Co-Op ADV 1.1
Tools
More for purposes of a placeholder than even a preliminary review:
My friend Patrick mentioned doing the Reach the Beach ride in May. You never know how something is going to hit you, and this time hearing him say that hit me like, "huh, I wonder if I could do that?"
I think I could, because I remember being in far worse shape and being 50 pounds heavier the year I decided I wanted to bike 22 miles round trip to work every day of the week and used the Bike Commute Challenge to push me to meet that goal.
To get there, I spent a month incrementally adding a day a week to my commutes, then culminated the month of ramping up by riding The Big Eastside Loop. I remember thinking that was going to be some kind of butt-endangering endurance crucible, but it was not. And I had the most miles in the company for the challenge that year, which led to a novel charge of "cheating" because I live in a remote Portland neighborhood people are constantly confusing with Gresham and had to have a long commute. Sorry that my real estate choices deprived you of victory, friend.
Now, this is a different kind of ride we're talking about, but there's 50 pounds less of me and I've been running, and it feels attainable, so why not? I think the worst thing might be that I don't feel ready in May and have to slide back down to the metric century version of the race.
So I also need a bike to do that. I've been riding e-bikes for the past few years, and got rid of my Trek Crossrip, which probably would have been a fine candidate for this project. I did a bunch of reading, looked at a few, and ended up surprising myself a little by going with a Co-Op ADV 1.1, a steel touring bike that people compare to the Surly Disc Trucker because it specs pretty favorably (but with fewer mounting points by far). It definitely helped that it was on sale for under $1,000.
So, what about the bike so far?
The Crossrip 2, my last bike with dropbars, had brifters. They were fine. My e-bikes have had thumb shifters. They're fine, too. The ADV has bar-end shifters. If I recall correctly the last time I came anywhere near that was some time in 7th grade, when I had a ten-speed with shifters on the downtube. Since then, I guess a few where they were up by the stem, then it's all been twist shifters, thumb shifters, or brifters. Nothing has ever replaced the gigantic "stick shifter" with a big knob on top of my fourth grade Schwinn five-speed.
I found them a little disconcerting on the first several blocks of my test ride, then they seemed livable, and now I understand them to be key mood-setters for riding that thing.
My cruising speed on the flats seems to be around 17 or 18 mph, with my heart rate sitting comfortably in zone 3. I'm out on the Springwater past Foster Road a lot, so I don't have a lot of shifting to do. When I do, I'm just getting ready to come to a stop, not trying to deal with the sorts of fast stop/starts I might have to deal with on a commute through town. So it's less about fast management of my forward momentum. If my Crossrip felt sort of like riding a Tron light cycle, the ADV feels more like piloting a ship. Downshifting as I approach a stop feels like bringing the USS Enterprise into dry dock. I'm not working the shifters, I'm managing the helm.
I do love the ride, too. This is also the first steel frame I've ridden in a very long time, and it feels pretty nice. My Crossrip had carbon forks, but it was still chattery. My e-bikes have had much fatter tires, but they just don't soak up as much bumpiness.
I suppose it is a pretty heavy bike at 33 pounds with the store build. I looked up Crossrips and they came in close to ten pounds lighter. Compared to my e-bikes, it still feels light, and a lot has changed about my body since I last rode an acoustic regularly so the weight has felt fine.
So, so far so good.
I'm taking it down to Pedal PT for a fitting next week, before I start trying to ramp up the milage. Fitting was the one part of the REI bike-buying experience that was pretty poor. We dialed in the frame size, but the rest was perfunctory. I had a fitting done by Pedal PT when it was a bike commuter benefit at Puppet one year and it made a huge difference for me as I was trying to commute regularly, so I'm looking forward to going back.
I guess the last thing to note about the whole thing is that I have never really been a multi-bike person. I tend to have one I use for everything. Well, now I have three: my Globe Haul ST cargo e-bike, my ADV 1.1, and I've got a Zizzo Forte folder that goes in the back of the Outback for camping trips or excursions where a bike might be nice to have along.
My natural inclination is toward wanting to do everything on this bike, but even though I've taken to parts of it faster and more easily than I thought I might, I can still sense that the ergonomics aren't going to feel great for mixing it up with traffic much. I like my Haul's very upright ride and the easier situational awareness that confers, and I like my ability to accelerate faster when I'm around cars.