New positions for the old bike

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I made the decision to raise the handlebars on my old TREK 560 road bike.  I'd been pretty spoiled by riding the Hunqapillar this past summer and thought, "wouldn't it be cool to have a lighter faster bike which felt like that."  I know what you are thinking, " another Riv owner drank Peterson's koolaid and never came back from the looking glass."  Maybe I got a little too much fairy dust up the nose, but dammit, a more comfortable bike will be ridden and enjoyed more often.  Won't it?

Well, anyway the biggest difference between the comfort levels has been the handlebar height.  I bought the stem riser from Riv, it takes a loooong 6mm allen wrench to install it, but that's just something we all need...

right?

After installing it and inserting the old stem as low as possible the bars were already taller than the seat.

I certainly didn't want them any higher and was actually pleased at the appearance.  It looks a little goofy with that much stem showing, but the riser has a pretty nice finish and it doesn't look too much like a frankenbike.

I double checked the level and found the bars are maybe 1-1.5cm higher than the seat nose.  I could live with that.  I took a short ride, adjusted the seat back about 3 cm to give me a longer reach, added an impromptu fender (grocery bag on the rear rack) since it had been raining, and took off.

The bike was immediately more comfortable.  I found myself stretched out over the hoods most of the time.  Didn't feel any stress in my back or neck and didn't suffer that claustrophobic scrunch when down in the drops.  I had thought that wider bars would be good but have dismissed that after one ride.

I whipped right through a 20 mile morning and felt ready for more.  I was in Illinois for the weekend and couldn't really find any challenging hills, but the next challenge will be to test the Mega Range freewheel against some steep climbs.