All this mild winter weather, and the roadies it has brought out of hibernation early, has really got me lusting after a road bike. It’s so very, very tempting to go and get an entry level road bike with my cycle to work voucher (I forgot to do the blog post where I mentioned that good news for the year) even though I know full well I couldn’t use it all year round:

  • It’s still cold enough on my hands that I’m wearing big bulky gloves that would make gear changing really fiddly anyway (I want to get some mittens to take full advantage of riding fixed gear).
  • I could only afford a bike with Sora (or lower) level components and since I ride most of the time in the drops, I know that impossible to reach thumbshifter would REALLY annoy me.
  • Skinny tyres may well be fine at the moment in the well gritted suburbs, but I’ve already fallen off on the icy roads near home and that’s with studded winter tyres on.

I don’t want to be a roadie anyway. I just want to be able to overtake them again. I’m sure I’ll feel fine when spring comes around I can get off the winter tyres and lower gear ratio and move back up above snail’s pace again.