Cycling in Waterloo Region

[tomh009]

But doesn't not shifting the front derailleur achieve the same thing, without actually removing the extra sprockets? Not as clean visually, but functionally basically the same?

[timc]

Yeah, I guess. Sometimes it's fun to play with things though.

[Canard]

What timc said!

[jamincan]

Removing the shifter, extra chainrings and the derailleur cuts weight. Marginal gains!

[tomh009]

Fair enough.

[plam]

I do ride a single-speed bike in summer. It would make sense to ride one in winter as well, but that's not what I have. The summer bike is relatively light. I don't remember if it actually has multiple sprockets in front or not. In back there is a bit of a special setup and it does not have multiple sprockets; there are spacers instead.

[Section ThirtyOne]

Personally, I wouldn't ride anything but a 1x bike. Even the gravel bike i'm purchasing has a SRAM Rival 1x groupset, so road(ish) bikes have started to see the 1x equipment creeping in. As you said it's a much cleaner look, fewer levers on the front bars and essentially no dropped chains. I do come from a mountain biking background though, so I may be biased.

[clasher]

I went the other way and upgraded both my road and 'cross bike to triples I'm stuck with 10 speed for road use and I think that's dandy for me. I don't use the inner ring too much, if ever in the KW area but climbing the escarpment it sure is nice. I also loved the range and tight spacing for climbing the big mountain passes I did out west last year. I found the triple a lot nicer to have on the granite anvil 1200 since the hills in Eastern Ontario are especially steep and frequent. If anyone is into riding centuries, there's one called the Hastings Highlands Hilly Hundred that hits up some of the same hills and the area is very scenic and the roads were quiet when I rode through last year. I might hit it up this year since I don't have any big rides planed for September yet.

[robdrimmie]

I love gears. I appreciate all the reasons that make single gear interesting, and maybe bike n+1 will be one, but for now for me there's just something about changing on a hill at just the right times that I really get a lot of joy out of.

[Canard]

When will construction resume on the UpTown Waterloo Separated Bike Lanes?

[clasher]

I rode on the goofy bike lane thing that's on the Lexington overpass, the green paint is pretty slick when it's damp. I think they really wasted a bunch of money on this piece of "infrastructure", I initially rode on the road when I was heading east toward University. The way it's setup now one has to ride farther up the trail and then snake through the neighbourhood and find Holbeach Crescent. There's not really any signage for someone that doesn't know the shortcut, and then if you do that you have to (or rather are supposed to) walk your bike through the intersection at Davenport to get back on the right side of the road to use the on-road bike lanes. Heading westbound it's not so bad, as you don't have to do anything too goofy like walking your bike across the intersection but it still seems like a really ridiculous compromise instead of just putting Lexington on a road diet, people really do seem to cruise at 70km/h through most of this stretch.

As an edit: it also seems most, if not all the white bike symbols in the bike boxes (not a fan of those either) at Bridge and University are gone.

[Pheidippides]

When will construction resume on the UpTown Waterloo Separated Bike Lanes?

Probably when they get more reliable temperatures in the evenings and/or the risk of frost is lower.

I am more concerned that Kitchener hasn't awarded the IHT contract when construction was supposed to be March to July I think.

[Canard]

[timc]

I've been wondering lately when the trail is going to be open again. The signage says six months from the start, which would put it in late March, but I'm not so sure from the look of things...

[Bob_McBob]

Anyone missing an Opus bike?

https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comme...olen_bike/