Sweet Silence

On the bike this morning for what turned out to be quite a pleasant spin. The Perth temperatures are on their way to a bajillion degrees again today, but early this morning it was still very pleasant. When I first headed out the winds were pretty gentle as well. Very nice conditions. The riding felt good and it ended up being a quick ride in the end.

At least part of the speed of the ride is due to the Garmin Vector pedals I think. This is now my third ride using a power meter and I am starting to get more of a feel for it. Once you dial in the amount of power you want to be aiming for it really is a great metric to use. Focusing on that, rather than speed has really been helping me hold my speed in adverse conditions, such as into the wind. So far I am very happy with them.

The best bit of the ride though was how quiet it was. Of late my training bike has been a noisy old contraption, full of creaks, groans and clunks. The visit it had to Churchill Cycles before Busselton sorted out the worst of the clunks. However, what I found was that now I could hear the rest of the noises that had previously been getting masked by the clunks. It sounds silly, but it was getting to the point where the noisiness of the bike was really started to effect the enjoyability of my rides.


The other day I narrowed down the source of most of the noises to my saddle. It seems silly that with all the moving parts of a bike, something static such as the seat could cause so much noise. However, my saddle is simply passed it, it has seen too many miles and as such it has started to develop a lot of creaks. I happened to have a spare saddle sitting around at home so last night I changed them out and this morning the difference was just wonderful. To be whirring along, with just the sounds of the road and the wind, the way a bike is supposed to be. I had forgotten how nice that is.

'If you have had the saddle sitting around, why didn't you change it out earlier?', I hear you ask. Well for one it took me a little while to figure out it really was the seat making all the noise. However, the main, albeit silly reason for not changing it earlier is this.

 

 

I wouldn't say it exactly clashes with the rest of the bike, but I am not sure it blends in all that well. I am pretty sure there is a rule written somewhere about not having a white seat on a bike that is entirely blue and black. Still any cycling fashion faux pas I am guilty of is worth it some silent cycling.

 

Besides, once I get the chance, I am planning on replacing the saddle with a slightly more subtle one. Till then, I plan on continuing to use this seat and enjoying the sweet sounds of silence.