First 100 miles, some observations

So I'm right around 100 miles on the bike now. Not sure of the exact distance since I didn't have a computer on the bike for the first few rides but it's around there somewhere.

No pics to show right now. I made a few mods to the seat to improve comfort. I made a cutout in the upper back area first. That only partially solved the battered vertebrae problem. It basically just moved it up to the vertebrae at the base of my neck. So I made a sort of u-shaped channel there by cutting out part of the seat and gluing on some of the previous cut out material to reinforce it. Looks decent and is a lot more comfortable.

I'm still not 100% happy with the seat. I think fundamentally the shoulder rest is just too steep for my anatomy. I may make my own seat from wood or carbon in the near future as a replacement. I'm still pleased that I went with this seat, and I'd recommend Ed's seats to anyone, but as with any hardshell it may or may not fit you ideally.

File this under lessons learned, but attach your seat pad with velcro not double stick tape. Then when you carry it on a car rack, take the pad off. That nice looking original pad is still out there somewhere... wish I knew where. I replaced it with a much rougher looking section of camping pad. The looks are worse, but it's actually more comfortable so I'm not that upset. Still tho....

Chain clearance around the rear fork is something of a problem. I get a bit of rub in the highest gear on the side of the chain stay, and a bit on the bottom in the lowest gear. The side rub is just something I'll live with. It's minor and doesn't feel like it's really dragging at all, but it makes a bit of noise which annoys me. The rub on the low gear can be corrected with either a smaller rear cog or a larger idler. One or both of which I'll do eventually.

Hills... hills are interesting. My first few rides on steep stuff (10%+) worried me since I was really struggling. Until I realized I wasn't shifting to my lowest gear in the back. Once I got that sorted out it's a lot better. Last night I went out and did one section of my commute that is an average of 15% with a max of something over 20%. I didn't have any problem putting power to the pedals, but balancing is really hard at those speeds. I can only turn the bars so far without whacking my shins which is a bit of a problem under 4mph. The hill also involves a 180 deg switchback which I had to get off the bike to navigate. I just couldn't figure out how to make the turn that slow with the limited turning ability. Going down it's not a problem since I can just straighten my inside leg and coast and turn as sharp as I like, but no such luck uphill. I'm still not up to my df speeds, but I'm not too far off and I'm still getting my legs. On moderate grades I'm about 2mph slower on average. On flatter and steeper grades I'm actually about the same as on the df. Flatter because the aerodynamics come into play more, steeper because I can't ride any slower than about 3-4mph so I have no choice.

Traffic... I'm still a bit nervous in traffic though it's getting better. Riding uphill is nerve wracking in traffic since I don't feel as in control of the bike as I want to be, so I'm worried about swerving into a car. Riding on the flats is ok, but I'm still not as comfortable handling the bike as on my df, so there is still some acclimation that needs to happen there.

Road conditions... Potholes freaking suck. Rough roads at speed downhill are just unpleasant. everything feels like it gets transmitted directly into my lungs and it almost feels like an asthma attack. It's pretty bad. Fortunately most roads aren't that rough. I'm thinking about putting a wider tire on the rear wheel to help offset the effect somewhat. For the next bike I'm thinking either rear suspension or maybe just not as direct a coupling to the seat.

Speed... generally pretty good. Flatland speed is comparable to my old DF speeds. That will climb as I get more miles on my legs I expect. The speed profile is different, even on the flats. It's really easy to cruise along at about 19 mph, but then 21 feels hard. On the df 19 was working a little harder but 21 didn't feel like as sharp of a jump. Overall I'd say that the bent gives the same speed for less effort across the board, but the curve is just different. The thing accelerates downhill very fast as would be expected.

Comfort... apart from the aforementioned seat issues and the general battering from road surface, quite good. I've not done any rides over 20 miles yet, so time will tell, but I'm at least reasonably pleased so far.

What's next... So what about the next bike? I have a lot of ideas floating around, so I'm going to start drawing things in cad and mocking up ideas. Wait and see :)