This is the profile of my twice-daily 3-mile bike ride through San Francisco. It looks kinda crazy. Maybe it is, but the worst part is the first hill. We live at the bottom of Pershing Drive and it's crazy steep, and turning onto our driveway off of it is a bit hairy. There's an amazing amount of relief two-thirds of the way up, it makes all the difference. Same on the way back (from right to left). From the left to right is my ride to school, right to left is the ride home in the evening. At the bottom of the first hill is the entrance to the Presidio at 15th and Lake. The red line is Lake Street to Arguello. Then a jog over onto Sacramento, the blue line, and all the way to school at Webster. Understand, this is exaggerated. I can't fit 3 miles of true profile onto this website. On the way home from school is the big hill up Sacramento, and almost every evening since we've been here, there's a nice strong headwind (usually about 20mph), so even when I crest the hill, I have to keep pedaling to go down the less-steep other side.
For the past two weeks (let me brag for a moment), I haven't changed gears either. It's a really good short 15-minute workout twice a day. I pass up every other cyclist I see. I am Extremely Fortunate to not get very sweaty. The only exception is if my laptop is still warm in the backpack, a puddle forms on my back underneath it. I wish I could take credit, but I'm just really lucky to be given a healthy physical body (thanks Mom and Dad). The other day in class we were learning to take vitals (Heart Rate, Blood Pressure). Each of us was given an automatic blood pressure machine. Dinking around with it, my heart rate was 58 bpm at 9:30am (after the bike ride and a test). In the clinic 2 hours later, we took each other's vitals with the machine and manually. Neither of us could believe my heart rate so my partner took it 3 times manually and had the machine try it twice. 45 beats per minute. Woof. The machine also said my heartbeat was irregular. I already knew that. Just now, I took my heart rate (I've been home for 45 minutes), and it's up at 70, but it speeds up and slows way down, noticeably. I wonder if I should get it checked.
As for the bike, for those of you new to my adventures, it is a Motobecane Fantom CX (I'm name dropping, because I know people come from the internets just looking for info on the bike). I am quite happy with it. Here's my experience:
I wanted a nicer bike for dental school in San Francisco that I'd be commuting on every day a couple miles through the city. My budget was a lofty one of $600. I really wanted a road bike of some kind, but the cheapest new ones start at around a thousand. I was leaning toward a Gary Fisher Urban hybrid bike, the Kaitai, simply because I was afraid of breaking anything less beefy than that and it was within my budget, sort of.
Every time I heard of some other bike company, I'd go research it and see what they offered. I compared components, frames, and style. I didn't have the time or the stores to go test many, I just had to go off of other's reviews.
I stumbled onto Bikedirect.com (oddly enough, they were a Google Ad on this website). I was suspicious. The components and parts on all their bikes were comparable to much much much more expensive bikes. The main line of bikes on there is Motobecane, which is a French brand from long ago that was taken over by another company. The only stores to sell Motobecanes are in Arizona, Texas, and Florida. I don't know what they charge. The Motobecane website has listed retail prices comparable to all other road bikes (I'm guessing it's a front to build some respect, "See, our bikes really ARE expensive, normally"). Every review on the internet for these is from people who bought a bike off of Bikesdirect.com (which is a related business venture for the owner of the chain-stores that sell them) at half of the "suggested retail price." They offer free shipping. The bike is "90% assembled" although, it really is more like 80% but if anyone puts up a fight, I'll let them take the point.
I was really nervous buying from them. There are a number of really angry reviews about their lack of customer support and the damage incurred on the bike during shipping. If the bike needs to be returned/exchanged, the customer has to pay shipping each way (about 40-50 bucks!). There were a few very favorable reviews about the bikes themselves. Most complaints are with the company or warning buyers about buying a bike without LBS (local bike shop) support or test riding. I did my research and in the end, I decided, if it needed to be exchanged, I'd just return it and be out 40-50 bucks. If a part needed to be replaced, I'd replace it myself and still have an AMAZING deal of a bike. By this point the next cheapest cyclocross bike out there is the Jake by Kona starting at $850 at the time. I'd decided a cyclocross would be the best bike for city commuting. Skinny like a road bike with drop bars for multiple hand positions and more aerodynamics and narrow profile for squeezing through tight spaces, yet knobbly tires, slightly thicker wheels, and attachements/room to put a rear rack and fenders on the bike. Seriously perfect for me. Also, the Fantom CX (I don't know if other CX's have them) has an extra set of brake levers at the top center of the handlebars: EXCELLENT.
So that was it, I was gonna fork out the $550 and pray it didn't come crazily messed up. There was a mixup with the shipping address (my fault, not theirs), and in communicating with them via email, they were slow, but they answered every single one of my 5 emails. It's as if one guy got all the emails and just spent some time every day working his way down the list. I got the bike within 10 days (it would've been a week, but there was the giving the company the wrong shipping address problem...). The box came to the door just fine. No folds, dents, or holes in it.
I opened it and found the bike and it's parts zip-tied, cardboard wrapped, and plastic bagged together as if it came directly off the assembly line (I watched a How It's Made episode on mass produced bikes, and it came exactly like they showed).
I didn't have too much trouble putting it together. A hiccup appeared when a bike shop owner pointed out that the guy who put it together (I'm sure if he knew anything about bike brands, he'd known I put it together), put the front brake cable outside the shifter cables so they were rubbing. Oops (easy fix). After my first two short little rides, I had to true both wheels just a bit (a perfect opportunity for me to learn such a handy little skill), but they haven't become untrue since, and I've abused them a lot more than I did on those first two little rides.
The stock seat is hard, but all uncomfortable pressure off the groin is gone when I tilt the seat forward-down, so all weight rests backward on my pelvic bone on the wider part of the seat, rather than on my prostate on the skinny part of the seat. I don't mind the seat at all now. Really. I also tilted the drop bars farther forward-down than nearly every other bike I see. It's much more comfortable for my wrists and hands. I replaced the stock pedals with $30 Powergrip pedals, and they are AWESOME. As mentioned before, I haven't changed gears in a few weeks, and it'd be impossible without the push-pull combo that straps allow. The Power Grips work absolutely great. No trouble getting in or out after a litte practice, and they provide all the hold I could want (except when I wear my smaller Vans slip-ons while riding to school, it's a little loose, but I still get enough out of the straps).
As far as the gearing on the bike. It was a little off on the front derailer out of the box. I tweaked it a bit and it got better, and I'm sure I could get it perfect if I wanted to. The first week and a half of riding the route above was no trouble on the gears (provided I changed lower BEFORE the crazy steep hills, but that's normal on most bikes).
The only problem I haven't addressed is that when I'm pedaling hard on the right pedal, it's as if the whole pedal axle flexes downward just a tiny bit, causing the large chainring and chain to rub on the inside of the front derailer for just a bit on each pedal stroke. This only happens when I'm putting a lot of weight on the pedal.
All in all, I'm extremely happy with the bike. It's a tank. I love to pass other cyclists, and I tackle the hills and traffic with no problems all while wearing a shirt and tie, some spare hemp string to tie my pant leg around my ankle and a wonking huge backpack they gave us for school. I'm guessing the first thing that'll go besides an inner tube, are the brake pads just because of the crazy steep hill twice a day. I highly recommend giving Bikesdirect a shot, and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with Motobecane bikes, provided you can fix and tune-up a bike yourself (or deal with the bike snobbery of many LBSs).
Here's some pics from it's arrival and assembly for all you "visual learners" out there:
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