Rode my new bike up Big Lake Highway

[azbackpackr]

Today I bought a used Giant OCR3 road bike with upgraded Shimano wheels, 4 years old, great condition, weighs 21 lbs. I was lucky to find it because I am so small and it's difficult to find used road bikes in my size. This one is a 42 or something like that.

So, to try it out, I rode with two other women up from Eagar to Big Lake Highway 261 and up it almost to Mexican Hay Lake--to the Overlook.

Funny thing, I've been mtn. biking a lot lately, and I ride to work, too. So I'm pretty fit on the bike. I had no trouble with that 6% grade. It was going DOWN that was the kicker. Luckily I had plenty of advice from my more experienced pals. I learned about pedaling techniques, braking, and taking curves, etc. My hands were killing me going down. I really didn't want to get going up to 40 mph, and I had to brake hard the whole way to prevent that. I thought my legs would be sore, but it's my arms and shoulders that took the beating!

Good training, bike fits me well, had plenty of help from the guys (who rode up separately) with the fitting, etc. I feel lucky today to have another nice piece of sports equipment for not a lot of money.

[desertgirl]

Oh Cool !
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[Nighthiker]

When I was camping at Big Lake last month I thought that would be a good road ride as well. May stay up their next month to do just that ad the visit the Alpine area. I have a 04 Giant OCR1. I upgraded the crank (amont other upgrades) to an all Ultegra drive train. Today I was riding my 1984 Trek 660 road bike that I had rebuilt. Spent the morning on a club ride in Mesa the went for a solo ride in NE Mesa. enjoy road riding and take care on the downhill.

[azbackpackr]

Shew! Big learning curve! I had no idea! For one thing, I am used to the disc brakes on my Specialized Stumpjumper FSR. They actually stop on a dime. I was warned before we started down the hill, though. At the Overlook I received several lessons from everyone regarding going down the hill, and that the braking would be hard on my hands and arms. Yeah. They were right!

Later, at lunch, they were talking about technical problems, such as frames that vibrate too much when you get going real fast, and windy passes in Colorado where there are 25 miles or more of steep downhill grades. Yikes! Anyway, I don't always have to ride up something that steep, and I did make it back down without mishap.

[evenstar]

When I lived in Walnut Creek, CA I used to bike from my house to the summit of Mt. Diablo, rated by bicycling magazine as one of the 25 toughest climbs in U.S. Did Twice on Mt. bike and five times on road bike. Road was in weird condition....no potholes or ridges to worry about, but going up you could see the road bed looked like it was made of asphalt mosaic tiles about 3" in size. Going down you were too fast to see them, but knew they were there; kinda scary on the skinny little road bike tires! and yeah, I rode hell outta the brakes; lots of hairpin turns between long straight sections. My fastest time up from the entrance gate was a little over one hour fifty minutes. Forget the year, but they had a pro road race to the summit won by Eric Heiden in 44 minutes and some seconds.

Interesting fact about Mt. Diablo; it is second only to Mt. Kilimanjaro in the total land area that can be seen from it peak.
http://www.geocities.com/yosemite/trails/6016/mtdiablo.html
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[Matt Hoffman]

azbackpackr,

Once you get comfortable on that road bike, you should try to ride up to Hawley Lake. My friends that have a house in Pinetop ride all of the time and they do that ride often. Having driven up to Hawley for the first time this past summer, I now think the are nuts!
They ride a tandem most of the time now. They actually just had disc brakes put on it because they get going too fast on that thing!
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[Nighthiker]

Sometimes I have noted my heart rate is faster going down hill than up. They just had silent Sunday at South Mtn. Park. No cars allowed on the road, but bicycles, skaters, hikers and dogs with leashs are all over the road. Going down hill can present some problems and usually several people get hurt. Usually cyclist.

[Matt Hoffman]