Originally Posted by
lykbutta
What’s good everyone. My 2020 GIANT Contend AR1 came in today and I took it out for a spin. Wow. Loved it. I was a bit nervous as it was my first time riding a road bike and wearing clipless however I quickly picked it up.
I’m am loving the road bike scene and just a little scared of the speed as my trek Marlin was MUCH heavier and I felt that I had more stability. It will just take getting used to.
One question I had for the group, I started hitting 20 mile rides and I’ve been doing ok I guess, just hit 80 minutes for a 20 min stretch today. I want to start venturing to longer rides and wondered if y’all wear camelbaks by chance. I have my phone, multitool, spare inner tube (they came tubeless) and a few other things to carry, not to mention I could be carrying 80oz extra of water. My friend who road bikes at work says they are frowned upon since they have jerseys they pack them. For me, I’m 6’3 - 256 and not the slimmest (getting there) but these jerseys don’t fit the best so I don’t have pockets. What is everyone’s thoughts on it IF you run one and which one do you run. I’m looking to get one and thought I’d come to the experts!
I do a lot of unsupported endurance and ultra endurance rides. With the pandemic, and I'm treating every ride as unsupported. For an unsupported ride over 2 hours, I'll use a
CamelBak Lobo (3l) - this isn't 'cool' with the roads ... but I say "you do you!"
For the record, I did ride with bottles only for many years - until I was in the middle of nowhere and out of water on a 90+F day in the middle of an 140 mile race. That lead to my only DNF.
I've completed the DAMn twice with this CamelBak, so it's comfortable for me for long rides. Here's me leading* the way into check point 2 (mile 120) on
the DAMn last year.
photo credit - Lisa, my outstanding support crew
*Edit - leading the way for
this group .... We are hours behind the race leaders at this point in the ride.