Chilly Alice’s ride

I finished replacing the chain and sprockets on the GS on Saturday morning (after only one false start of accidentally ordering the right chain size for the XT, not the GS. Oops! At least my booboo doesn’t really waste money in the long term).

The only gearing change I made was to go down to 15T in the front (stock is 16T). I kept the rear at 47T. The chain is a standard nothing-fancy DID 520.

After I had the bike all buttoned back up, Viv came over with Mike Wazowski. At the time, going up to Alice’s for a root beer float sounded like a great idea, so Peter and I suited up and the three of us headed up the hill.

I tried mounting my camera to the GS for the first time, but forgot that Hwy 9 is pretty bumpy and therefore doesn’t play nice with cameras. Most of my shots of Viv came out really blurry (not even “artistically interesting”), but these are OK:

By the time we hit the summit at Hwy 35, I was fuh-REEZ-ing. Even with a long-sleeved T-shirt and the liner to my jacket, the wind was cutting right through. I don’t know why I’m totally incapable of remembering that the summit is NOT the same temperature as the valley this time of year. Doh.

When we got to Alice’s, Peter and Viv were also jumping around trying to warm up and we decided to substitute hot chocolate for root beer floats.

While hanging around in the parking lot, we bumped into my coworker Chris, who also knew Viv from random places. The valley is an amazingly small place sometimes.

Chris joined us for hot chocolate and snacks as we warmed up inside of Alice’s. It was a nice time; relaxing and joking and chatting with friends on a mellow chilly Saturday afternoon.

We posed for goofy photos back outside, then took Hwy 84 back down to the valley. Chris peeled off to head to Redwood City, where Viv, Peter, and I continued south down the peninsula to the south bay.

Overall, I think I like the new gearing on the GS. It definitely had a little bit more torque, but I could still go the safe and legal speed limit on the freeway. 😉 I still need to take it out on some real dirt to see which gearing works better for that, but the rains have started now, so we’ll have to see when that’ll be.