total distance both ways is 8 miles
My commute is 7 miles both ways, it takes anywhere between 30-45 minutes total depending on traffic. That's an average of between ~9 to 14mph, so it varies quite significantly. I get up to about 25mph at most, but as I wear glasses I don't seem to have the problem with my eyes tearing up (or insects flying into my eyes).
After lots of messing about, I've finally bought a tourer!
Somehow I missed this when you posted it; it looks like a fantastic bike for the money! I think you did really well to get a proper tourer for that amount. It's especially nice to see that it has sensible gearing. A lot of supposed "touring bikes" come with setups like 50/39/30 up front and 11-25 at the back. This gives a low of ~30 gear inches depending on wheels/tyres, which is just daft. Have you got your first outing planned yet?
In my own little cycling world, I took the Pompetamine on a trip from Croydon to Brighton yesterday. One of my friends joined me, using my Specialized Sirrus hybrid. Total distance was just over 70 miles once we'd cycled back from the station on the way home. My arms are a bit sun burnt and my left shoulder and wrist are sore, but other than that I've suffered no injury. My pride took a bit of a hit though, as I was completely incapabile of getting up Ditchling Beacon and walked the majority of the way. The Pompetamine just doesn't have the gears needed, and having already cycled 50, my legs weren't up to it. I'm pretty sure my friend made it up most of the way before having to bail and walk up. We used my Garmin Edge 605 to guide the way, and unfortunately it made some pretty dim-witted route choices. It added at least 20 miles to the journey by sending us in a huge loop around Turners Hill, and also sending us on pointless diversions. I've uploaded the route we took, in case anybody is interested (or wants a laugh):
http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/32419508
The trip has made me realise that I'm going to have to re-evaluate my plans to use the Pompetamine for touring, as it's just not going to work for me with such a small range of gears. I sort of had my heart set on going titanium for the next bike anyway, so it makes sense to make it a fast tourer/audax type bike. Something like the Van Nicholas Yukon, the Sabbath September or the Enigma Etape. Whatever I go for, it's going to need a large range of gears, preferably as low as 20 gear inches and hopefully up to at least 100. That rules out groupsets like the Shimano 105 and Ultegra, and puts me more in the area of the Deore XT. I guess I'm mentioning this in case somebody else has had thoughts along these lines, and has looked into it in depth and can make suggestions
![[DOD]Asprilla](/styles/overclockers/avatars/8.png){kind=avatar}
