I definitely slept well Saturday night after the earlier day’s ride. I felt that all-over-body fatigue due to the a long duration in the saddle. It wasn’t just my legs that felt the burn. Instead every cell in my body was complaining about the working-over that I gave them.

Lots of wild temperature swings due to the sun and wind. I was either just right or too hot.

Thus, it was not a smart move to head out for a ride Sunday.

Of course, as an avid cyclist, I seldom make smart moves when it comes to the bike.

I met up with my brother in St. Paul and we did a meandering circuit through the city and along the still-flooding riverfront. Starting from his house, we headed up the hill along Summit Avenue and crossed over the freeway to the front of the Capital building. From there, we made our way through downtown and got lost while looking for a place to hug the river on some dedicated biking paths. St. Paul is a mess under normal conditions, but add the numerous spring construction projects at every other intersection and you create utter chaos. I pity anyone that actually works downtown and deals with that mess on a regular basis.

After some backtracking, we jumped across the river on the Robert Street Bridge and were soon cut-off with “road closed” signs as we followed the road toward the southwest. Thus, after a short jaunt through the half-flooded Harriet Island, we were back across the river via the Wabasha Bridge and soon finding our way via sidewalk down to Shepard Road and back toward my brother’s house.

My brother happened to purchase a house that is near the pinnacle of the land mass around St. Paul, thus closing the ride from river’s elevation to his house was no easy task. We worked our way under 35E via Jefferson Ave and pounded up the hill until the last plateau a few short blocks from his house. That last final climb had no joy, as the workout from Saturday caught up with me and put a tight stranglehold on my thighs as I worked to keep a steady cadence up the hill. It summarized the whole ride, as we were either going up or going down – since there is very little flat in that part of the Cities.

Harriet Island was partially underwater, but suffered no major damage as far as I could tell

Early season hills just suck, as I never seem to have any real power in the spring. Granted, the New Steed™ does its job in giving me all the right tools to ascend with as little resistance as possible. But, my body can’t give The Steed™ its due justice and it becomes a slow grind in all but the lowest gears.

As a born-n-bred Minnesotan, I’m not really sure I have an understanding about what it takes to get a bike up an extended climb. Our longest climbs around here are well-under a mile in distance (most measuring a few hundred yards), so my natural instinct is to work to my limit to power over them (and reduce the time suffering to its barest minimum). I would doubt that I could take that same approach when riding in true mountainous terrain where a single climb can measure in the hours. Thus, any fantasies of a trip to France to ascend the classic Cols from many tours past is probably just that – a fantasy – for me.

Many of the bike trails near downtown St Paul offer some decent riding, even at speed.

Which leads me to a simple purchase that I recently made and am waiting for arrival via FedEx. My stock bike came outfitted with a SRAM 10-speed cassette (OG-1070) that had a spread of 11-28. This is pretty wide for a road bike and geared more toward heavy climbing terrain. In the lowest gear – with a 39 front chain-ring and the 28 in the rear – the bike acts more like a mountain bike than a road bike. It ensures that you never run out of gear on any incline, but I find that I never have a situation (at least in Minnesota) where the 28 is a useful size for me. I also find the 11 cog is just as useless, as it requires an extended downhill section to hit 50+ mph before that is a useful position for my chain.

Thus, my 10-speed cassette really only provides me 8 effective positions. I was looking online for a replacement that would provide a tighter configuration and eliminate the unused extremes. I found an Ultegra 6700 cassette in a 12-25 configuration that hits my sweetspot for a decent price. This configuration lops off the outer cogs sizes of my current cassette and gives me a few, tighter-spaced options in the area most used by me on the bike (between 14 and 19). Since the New Steed™ supports shifting from the bars, I have no problem moving through the extra gears and would prefer some extra fine-tuning to the wider range.

Of course, it’s not pure performance that I am looking to gain from the cassette replacement. The other factor is sound. I HATE the sound of my SRAM cassette while I am freewheeling. The “click” it makes when the wheel is spinning sounds really cheap and hollow. Here I am, riding this incredibly fancy carbon bike and it sounds like something that I picked up at the local hardware store for $119.

I only hope the Ultegra cassette sounds more “professional” – even if I am not.