Test ride: sequential comparison

Today I decided that I wanted to ride Meg (the Terry Madeleine) and Maia (my LeMond Alpe d’Huez) right in sequence to do a closer comparison, because after a few more (utilitarian) rides on Meg, I wondered if maybe I was too stretched out actually. The utilitarian rides were interesting because they were rides I would actually do in real life. I could really feel how much faster I would go on a regular basis if I used Meg as my commute bike, and I also noticed that I will really need to invest in a mirror that I’m comfortable wearing, because it’s very hard to see behind you in a road-bike position with a backpack on. (Of course, I’ll likely install a rack and use panniers many times instead of a backpack, but still.)

It turned out to be a really interesting comparison. I just rode around my neighborhood, experimenting with some rough road nearby and some starting, stopping, and turning, using different gears and hand positions.

The verdict is that neither Meg nor Maia is exactly perfect in size. Maia is just a tiny, tiny tad small. I’ve always felt a little bit, not cramped exactly, but like I was slightly large for Maia. It’s not something you notice objectively, and after riding her for a while I feel completely comfortable, but it’s there.

Meg is a little big, but not too big. Mainly, I need to bend a little more at the waist when riding Meg, instead of trying to cover the difference with my arms. When I bend properly, the handlebars fall in line with my nose and the brakes, which is the same positioning as I use on Maia, and my arms feel better. For a while I was concerned that there was something wrong with the front wheel, but it turned out just to be a little looseness of the reflectors, which went away when I adjusted them. There is a kind of sound when pedaling, though, that bothers me a little. I think it’s probably just the way she sounds, since all bikes sound a little different, but obviously I’m going to get it thoroughly checked out once I decide whether to keep her for sure.

I also reaffirmed that the gearing on Maia is better for around-town stuff. On Meg I’m always pushing up to the upper middle gears, but I imagine this wouldn’t be true after 30 or 40 miles with a loaded rack, so I think the gearing is correctly chosen for the application.

They perform noticeably differently on rough pavement. Meg softens more of the bigger jolts with the thicker tires and sturdier wheels, but transmits more of the small vibrations through the frame to my hands. Maia is the opposite, with little insulation from the road bumps but with the carbon in the frame cutting out most of the small vibrations and making the ‘feel’ flatter. I remember this same issue from when I was test-riding all-carbon bikes like the Ruby and Synapse, both of which felt flat to me.

One other interesting difference is that the drops on Maia are deeper. I really noticed that those on the Salsa handlebars are shallower (since they’re called short & shallow this makes sense). When I put my eye level with the top tube at the point where it joins the fork, the top of the drops on Maia is level with the top of the top tube, whereas on Meg half the bar is above that point. I prefer that positioning, given I’m more heeled over on Meg in general, so I need to be aware that if I do replace the bars, the drops won’t be as well-positioned unless I find a bar that is as straight as the Bontrager but as shallow as the Salsa. I also just noticed that part of the problem may not be the fact that Salsa bars angle out, but that they angle DOWN, whereas the Bontrager bars are nearly flat until they make the sudden turn down just at the hoods. Either way, those bars are just not as comfortable for me.

The more I ride Meg the more I’m thinking I’ll keep her, despite the small issues she does have. No bike is perfect, and Maia is probably the closest I will ever find to a perfect bike for me — so in a way the comparison is unfair. But I know I’m not looking for the same thing out of them, so hopefully my evaluation is accurate for the uses I’ll be putting them to.

I certainly would be delighted to replace my current commuter with Meg and take pounds off and ride a bike that’s better suited in almost every way to my daily and potential long-term recreational touring needs, and that’s probably the most important measure, not whether I love Meg as much as Maia. I’ll always delight in going out lightly laden to fly up and down Sand Hill or Portola Valley loop, but I also love the utilitarian pace of life at 12mph and the idea of cranking out the long miles with everything I need to live for a few days on the back of my bike!

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