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I had a wonderful ride this weekend during our labor day visit to the cabin on the South fork of the American river in California. I decided to do an out and return ride from the river up to the ridgetop and back. Its about 1000 ft of vertical climbing over about 8 miles. Not something I’m even close to ready for on my road or mountain bikes, but on the Optibike I enjoyed the ride up and the workout that went along with it. In all, according to the handy dandy computer on the bike running in Fast Mode, I covered 17.24 miles at an average speed of 17.16 MPH in 59 minutes and 8 seconds. Average cadence was 80 (too low) and a maximum speed of 45.3 MPH. Finished the ride with the Red and Yellow LEDs glowing. Past the statistics is was a lot of FUN!

On my climb up a brown bear crossed my path. At first glance I thought it was a cub but the more I looked, the more it looked at me, and the more I tell the story the larger the bear has grown. I immediately started wondering, and looking, for where the rest of the family was. But no one was in sight so as the bear continued on his/her way I continued on mine. Luckily for me there was no pursuit.

The road was great, 1 1/2 lane improved mountain roads with great vistas. The climb was quite enjoyable. As I stated in my intro I’m looking up at the climbs with a smile. After reaching the summit I headed down the other side for a couple hundred feet of vertical, but wasn’t completely sure where the road headed so turned back up the hill and down the mountain.

The decent was a blast, maxing out at a touch over 45 MPH in one section, and I was being conservative not knowing the road well and having to share it with the occasional jeeps and sightseeing dune buggies headed the other way. The Optibike was very stable, the suspension and brakes working flawlessly.

Before reaching the river I spotted a bunch of ATVs parked at a dirt road going back up. I decided to take a detour and headed up. Loose sand and rocks. Having just (well almost) bombed the downhill on macadam I was curious how the bike would handle the change. I was very pleased to see that the change wasn’t even close to being a challenge for the bike. I was able to just cruise up the road under power of the MBB and my legs. With the MBB I was able to maintain speed in the loose sand and ‘float’ over the top of it. It was a lot of fun. Now this was again not to steep but again more than I’m ready to tackle without the Optibike helping me along.

I should mention that the ride down the dirt road was covered at about the same speed as the ride up. Again completely under control. Jim Turner did a fantastic job working out this bike. With each ride I’m just more and more impressed with the design and execution. His expertise as a designer and his personal experience on two wheels really shows.

Jim M.

Well my Optibike has become my preferred mode of around town transportation. I’ve been using it to commute to a volunteer gig that I just started, to meetings related to that gig, for errands, and just for fun.

And I feel much better for it. Not only am I getting exercise, but getting out into the fresh air and sun and doing a little sight seeing is a great pick me up. Additionally being able to travel on the bike at, or near, the same speed as the traffic around me gives me far more control of my situation than when riding my other bikes at far slower speeds.

OK but what about the weightloss. My approach at the beginning is to build up a base level of fitness to position myself to do rides of greater distance (time) or intensity. But at the moment I’m being kind to myself and getting everything moving again. Once I feel that I’ve got a solid base then I’ll start weighing myself on a regular basis and sharing those and other numbers on this blog.

In building this base one of the immediate benefits of the Optibike is the ability to work on improving my ability to maintain a good cadence to spin vs. pushing the cranks around. No surprise but this is most evident in the hills. I can ride pretty much where I want while maintaining a cadence between 94 and 102 RPM. This works well for me and I can feel that the Motorized Bottom Bracket is pretty happy at this pace too. If I was trying this at my current level of (un) fitness on my road or mountain bike I’d really be struggling. But I can already feel a difference in my ability to spin the cranks.

The more I ride my Optibike the more I appreciate the approach and design. As an example the other day I was headed to a meeting and decided to take the route with the most elevation change. I haven’t worked out the elevation gain yet but its pretty substantial. I was able to maintain about 18 MPH on the climb up while maintaining a cadence of 98 RPM. On the decent my max speed was a little over 43 MPH. The Optibike was very stable throughout soaking up the bumps along the way.

Time for another ride!

Jim M.

It has been a hectic Spring and Summer with a lot of wonderful travel. Tomorrow marks the first day where I have no travel plans for the next month and can really start riding in ernest.

I’ve used the little time I’ve been home to make friends with Opti. We’ve been running errands, taking rides down the river, and just generally exploring. I’m amazed at how well Opti fits my vision of what a human-electric hybrid can do, providing a helpful push to ease me over the hills, facilitating my love for speed (no surprise its really fun to ride fast), and also letting me slowly play. Slowly play? This isn’t something I’ve really ever done much of on a bicycle so let me explain.

Many years ago (this seems to be a recurring theme) I played at motorcycle trials. I can’t say I was any good but I really enjoyed plonking around. Opti’s near silent operation has opened up plonking around my yard and the neighborhood at night. What I’m talking about isn’t the amazing gymnastics associated with blasting up vertical walls or bouncing around on rocks, just riding in very tight areas at little or no speed. Balancing for minutes at a time, picking a line, and riding some easy homemade sections.

I may not be burning many calories with my plonking, but getting out and playing is always a good thing. The ability to plonk around at night and not bother anyone is pretty cool. It sure puts a smile on my face and for me its the smile that will take care of the pounds.

Jim M.