Victoria (my wife) has decided she wants to get involved with cycling! This makes me so happy.
She owns a bike, but it's really crappy. The brakes rub and it must weight 20kg+. It's not much fun to ride so I let her have a go on one of mine, hoping it would help give her a good experience. We went on a short ride with her on my best bike (Ridley - full carbon) and she really enjoyed it. However, I don't want to get too excited and splash out on a new bike specifically for her, but equally I don't want to let her ride the nice carbon bike all the time...
So, I thought of converting the Bianchi from my winter bike into a female friendly road bike :) It sits in the shed collecting dust most of the year anyway so I thought about what I could do for her. I figure the nicer the bike is, the more she will enjoy cycling and hopefully stick at it!
First things first - this is how the Bianchi looked at the end of last winter:
Fairly simple set up, not too aggressive but good for short-medium rides, along with the Crud RoadRacer mudguards previously reviewed here.
I made three major changes to the bike, in under half an hour.
First things first I lowered the saddle. Unfortunately my bike has a police fitted tracker inside the frame which prevents the saddle going any lower. Not a problem before but frustrating as hell now!
Next I flipped the stem so the handlebars have more of an upwards angle. This creates a less aggressive position on the bike, perfect for someone new to road riding.
Lastly I swapped out the SPD-SL pedals for some old, flat pedals I had lying about. This means that my wife can wear normal trainers to ride and feel safe. Perhaps one day we will progress to SPD's but I'm not going to push :)
Here is the Bianchi after those 3 main changes:
We went out for a ride on Tuesday evening for 40 minutes covering about 5.5miles. I was super happy. Yes the pace was slow but I was so happy to be out with my wife sharing a hobby that I love with her. To start with she was quite uncomfortable in the position as it's very different to a normal bike but by the end she was much happier and becoming quite comfortable. Unfortunately the saddle was very high and he leg was basically straight at the bottom of every pedal stroke, giving her a fair amount of discomfort in her hips every rotation.
To help fix this I came home from work today and got to work on the seat post of the Bianchi.
Here are a few 'arty' photos of the job:
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| This is the seat post as it was. The faint black line (halfway-ish) is where I have the seat position. Plenty of room left for me to cut a couple of inches off. |
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| This is where I decided to cut. Approx 2 inches from the bottom. |
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| I used a small saw that I found in the tool box, pretty sure it is for use on metal. |
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| This was after 5 minutes of sawing. |
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| About 8 minutes in. Not too hard work, although the cut is a bit wonky. |
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| Almost ready to come off. |
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| In just under 10 minutes I had sawn through the seat post. Shortening it by a couple of inches. |
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| Not the straightest edge ever. |
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| Finished product! Seat lowered even further for optimal pedalling along with the other changes. Ready for some nice rides next week as we enjoy a week off from work! |
I have also ordered some Tiagra shifters and new bar tape to make shifting easier (no more of the thumb shifters!) and also some new brake blocks to improve stopping power!
Next on the list is some female specific lycra and a helmet that fits as my spare is comically huge on her tiny head!
Hopefully more reports on her progress coming soon!
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