I am also a recent owner (2 months; maybe 10 rides) of a 'bent bike and find it more comfortable and, at present, more wobbly than an upright - not totally surprising, as I have been riding uprights for longer than 2 months ...
I have probably only done about 75km in total on the 'bent.
I use a system when the road goes a bit upward:
- incline - hardly even noticeable
- slope - need to change down quite a bit
- hill - granny ring and in 3 lowest gears
- vertical
Currently, I have managed to convert two upwardly-inclined bits of road from 'hill' to 'slope'
, while still having a number of local 'hills'; these 'hills' would be 'inclines' when adequately fit on my upright.
I'm less wobbly than I was at the beginning but still hanker for my L plate on the back at times ...
How steep a hill can a 'bent bike go up ? The
first hill on the Snow Roads 300k audax is apparently an average of 6.8%; average, maybe but I know it is 15% in some bits (having been up and down it and seen the road signs). There are a few 'bent bike riders who do the SR and most manage it without stopping but I know one experienced rider who usually hops off and
runs the last few hundred metres, as it's a bit quicker !
They all manage the rest of the ride OK (well, as OK as is going to happen on a 300km audax with 4800m of climbing.
) They are
very, very quick down the hills, though !
I still [always] wobble when starting and usually because of the 'torque steer' which is almost inevitable when pushing with an extended leg on a pedal on the end of a boom which is out in front of the front wheel. My current solution is to try turning my heel in towards the centreline, so I am almost trying to push 'out' rather than straight. This does seem to reduce the 'torque steer', so I will try to do this more often to see if it helps when starting from rest.
I'm still learning and, during my last ride, I found that I was really enjoying just being out for a ride.
Not specifically 'going somewhere'; not specifically 'training'; not doing anything other than having fun on my bike.
Dave Gardiner at Laid Back Bikes is an ace bloke
. If you do come up to Embra, he'll get you well sorted (= hooked
).
Let us know how you get on and how your thinking progresses.