I went biking yesterday morning, and if I start taking a real serious liking to it then I may just push through with my gravel bike build. I did notice that my average speed inside the village was 10kph. I don't mind this at the moment since I just started all over again yesterday and I do believe I can improve my pace, stamina, and desire to go biking.
I've also been doing more research about gravel bikes, and I have some new opinions about my target parts for my gravel build.
- Drop bar width should be around 44 to maybe 46 cm. This will depend with how low or high I plan to mount the bar with regards to the saddle. My goal is comfort, not the super aero racing pose. And yes, I want to try drop bars since I do have a really old mountain bike here.
- Drop bar ideally should be compact, meaning the drop and reach aren't that big. Again, the reason for this is comfort.
- Definitely aiming for a longer chain stay for the bike frame. This supposedly makes the ride more stable.
- Still hoping for a 1x groupset, while replacing the front chainring with a 38T to at most maybe a 44T oval with narrow wide teeth, if all factors allow it. Again, my goal for this theoretical build is a casual road bike I can take off road. I'm not after speed.
- I'm sticking with the 700 x 38c tires instead of 40s. That might be too wide anyway for the bike's purpose.
- Cyclocomputers are expensive, even more so if I plan to add a power meter and a cadence meter.
Out.
