The warm weather continues to hang around with some localized rain showers. Kingwood received some rain which is badly needed. This delayed my ride today to 2:57PM. While I waited for the rain to leave I removed the handlebar and stem from my Motobecane 700HT MTB. These were no name products and the rise on the stem angled at a strange slant so that I could not mount my Garmin Edge 500 there and still be able to read it. I also added bar ends that I had from my previous MTB. I missed these because of the limited hand positions. Now I can move my hands around and avoid some pain. I installed Easton EA30 handlebar and a EA50 stem. These now offer a normal look and rise. The hardest part about the change out was removing the handlebar grips. I twisted them off eventually. I used some soapy water to put them back on.

So I figured with these installed I better go for a test ride to see how they work. The Kingwood trails were still damp in many places but since they are paved it did not cause a major problem although I did slow down several times to ride through some puddles. I rode 17.1  miles in 76 to 78 degree temperature range under mostly cloudy skies. Since I was among trees almost the whole ride the 9 mph south breeze was not noticeable. December miles now total 74.68 and YTD miles are now 6351.83.

I am trying out another workout program, Golden Cheetah, so the slides below are from that program.

[wppa type=”slide” album=”61″ size=”auto”][/wppa]