With the wet fall season underway I want to continue riding a bicycle for training purposes. The R3 cannot take a fender and a 25mm tire. I decided to go back to my hybrid bicycle and see what I could do to make it a more optimum bike. I made a couple of key changes which improved the speed of the bicycle.
First was to replace the marathon plus tires with the Grand Bois Cypress 32mm Extra Leger tires. This saved 1.3 pounds per wheel. The new tires have much lower rolling resistance. I clocked myself coasting down the Stanley Park hill and managed to get up to 38km using the marathon plus. My next attempt will be on the new tires. On the R3 I was able to get up to 48km/h coasting.
The second change was to replace the shock fork with a rigid fork. This save a couple of pounds as well. Removing the rack at the back reduced the weight by 1.3 pounds. I was able to get the bike down to 26.7 pounds – not bad for this class of bike. i will look at removing the kick stand as well to see about getting the weight down even more.
I am looking at possibly getting another bike designed for randoneurring and that can take a 42mm 650B wheel. I will see how it goes with the hybrid and the 32mm tires that I have put on.
