Tonight, after XC practice, I took the bike for a ride. It's a completely different feel than the mountain bike. That's for sure. In fact, it's so different that I think I'll be changing up my routine a bit. Rather than riding from the house, I'll put the bike on the back of the car and drive over to the church by Harvard Circle. From there, I'll ride west. That's about the first place that I encountered a problem, tonight. The chain came off of the front chain-ring because it shifted beyond the largest ring. No biggie. That's something I'll just have to learn not to do. The indexed-shifting seemed to be off by about 1/2 a gear, too. It would jump from a bigger cog in the back down to a smaller one without me touching anything. That's frustrating. Then, when I pedaled away from the just-changed green light at Detroit Ave, the chain fell off the smallest ring in the front. It got jammed. I had to stop and pull it out. Then, on the way back, right as I crested the hill by Harvard Circle, it did something similar, but different. This time, it got stuck BETWEEN the smallest chain ring and the middle chain ring in the front. This time, it took me a lot longer to get it out. And, to make matters worse, I noticed that I bent the smallest chain ring, too. Feh. Now, I'm going to have to take it back to Bike Route and see if they can do something to help me out.

coach td checked out the bike when we were at practice tonight and he made one suggestion that I will follow up on, for sure! The front handlebars need to be rotated up a bit. As they are, there wasn't really a flat surface to put my hands on other than the area closest to the center post. Overall, I like the bike. If I can just get the chan thing straightened out, I'll be really happy. 17... 18... 19 mph with ease. And that was AFTER a 25 minute run at practice tonight.