Afternoon all,
just thought I would update this thread as we have been out and returned now.
The bike was a total pleasant surprise to her, which was great, and it did look pretty much as good as I thought.
The pedals were odd but happily came off easily, to be replaced (currently by flatties) which are fine until she properly moves across to clips.
One other oddity which I had not appreciated from the pictures, is that all of the cables are going OVER the handlebar, which I'm sure isn't how it came out of the factory - no biggie, but reduces hand positions.
I took all the spares over but as it transpired, and the routes we did, the lower gears were not replied, but they are stashed there, and I am out again in June, so will change it up then.
Tyres were fine, gearing was mostly ok, brakes needed a bit of adjusting, but nothing major - bit of rub in some extreme gears, but I can dial that out when I replace the rear end, chain etc.
My plan in June is to clearly replace the gear cable, and I think at that point I should be able to relocate all of the cables under the handlebar, probably just a case of taking off the faceplate, moving the cables and re-attaching.
The bars also oddly had quite a deep drop, but she didn't complain, and also were rotate back a bit, so I'll sort that as well.
Size wise, it's basically perfect, the seatpost is probably up about 2cm I reckon, and she can ride it comfortably with some bend in her elbows, in all of the hand positions.
I certainly was not going to push it at all with regards to getting her out on the bike, so said nothing, and just started working on the bikes, giving them a clean, as my parents had a ton of dusty building work they all needed a bit of a clean, so I put her to 'work' pumping up all 6 tyres, telling her what psi to put in each tyre.
We reached my parents at about 2pm, so I cracked on pretty much straight away, hoping we might be able to ride something the following day.
Without any prompting she asked on the Friday if we could test the bike for size etc, so we pootled about up and down the road, and down to the beach and just rode a few km, maybe 3 or 4 at most.
Again I said nothing, not wanting to push it, but she asked if we could ride on the Saturday.
I had a route planned around a lake that was maybe 35 minutes drive away, so popped the rack on the car, put the bikes on the back, and we set off after lunch.
It was only ~21k and fairly flat, and I'd specced it so what climbing there was we mostly got out of the way in the first quarter of the ride - this also meant the glorious view as you approach the lake from the north east corner was a lovely surprise late on the loop.
Being a Saturday, and sunny, there was a large volume of bikers (motor) out, and a few cars as well - I think it is a favourite spot for hooning basically, so we had a lot of loud and fast vehicles to deal with, which I thought might cause her bother, but she was fine with it.
*There were no close passes or anything of that sort, just noisy really.
I've seen quite a few flowers attached to various areas on the route, think there have been a number of casualties over the years I expect.
Anyway, that all went well, and again I didn't push anything, but as soon as we got home, she asked if we could go a bit further next time.
I had one bigger route already planned, again round the lake, but with an extension, but probably 3 times the climbing, and I wasn't confident she would make it with the current gearing, and or her stamina - she doesn't like hills currently.
I used Strava (Something I have not done before) on my phone, and found that you could specify a distance range and what kind of elevation you were after, so went for a flatish one, and around 35km - it spat one out of 37km, on some roads I had not ridden before, well some anyway.
We set off on the Monday, and the middle part was REALLY busy roads - again no issues with close passes, and it was ok for me, but I thought she was going to not be that happy about the volume and speed of the traffic, but she said she loved it!
I did of course have to take plenty of snacks and water for her on all these rides - she had a bottle, and I had by bottle and a 2nd one for her on my bike.
After that ride, again we came back, and she asked if we could ride maybe 50km next time
Again, I had no route planned for this eventuality, but given the busy roads nature of the previous one, decided to build one myself.
I did use the Strava heatmap feature, and found a great and slightly longer way to avoid a busy road with a long climb, that personally I love as you get a super fast and straight long downhill as a reward, but I knew she wouldn't be a fan.
The outcome was we had to ride mostly quiet roads and cycle paths for 15km, 10km out on this towpath, back again, and then the 15km back again on the roads.
When I say towpath, it was nothing like our canal towpaths here, these are huge perfectly tarmacced wide roads basically, with walkers, cyclists, runners, and the very odd vehicle on them, but they are going slow.
The only negative to this route was the fact it crossed 5 roads (10 in total) which meant we had to stop to cross them each time, a couple in one direction were tricky to see if there was traffic coming or not.
That one took us 3 hours basically, and although she was flagging quite a bit for the last 15k perhaps, we managed to achieve an average of 17kmh, which I think she was pleased with.
Anyway, just wanted to give an update, and say a massive thankyou again for all the advice - the parts, and bar tape are out there, so am hoping she will be similarly enthused when we all go back out there in October, and it's looking even better and has a much better gear range.
Trying to gently keep her momentum up at home, will try and get her onto my spare Rouvy sub as my partner simply does not use it, so that could be a good way to keep her interest - off her own bat she said she would like to ride twice a week which is encouraging, as despite decent quality padded shorts, she still complains of rear end discomfort, but we've all been there, you just need to condition your @rse to it.
Thanks all :-)
