Rode the Monkey

My Karate Monkey is currently set up as a commuter, and with the weather getting nice, I'm wanting to get back into doing the 33 mile commute once or twice a week, so yesterday I pulled it down and took it for a ride. Not much of a ride, just out and around Lake Galena, probably about 10-12 miles total.

Interestingly enough, even though this was a road ride, my back was killing me. I didn't double check my setup on the bike, but the saddle felt like it could have been higher, and as you can see from the picture, the handlebars are significantly higher than I have on the Giant road bike. (because of the riser stem sourced from Dmitri's old Trek MTB) I guess that geometry is contributing to the problem.

This doesn't solve any problems, but it is an interesting datapoint. Interesting to me, at least. The unfortunate downside is I won't be commuting in -- at least on that bike -- for the foreseeable future. I haven't ruled out riding the Giant in, instead.

Speaking of the Giant, I've heard the saying "steel is real" which speaks to the wonderful ride of a steel bike over all others. The Karate Monkey is steel, and I couldn't help but notice how, even with fatter tires, I could feel far more surface irregularities on the road than I could with my carbon fiber Giant with skinnier tires.


In the meantime, I've been pop-riveting flashing onto my car to close up a rust hole so the car can pass inspection. I'll have to post some pictures of that mess when it's done. Kinda funny, how this car was bought new and was my pride and joy at the time... now it's just something to carry bikes around in. When I bought the car, I was pretty sure I would be the first and last owner, and I would get every last bit of usefulness out of it before I was done... and that prediction seems to be coming true!