63
Was going to comment, but I'll make this an answer - it's the bike, not you. No, I really do mean it's the bike.....
The bike as a fixie with 48/19 gearing is suitable for a cycle fit 20-something year old hipster with great knees now and a good health insurance plan for future orthopedic consultations. Installing the freewheel helps make it more versatile, ...
19
Great effort on both the write-up and the commitment to start riding again.
Try and separate the issues:
Your route was suboptimal due to trusting google
Getting off and walking a bike is surprisingly tiring
your speed is quite fast for someone who is just coming back to riding after a multi-decade long break
You were under time pressure to avoid being late,...
13
4.1 miles, mostly flat, are on paper doable by any human with two legs in about 90 minutes. Walking. A bicycle? it should be at least 1/3 quicker (although I would expect it to be 3 or 4 times faster than walking).
Even a super-heavy dutch bike will allow you to cruise at 8-10 miles per hour, so the distance should take you about half an hour.
So it is the ...
11
How important is torque wrench on this?
It's not important at all. The cassette lockring just has to be tight enough to not come off as it's not doing anything other than keeping the cassette from sliding off - some cassette lockrings are even make of aluminum.
Use a long wrench and put a bit of force behind it and you'll be fine.
11
This is an updated form of my answer, partially in response to the other answers.
It is you, not the bike. The bike may be a bit of a tough, perhaps over-ambitious choice, but it is in principle ok for the task.
Many of the other answers argued that a singlespeed drop-bar bike is fundamentally not suited for a city commute. I disagree. Such a bike can be ...
10
Both.
You really, really, really don't want a bike without gears. In the city you'll rarely ride at the optimal speed for that transmission; instead you need to stop and start frequently and adapt to flow with the traffic which is much easier if you can switch gears. Try to sell yours as long as you can advertise it as "practically unused" and buy ...
10
Despite their already being multiple good answers I am going to post this because I think each answer has good points but it is useful to have them in one place.
I agree with everyone who said a single speed bike is a significant source of your problems. Even a three speed internal hub would have been much better for you. As your fitness improves you will ...
6
I will just add that when I was your age I resumed commuting by bike after a hiatus of a couple of years. I was riding from Astoria, Queens, New York, to downtown Manhattan, a distance of just over 9 miles each way by my most frequent route over the Williamsburg bridge. I had moved to New York a couple of years before from Amsterdam, so I was no longer ...
5
This size frame seems pretty small for your height. I would think a small or medium (50/54 cm, according to Cinelli) would be the right size for you. But that wouldn't account for the problems you experienced. It does mean that getting into an efficient, comfortable position will be harder.
When you find it hard to turn the pedals over, is that because you'...
4
To go to 105 you would have to do the following:
Front + Rear Derailleur
Cassette, Chain Rings
Chain
STI Lever (at least the right one) - This alone is like $150 per lever if I recall correctly.
Possibly new rear wheel
Overall most people will not make a jump from Claris to 105 because the costs usually end up being almost the same price as 50% or more of ...
4
As a serious multi decade rider with two bike clubs I will say that it is both.
It is partly you because you are out of shape but that will fix itself if you ride regularly.
It is more the bike.
You got the WRONG bike for what you want to do.
Even a clunky bike with 3 speeds would have been better than that single gear racing bike you bought.
Far better ...
3
I am a 39 year old who also commutes via a fixed gear bicycle. It will take time to get used to riding like that. I was in to cycling for years before I bought my first fixed gear. I hated it for the first 3 weeks, because the feeling is much different and it can be a lot of extra work.
If you want to stick with this, I’d suggest waiting until spring when ...
3
Jay a couple things to think about:
It is good you are getting back into riding. I was in a similar position where I got back in to riding after taking a break and thought how hard can 13 miles be. Well the short of it was harder than I expected.
So with that said you probably are using muscles you have not in a while and it will take some time to build up ...
3
I believe that this link at Halfords is the same model you have. As links to online retailers are often impermanent, I'm reproducing one of Halfords' pictures of the bike, focusing on the front fork. I chose this picture in particular because it appears to confirm that you have a quick release fork. The page stated that the Virtuoso had Shimano Claris, an 8-...
3
Not mentioned so far - a torque wrench has two functions. One is to ensure enough torque is used to make the nut grip as required by the application. The second is to ensure you don't overtighten/strip a thread. If you are an adult, and are using a 1 foot/12 inch/30 cm wrench, you will be able to exert much more than the 29 ft lbs and possibly damage the ...
3
Having the exact torque generally isn’t very important. I recommend finding a way to torque it properly the first time you change a cassette so you get a feel for how roughly tight it should be. It’s hard to just say “oh yea, it should be decently tight” because everybody’s opinion of “tight enough” is different. People also tend to be pretty inaccurate when ...
3
Thanks a lot for the comments, they did help a little at the time but did not solve the issue fully.
At the end I found there were a few issues with the rear of that bike.
The freewheel was wobbling a bit and had to be changed. The bearings of the hub had to be changed and the axle was bent so that was changed, too. Finally, the dropout was a bit bent, too ...
1
This happens mostly when the left wheel cup gets a lot of tension from movement and pressure from pedalling hence creating friction that wears out the left wheel cup creating this lean to the left.
This is mostly first indicated by a wobbling wheel, as later on results to this. The other issue is worn out ball bearings. Worn out ball bearings create a ...
1
Well, having respect for what can happen is a good thing! It's what keeps you alive.
That said, there are two things you need to consider:
Tire crawl: There are bicycle tires that are just squirmy. When you lean a bit into a corner, the inner flank collapses somewhat while the turning tire is loaded, causing the bike to move in a direction that does not ...
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