Trek Valencia Experience : Ride #5 (of 10)
Ride Type: Easy commute on a humid, damp morning
Distance: 6.48 miles

La Taza Coffee House has been prominently featured for being a great coworking destination. From my father’s house in Hollywood Park, my Garmin Edge 705 indicated a distance to La Taza of just over three miles one-way.

A perfect distance for choosing a bicycle over an automobile for transportation.

This meant, of course, another ride experience on the Trek Valencia.

Here are some Valencia-specific observations during this ride:

• Wet weather duty: Once again, some light fog and wet streets greeted me for this ride and once again I found the Valencia to be a competent foul-weather bicycle. The disc brakes stopped me with confidence while the 700cx32 tires are beefy enough to get enough traction to keep you feeling confident.
• Handlebars: With light fog along our route, my Dad and I used our Blackburn headlamps to light the way and help drivers see us. With both of these headlamps on the Valencia’s handlebars I continue to find that space is limited for adding anything else. While this may sound silly, on my mountain bike I had enough room to also mount a Planet Bike 1/2-watt headlamp which worked as a backup that was independent from the lithium-ion battery powering the Blackburns.
• Ride position: Now that I’ve put some decent mileage on the Valencia, I can honestly say that the frequent hamstring pain I was having while riding the Tassajara has become much less of an issue. While the more upright riding position on the Valencia may be a factor, I think the primary reason is that I’ve needed a 17.5″ frame and was putting serious mileage on the Tass with it’s 15.5″ frame (and thus having the seat post pretty close to it’s highest setting).

Dad and I had a great ride (as usual) and we enjoyed meeting the owner of the coffee shop and a few of the regulars that hang out there. On our ride back, a large group of road cyclists passed us in Hollywood Park. Despite the Valencia’s good looks, it was my Dad’s black, tripped-out 24-speed Townie that got the “nice bike” comments as they whizzed by.