We rode the middle day of the Cottonwood 200 on Memorial Day weekend. We thought this hilly route would be a good test: if we could do this, we wouldn't have a problem on Biking Across Kansas.
In June, we took this bike on BAK. Turned out to be one of the hillier BAK routes possible. We ended up flipping the wheel over to the freewheel side about 25% of the ride. Still, it felt good.
For July's RAGBRAI, predicted to be hilly, I converted it to a five-speed machine.
This worked *really* well. I think the rear cluster goes 14-17-20-24-28 and there's a single 46 tooth chainring cranking it. We got up and down and up and down the hills pretty happily.
Prep for Hotter 'n Hell in Wichita Falls, TX included turning it back into a fixed gear machine. We had a dandy ride that day; it's an ideal course for a single-speed bike.
Come October and Octoginta, I turned it back into a five-speed to more easily handle the hills around Lawrence, KS.
After that, it went back to being a fixed gear bike for winter '16 and spring '17.
