Initial thoughts on recent upgrades…

I’ve had a little stack of parts building up and finally got a chance to get them on the bike and try everything out today. Happy for a day with no rain! Initial thoughts on everything…

Clipless pedals: I’ve ran flats for a couple years now on my MTB so when I got my gravel bike recently I put those on since that’s what I knew. Put on a set of shimano XT pedals and wow. It really does make a difference, I just felt more connected and on the uphills I could feel my upstroke leg actually helping instead of just sitting there. On that note also, my quads are KILLING me right now. Definitely a whole new muscle group being used. I’ll mark these down in the win column.

Varia 515 radar: it was extremely nice to know when a car was behind me. The Varia notified me way before I ever noticed a car in my rearview mirror. It even gave me an alert when a very large black dog was running up behind me and not barking. That one startled the shit out of me when I looked in my mirror and saw him right there behind me. Again, a win and will for sure be staying on the bike.

Tubeless gravel king SK 700×50: this is my first ride being tubeless and my first ride on the gravel kings. I can’t comment on tubeless yet, the jury is still out on that. For the tires, they rolled better on the pavement than the teravail ehlines I had previously, but they were not very confidence inspiring on the rough fast downhill curves. I’m ready to pull them off and try my next tire….unfortunately they won’t be here for a couple weeks so I’ll ride these until then and just be careful on the downhills. They also filled my helmet up with small pieces of gravel. That stuff was all in my hair when I removed my helmet. These will be going in the emergence spares pile asap.

Half frame bag: winner. It held all my tools, and my wallet and keys like a champ. Not much room for anything else but it did what I needed it to.

Stem feed bag: I got in such a hurry to leave the house I forgot to take any snacks with me so it was empty the whole trip, but it did not get in the way like I was afraid it would and I can tell it would be super useful to hold food and trash during the ride. I’m not completely sold on it yet, but I’ll leave it on for now and see what happens in the future.

Fidlock water bottles. Expensive, but worked like a champ. Easy in and out, and held more than enough water in the 2 bottles for the 35 mile loop. To be honest, one was enough but I’d rather have too much water than not enough. Winner and will be staying on the bike especially since they fit like they were made to be used on my bike with a half frame bag.