Onix RH Pro First Ride

Space Age Technology?

Today was my first ride of my new Onix Black RH Pro bike in readiness for my upcoming London to Paris ride, departing this Thursday.   It's really important to get out on your new ride before a major event, just to make sure everything is in shape shape condition and nothing needs attention.  I'd had bike mechanic Mike Jackson torque everything up earlier in the week and get the bike fully set up, so there were no rattles or squeaks.

It has brand new tyres and brake blocks, so it's good to get out and put some preliminary wear on.  I'm running a compact chainset (50/34) with an 11-28 cassette on the rear, so it was also good to familiarise where the most comfortable gear was at a 90 or so cadence, relative to my heart rate on the flat.

One thing I did find is that I kept having to slow myself down, the bike just wants to be ridden and my Garmin kept buzzing at me to remind me to slow things down.  My aim for today was to ride close to 148bpm average the three and a half hours I was out.  I came home with an average of 144bpm across the ride.

My Heart Rate data from today's ride

By staying just under 148bpm, I'm effectively staying under the point where I need to fuel with extra carbohydrate, encouraging the body to burn fat, whilst also increasing endurace.  That's the science, it seems.

Today's conditions were really windy.  There was a strong sidewind and headwind for much of the ride, which made the going tougher than normal, the bike reacted well.  I managed to get a good 35mph descent in, which felt very solid and predictable and riding through Wilmslow managed to get in the draft of a van at 30mph, which the bike whipped up to very easily.  It's a very good bike indeed and has jumped to position one in the stable..

I dropped by to see Andy Tennant who has just been selected as part of the pursuit team for London 2012, separate blogpost to come about that.  One thing I will say is that Andy makes the best flat white coffee of any I've ever tasted, so the ride home was caffeine fuelled.