Saturday 65: A New Ride

For quite some time now, I’ve been thinking about and searching for what my next bike might be. There were times I was even leaning toward getting a recumbent – something slow and easy for the old guy (more of which I become with each passing day). I was taking into account the aches and pains that slowly creep in and the longer recovery times from my rides. One thing was for certain – whatever I came up with would certainly have to be comfortable over the long haul, and that pretty much ruled out a lot of these hot bikes the youngsters were all riding.

But I never did ride with the spirit of youth. I’m not so much about going fast, I’m much more about the seeing of things. And so when I see these guys out doing their 18mph-average rides, well, they can have it. I’ll take my 13.1 any day. Maybe it’s the way I was raised, to be more of a curious explorer. To avoid the Disneylands and go for the Badlands. Those are the memories I love. When I run into a half-buried Buddhist statue somewhere out in the countryside – maybe just a few hundred meters from a road regularly travelled – I wonder if these speedy kids know what they’ve missed. They probably don’t care that they’ve missed more than just a statue. They’ve missed getting off the bike and walking around a bit, and taking in a lot – the air, the scenery, the statue itself. It’s rewarding.

I still remember a time about 15 years ago coming across someone on a hot bike climbing some hills on base, and I offered to take him off base for a short ride. He agreed and followed me out the gate. It wasn’t too long though before I did what I do – took a turn down a farm road. Now, farm roads aren’t always the smoothest roads (although this one wasn’t particularly rough). I could tell that this guy wasn’t really very happy about it. I don’t think he appreciated his precious and delicate road bike taking a bit of a beating like that (although it was only for a couple of kilometers). And I can almost see his point. If you’re not set up for it, it can be a bit jarring. Still, that’s Korea. If you’re not ready for some dirt, gravel, and rough concrete, you’re going to miss a lot. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say 90 percent of the good stuff happens when you’ve gone off the beaten path in some way or another.

And here I’ve got to give some credit to the guy I ride with, Joon. Face it – these long rides we do might stretch to 6, 7, or 8 hours; and we never seem to run out of things to see and talk about. And if one of us says “Hey, I saw something out of the corner of my eye back there – let’s go back and check it out” (usually me), the other never complains. Because more often than not, it’s going to be something pretty cool.

This just won’t work for the freight-train-peloton crowd. They’re on a schedule. They’ve got a route…or three. This is a bit of an inside joke with Joon and me – every time they post that they’re going on a ride, it usually involves one of three set routes. No creativity. In the meantime, Joon and I do something different just about every time.

Now, I give you that long introduction and philosophical ponderings on the virtues of exploration-by-bike to get to this point: I’ve come to understand that it’s not just about finding the comfortable bike for the older me, but more so to find the bike that checks all of the boxes for what I do here. It’s pretty obvious that it doesn’t have to be some hot screamer. As a matter of fact, it has to be a bike that can handle just about anything but (or should I say, in addition to) smooth tarmac. And yet, it has to be light enough to make the getting to the rough stuff – on that smooth tarmac in some cases – easy enough that I won’t be wearing myself out trying to keep up.

And the bike that falls into that category is a gravel bike. It really checks the boxes for me: it’s got enough road in it to get me to distant places (especially at the pace at which I travel), and enough off-road capability to let me go where I want to go. I know my limitations: I never travel fast in the first place, so why not not travel fast on the total package?

Here’s the whole deal: I’m in Korea. Korea lends itself to exactly the kind of riding I want to do – a bit on the road, a bit off, a bit in-between. Some quick little ups-and-downs, along with the occasional longer climb. A lot of shortcuts…if your bike can handle them. Even some places where you have to get off and carry the bike up or down or over (which goes to a bike’s lightness too). Then throw in this: for some reason, Giant bicycles (a brand name, not that the bikes are huge) run slightly cheaper in Korea than in the US (I’ll do all of the math for you in a bit). And the dollar is getting stronger here.

And Giant has a gravel bike that really does check all of the boxes for me.

All of this made the conditions perfect for me to finally get the bike. As Micha reminded me, “Your last bike.” Yes dear. My last bike. The Giant Revolt Advanced 0. And it really was a no-brainer.

This particular Revolt (Advanced 0) is impressive. It comes with the top-of-the-line Shimano gravel drive train (GRX-810), hydraulic disc brakes (I immediately felt the difference between my Trek’s rim brakes and these on the downhills – which means I could do them faster and brake later, even (especially) in wet conditions), and carbon wheels (so light). Add, too, that I can ride on wider tires. My Trek could only (just barely) run up to 32s, which, in tubeless, were a good upgrade from my 28s as far as comfort. But the Revolt comes with a nice set of 40s, tubeless, that pretty much suck up all of the road’s roughness.

I made one major tweak before riding yesterday – I changed out the stem and handlebars (had to get those Woodchippers on it) – and launched myself right into the standard Saturday ride. In other words, having not even ridden the bike yet, I set out to do at least 100 km.  And I started the ride almost immediately liking what I was feeling, but not really able to experience the full effect for a while. It was chilly, dark (of course), and quite foggy, so there was a bit of caution involved. But, like I said, I was able to test the brakes out quite early, on the first downhill about a mile from home.

And it only got better. The only complaint both Joon and I had (yeah, Joon bought one too) was the seat. For Joon, it was the positioning of the sit bones. For me, just something to which I wasn’t used for a while. But I have this problem with most seats. Even the ones I’ve had for a period of time – they’re never very comfortable for the first 10 to 15 miles of a ride, then I hit a point where I don’t even notice (I suppose it’s the aftermath of a ride that really tells the tale, and I’m feeling normal today). Joon’s already swapped his out. I’m going to give mine a little more time – probably because the Giant store gave me an integrated rear flashing light that I think is pretty cool. What I really think though is that my Brooks Cambium is the seat for this bike (although I’ll certainly give the Selle Anatomica a chance).

Bottom line: by the end of the ride, I was loving this bike. I’ll have to tweak the handlebar and hood positions (and maybe replace the current bars with a bit wider Woodchippers), and I’m looking for a good set of fenders; but I’m incredibly pleased with the purchase.

And speaking of the purchase, here’s the math: The Revolt Advanced 0 lists for $4,400 in the US and ₩3,890,000 in Korea. Throw in some negotiated discounts, and I ended up paying ₩3,690,000. With an exchange rate that has climbed to nearly ₩1,440 to the dollar, the final cost at the time of purchase was about $2,571. In other words, everything lined up at this moment to basically make me buy the bike. And yes, Micha, my last bike…for now.

Yesterday’s ride started with the thought to go do Heartbreaker again, even though we only did it a couple of weeks ago. But the fog diverted our route. The Heartbreaker route would start us off on a major road that lacks a shoulder and can be a bit dicey if we encounter traffic. The fog would have made it far too dangerous, so we headed toward the reservoir to start us off.

Even then, we encountered a bit of traffic, and when we’d turned for Mirinae Catholic Shrine (just making the route up as we went), we had to put up with the golf course traffic heading the same way for a few kilometers, including one guy who apparently didn’t know how to drive in fog. I was in my standard position just a couple of feet from the edge of the road (no shoulder here) while he sat behind us sounding his horn frantically. I signaled him to pass us, but he wouldn’t. When he finally did, he had his window down yelling something I couldn’t catch, but the tone wasn’t very nice. I realized later though that he really didn’t know how to drive in the fog – his high-beams were on, which means he couldn’t see a thing in front of him, and he was probably quite scared. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt here. Looking back on it, it was actually pretty funny.

We were honked at a couple of times yesterday, and I’ve come to appreciate it, if it’s reasonable (in addition to our golfer, there was one other who was a bit overzealous with the horn). These drivers are making sure we know they’re there, and in most cases, they’re doing a nice thing.

I was thinking early on that maybe we’d get in about 50 miles, but by the time we were south of Pyeongtaek, I could see we’d get our hundred kilometers in if we made a couple of extra turns.

Overall, a great ride, with the bonus that I’m on a phenomenal bike that seems to have been built just for me and my style of riding here in Korea. Throw in that I don’t think I have it dialed in yet, and it can only get better.