Originally Posted by
WhyFi
But, but, but! Some of the
in the Greater 41 lead me to believe that wide tires were being foisted upon us because they're necessary for unnecessarily stiff wundercrabon bikes and that no such measures were needed for good ol' steel! Are you saying steel isn't real?!
Seriously, though - my new wheels/tires are wonderful with cracks and seams.
Sometimes a road is just so rough that nothing's going to help
And yes, generally an old steel frame does great for taking the edge off and a lot of them take at least 28s, which is what I run on my SLT.
I've got no desire to run less than 28s on anything anymore, although I do have a used set of Veloflex Masters in 25mm that feel nice and I wouldn't mind mounting up again, but those are just really really nice tires anyways
In the last few weeks, I have become proficient at scouting with a combination of the Strava Heatmap (which is behind a paywall, unfortunately, but I think that there's a way around it...) and Google Maps/Streetview.
The Heatmap tells you where people are riding, but that's not always the whole story - sometimes they're on bike paths that run parallel to the road and those are often... well, let's just say that I don't like 'em. Anyway, once I have a road in mind from the Heatmap, I'll check it with Streetview. If it's a long road, and too tedious to click all the way through on SV, I'll back out to the satellite view and then zoom in as much as possible - the resolution is often good enough to gauge the width of the shoulder using the lane as a reference. I'll zip along with that top-down view, jumping in to SV every so often just to confirm. It takes a little time, but it's better than feeling it out in person.
Of course, none of this applies if you've been in your area for a while and already know the roads like the back of your hand.
I do the exact same thing
. One of my favorite activities before a longer ride on unfamiliar roads is annotating my cue sheet by reviewing the course on Google Maps.
I did just realize the usefulness of the Heatmap a couple of months ago, and ended up changing my route pretty significantly from what I saw on there. Both by not taking a road I thought would be good, and by taking a road that I would have never considered - Route 2 southbound into Oregon IL.
I think I know the roads around here after living at my current place for almost 4 years now, but I still manage to get myself turned around every once in a while
And yeah, like Mo said, the global heatmap is free. I think that the personal heatmap is a paid feature.