Decisions, decisions

The Steel Horse has been a little ill lately. On Saturday I hit an unusually large and sharp object (still not sure what it was), thusly tweaking my rim, puncturing my tire and taking me down to one wheelset. On Monday I ordered a pair of rigid forks to replace the suspension forks currently installed on the bike. Every last ounce of energy will count on this excursion, and suspension forks are not made for long, flat roads.

All this made me realize that I need a back up, so Monday I went out and gave a couple other bikes a test ride. My current rig weighs about 30 lbs, which is pretty heavy for a tour of this magnitude. It's a good thing I don't know the difference :-)

Well, now I do.

Ten pounds lighter, larger wheels and thinner tires make for a heckuva lot of speed, which is addicting. The problem I have is that I'm also addicted to the durability and stability of my Giant Rainier. If I were to've struck this object using thinner tires (also inflated to twice the PSI of my mountain wheels), I might be in orbit right now.

Lastly, once you go to disc brakes, you'll never want to go back to conventional bicycle braking systems. No Road bikes come with discs, and only some Cyclocross bikes have them. Looks like I may be shopping for a lighter, rigid-forked mountain bike.