with hard or long brevets the obvious implication is I'd spend pretty much the entire year exclusively on one or the other (which takes us to choice (1) above).
Besides its poor climbing ability, I find the muscle groups engaged when riding the 'bent are pretty different. In this recent spate of injury, the longest ride I've done on the 'bent thus far is 25 miles and the longest I've ever ridden it is 100K. I find the 'bent uses the muscles on the front of my legs (quads, and tibialis anterior) much more whereas the DF generally uses the muscles up the back (hamstrings, calves, glutes). When I finish riding the 'bent, even the short rides I've done, the muscles that run up my shins are burning and extremely tired.
Because of that, I'm fairly confident I could do a 200K+ brevet on a DF tomorrow. I'm also fairly certain I couldn't even manage a 100K on the 'bent without significantly more acclimation.
So for all those reasons, alternating between the two, especially when I've got a long ride coming up, makes less sense. Now it is possible, even likely, that other 'bents climb better. From what I've been reading, Cruzbikes climb well due to the much shorter drivetrain and the ability to engage the upper body and core in a way that's similar to DF bikes. So that might ameliorate point (1) of the issues but doesn't address point (2), or at least I don't think it does.
I'm continuing to ponder this. More immediately, I'm considering what I'm going to do in preparation for the SR600K in December, assuming I decide to still take it on. More on that later perhaps.
