On 10/28/2014 04:23 PM, Patrick Moore wrote:
Just back from turning a 3 m RT PO ride into 16 hilly ones. While the
Ram is more prone to wandering when one is seated and twiddling a low
gear up a steep hill, further investigation shows it is not nearly as
bad as other bikes I've owned -- the Sam Hill was bad for this, and a
Fuji Royal as bad or worse (tho' the Fuji actually handled better with
a heavy rear load, while the Sam and the Ram are worse with a rear load).
OTOH: I think part of the problem is simply my relative unfamiliarity
with seated climbing on steep hills, where the front end is unladen --
most of my riding is fixed, and even on multispeeds I very often stand
to climb rather than sit and downshift. I noticed on today's steep
hills that if I left my grip loose on the bar and didn't worry about
handling, the problem, if such it is, diminished greatly.
Well, this much I know from personal experience. I sold a Rambouillet
and swapped all the components onto a Velo Orange Randonneur (Johnny
Coast-built custom) which has front-loading low-trail (for a 700C bike)
geometry. There was a marked difference in seated climbing in a 22" low
gear on steep hills: the Rambouillet had a tendency to wander, requiring
constant rapid zigzagging of the handlebars to keep going in a straight
line, and one time I lost it totally riding on a 14% grade on a sunken
road, and ended up going across the road at a 90 degree angle, running
into the berm. The VO shows no tendency to zig and zag of its own
accord, and there's no need whatever to "work" the handlebars to keep it
going in a straight line. Now I suppose you could say sawing the bars
back and forth on the Ram was making things worse, and that when I ran
across the road it was my own doing; but the fact remains, the VO is a
lot easier to ride in a straight line in those conditions.
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