Fixie and gears take on tri

This post is about a ride I did 3 weeks ago. I had originally posted this a few days after said ride, but then a few days later I discovered that it never actually got posted...something to do with the whole blogger site acting up. I've tried to remember the key details, so here it goes.

I got up at some ungodly hour, and was out the door at 6:40 in the morning, to ride out to Orleans and meet up with my buddy Karl. With no traffic on the roads, I took advantage of the most direct route possible, involving roads I wouldn't normally bike on. Combined with a decent tail wind, I made it out to Orleans in less than an hour. I got to Karl's place...his kids were eating breakfast and his wife wasn't even out of bed yet, grabbed him and we were off. He was on a fixie for our ride so we wouldn't be riding at a crazy clip, but on the flats we kept an average speed around 30km/hr. He powered up short climbs without any trouble...the only limitation of his fixie were the downhills...I'd get ahead of Karl, but it didn't take him long to catch up. We continued past Cumberland, where there was a duathlon race taking place, and continued east towards Rockland. We almost made it to part of the western-most part of the Ride with Rendall Clarence-Rockland course when we turned around and headed back to Karl's. On the way back, we ended up riding with some riders who were racing in the duathlon. Up ahead, I could make out some riders on tri bikes. I was feeling a little cocky and I told Karl I could easily catch them and blow by. He told me to go ahead and he'd catch up later, but instead, I told him to get behind my wheel and in my draft. I picked up the pace, and made sure I didn't drop Karl. In the process, we passed one guy on a tri bike (complete with aero helmet!), then another guy on a tri bike, then another rider. I wanted to make sure that Karl could say he passed a tri bike on his fixie!!!

On the same ride, I broke in a new pair of gloves, some Giro Monaco LF. I'm used to Giro gloves...I've been using a pair of Bravo short gloves  for a couple of seasons.  I have to say that I'm impressed with Giro's gloves. There is no bunching or stitching that jabs into the hands, no matter the position on the bars.  Giro gloves have a fair amount of padding on the palms which may interfere with bar feel, but I'm a fan of the amount of padding, providing comfort for long ride and/or rough rides. The Monaco features a Pittard's leather palm, which provides a bit a tackiness...not a bad thing, just takes getting used to. The material on the top of the hand and fingers is lightweight enough to be worn in warmer weather. Even though I'm a fan of these gloves, it's one of those things that's purely subjective, so they may not work for everyone.