- My gearing is fine as it is. I'm currently using a 42T narrow-wide oval chainring and an 11-50T cassette. Due to upgrade-itis I always wanted to go with either a 44T/46T chainring and/or an 11-40/42T cassette. After that one single 13-ish kilometer ride I did I can safely say I'm happy with what I have. Considering I use relatively big gears and a fast cadence the gears seem well suited for me. When I did that short but steep climb I was still able to succeed going up when I went to the biggest gears available. In terms of speed I could cruise over 20 kmh easily so if I went to a smaller gear I could probably go faster with a little more effort. I'm also considering I hopefully end up doing long rides with or without gear so my the gears seem well suited for that.
- I was under dressed. I was just wearing jogging shorts and a loose t-shirt when I rode, along with some running shoes on my flat pedaled bike. I probably could have gone faster or exerted less effort had I been wearing a kit, but I really don't know how much of a difference that would make.
- Apparently having a handlebar bag affects your aerodynamics at speeds of around 35 kmh that I'm pretty sure it required me to exert additional effort just to achieve my pace. Similar to the clothes I wore, and honestly considering I just did a leisure ride of around 13 km I'm not really that worried about this. It's not like I was in a gravel race or anything.
- It was fun, and I'm hoping to try it again one weekend even though it won't be a holiday. I need to gradually introduce myself to "normal, everyday traffic" here in the Philippines and conquer my fears.
Out.
