The BipedFred Blog

I went exploring north of Fort Collins aiming for the unpaved Owl Canyon road.  This is the stretch of road to the west of where Taft Hill Road ends. It’s a nice surface, great scenery, but way too many fast moving cars and it only goes 2 miles before it runs into CR72 which is worse. 

No big deal, there are plenty of other interesting roads. I’m not sure what this was, but it looked tempting in the heat.

Here’s what the country looks like on the north end of Taft Hill Road; wide open spaces.

And here’s a cornfield just north of Wellington.

I’m experimenting with Syntace C2 SL aero-bars since I’ve seen pictures of Fargo’s set up with them.  So far, they make the front end feel very heavy, it’s nice to be able to flop over and take the weight off my hands, and you can hang all sorts of crap off them. 

They may be a huge pain-in-the-arse for commuting, though, so I may use them as “Special Occasion” add-ons.

Sunday (today) seemed like a good day for exploring the dirt roads East of I-25.  Here’s one (it was looking rainy, but it didn’t).

 Here’s another.

It occurred to me that my Fargo would be worth the price even if all I did was the occasional back road ride like this one.  And it would also be worth the price if all I ever used it for was commuting.  Lucky me, I get to do both.

I hooked up my Burley trailer to my Salsa Fargo for the first time and made a run down to Wal-Mart just to try it out. The big Coleman hinged box is probably overkill (heavy) but it is nice to be able to lock it closed when shopping at more than one store.

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Pulling it with the Fargo feels a lot more solid than it ever did with my aluminum bikes. I don’t use the trailer very often, but like a pick-up truck — it sure is handy to have sometimes.

I took my Fargo on a little mixed terrain jaunt Sunday, heading for the Soapstone Prairie open space which is north of Fort Collins on the Wyoming border. I packed a lunch planning on spending a full day exploring.

I never got there.  Rawhide Flats road turns into a nasty combination of loose gravel and washboard and I don’t have a clue how to ride it. The only other bikes I saw out there were on the tops of cars so maybe it’s just not rideable (or maybe I just lack the experience and skills to handle it? Probably). I tipped over (I was going too slow to  claim I skidded out) about five miles short of the entrance to Soapstone and that completely drained my enthusiasm for the project so I turned tail and headed back the way I came.

Red Mountain is another open space adjacent to Soapstone so I headed west and found the approach road was much, much more to my liking. This is wide open country with unlimited vistas, many cows, and only one house that I could see.

I rode eight or nine miles of it and flatted my rear tire. I couldn’t find the hole, the wind was blowing so hard I couldn’t hear anything. I had only seen two cars in the last hour so I decided that thirty miles from home in the middle of nowhere was no place to tempt fate. I mounted my spare tube and headed for home (slowly, that headwind was COLD!).

So I didn’t make it to either of the open spaces, but I don’t care. Red Mountain road was beautiful, and there are hundreds of miles of other roads just like it and I’ve got all summer to explore them.

It took a while to get my Salsa Podio’s fit dialed in and it’s feeling pretty good right now.  I did a strong ¾ Horsetooth on Sunday, that is Bingham Hill south across the dams to the overlook just past Stout and return back north across the dams.

Since I mentioned I bought this bike to help me with climbing (not as in “climbing fast”, but as in “not totally sucking on the steeps”) I thought I might say something about it.

Before I do, here’s a bit of background.  This is only the third bike I’ve used on my climbing routes which are mainly Horestooth Res and Rist Canyon (the easy side). So I don’t have a lot to compare it with.

I’ve only ridden my Podio 400 miles  500 miles on those routes.

Anyway, here is my preliminary assessment of my Salsa Podio as a climber: YES!!!!

Your results may vary.

(PS- I maxed out at 51.9 mph (83.5 kph) coming down the big hill at Horestooth Dam, first time I didn’t have bad cross winds and the bike didn’t feel twitchy at all.)

I get most of this blog’s referrals from search engine phrases in two categories.

The first is (paraphrasing) “Salsa Fargo + Commuter”.  I find it a bit surprising that so many (well, a more accurate term would be “several”) people are seeking information about a specific model of bike for the generic purpose of riding to a particular location on a set schedule (commuting).

I bet these visitors are looking for some way to justify buying a bike they want, even if they aren’t quite sure why they want it so much. 

So, Salsa Guys, if you include the word “Commute” in your Fargo web-site and maybe a picture of a Fargo with fenders and a Surly Nice Rack you would help push a few more buyers over the top.

(Here’s my brief review: Fargo — the best commuter bike ever. The pictures are here.)

The other search phrase includes “U-Lock + Carry”.  Which doesn’t surprise me in the least because I used to obsess over the best way to haul a U-lock on my bike. Here is the best way.

I’m reluctant to admit that I no longer carry a U-lock (but the Walnut Studilio holster is still the best way to carry one) since Fort Collins is not a high theft risk area for those who don’t park overnight near the CSU campus.

 I’ve been using an ABUS Steel-O-Chain which is altogether much handier than a u-lock; it’s easier to use and chains up to almost anything.

Thanks for the traffic, please send money.

I’m surprised how much difference small adjustments make to bike fit.  I’m not talking about riding the wrong size bike, but rather adjusting a properly sized bike so you feel “at home” riding it.

Some background: I bought my Salsa Podio with an eye toward improving my climbing performance and, after the first few climbing rides, I’m just starting to get a feel for the steeps.  But  I have to ride 15 miles of mostly flat to rolling terrain on my regular route to reach the start of the various climbs.

The flats were where I decided some fit tweaks were in order. Somewhere during the return 15 miles I’d start getting a little “squirmy” and I’d be shifting around trying to find a more comfortable posture.  I think that means my bike wasn’t set right for my natural pedaling posture.

Anyway, yesterday’s 50 mile climbing ride felt  pretty good all ‘round and I finished without getting squirmy which I hope means I finally have the fit dialed in.

So here are the fit tweaks I made from the factory build spec:

Changed the 110mm 0 deg stem for a 90mm 5 deg stem. The old stem had a much taller steerer clamp height so I think my net bar height change was a wash.

Changed the stock 23mm offset seatpost for a zero offset seatpost which allowed me to move the saddle forward about 10mm.

Lastly, I raised the saddle nose a couple of degrees above level.

That’s not a whole lot of change but it was enough so I’m starting to feel  at home on this bike.

(I read somewhere the most frequent fit mistake is setting the saddle height too low. However, I always seem to start out too high and end up lowering my saddle in tiny increments unti I stumble on the right height.)

I changed out the Shimano 105 SPD-SL pedals on my Salsa Podio for a set of Look Keo 2 Max Carbon  (No pictures, they look just like the catalog shots) and got the chance to try them yesterday on a 40mi ride up Horsetooth reservoir.

It was my first time riding Look pedals and I’m sold.

I’ve used Shimano Ultegra and 105 SPD-SL Pedals the last couple of years.  The big difference seems to be clicking-in. I can feel when the nose of the Looks is engaged with the front of the pedal and then it only takes a very light weight on the heel to get clicked in.  The difference is subtle, but I like the feel.

If you can believe the reviews, the cleats won’t last as long as the SPD-SL’s, but they have a wear indicator so I don’t really care if I have to replace them once (or twice) a season.  They have a little alignment piece that stays on the shoe so you can mount replacement cleats in the exact same position, but my shoes don’t have the added mounting point . No big deal.

In the past I used SpeedPlay Road and Frog pedals, and at least three different variants of Crank Bros Egg Beaters, plus the aforementioned Shimano SPD-SL’s.  I like my new Look Keo 2 Max pedals better.

(For my road bike that is, I’m sticking with Shimano SPD’s for my touring bikes.)