Road Cycling - First Road Bike(s)

Through a pretty weird set of circumstances, I went from just having a hybrid, to having a hybrid AND two older type steel road bikes.

I took the first bike, a Schwinn LeTour out for a spin this Saturday and I all I could walk away and say was WOW !!!

Before I took it out, we upgraded parts of the Schwinn, new bars, stem, pedals, new cables, etc. My initial concern was going from 21 gears to ten, but the bike seems geared just for me - I never felt I was missing any gears, even climbing the BA (Big A**) hill near my house.

Riding a road bike was a whole new experience for me, and one that will ensure that my hybrid is going to really gather some dust. I am not even sure if I will drag it out for rainy days, I think it has been relegated to macadam trails (C&O Canal, etc) and rides with my wife. I knew I would gain speed, but the control and just....well, the 'right' feeling that I had on the road bike sold me on the concept. Having all the different hand postions was nice too, especially since my hands have to get used to different positions, etc.

The other bike that I now have was sold to me by a board member, and I am leaving it in classic fit, no upgrades. The weather has been aweful or I would have had it out for a spell as well, it is a Raleigh Gran Prix.

Both are steel, lugged bikes that just look great. I am not so sure that I really want a new, flashy aluminum bike anymore, suddenly my dream bike has shifted to the Rivendell type (minus the leather seat and toe clips).

Everyone always talked a lot about the difference, but you don't know until you try it.

Wow !! That century in '03 seems maybe more than just a distant possibility now :)

A schwinn Le Tour is a touring bike, not a road bike.

LOL !!!!

And what does a touring bike roll on ? Sky ?

Well, at least you are honest with your comment under your name.

I stand corrected, I got to ride a TOURING bike this weekend.

...and it had a kickstand too :)

...and it had a kickstand too

did it have chicken levers and that little plastic spoke protector, too?

Originally posted by D*Alex


did it have chicken levers and that little plastic spoke protector, too? If you had mentioned spoke reflectors and foam handle bar 'grips' you could have been at the bottom of the pile,but close enough anyway.

Nope - but the old bars did have foam grips, and we did remove the reflectors.

:D

It's a start fella's......I've only been cycling since June.

Originally posted by RollingGeek


It's a start fella's......I've only been cycling since June. Your heads in the right place. I once had reflectors and foam grips.

Hi,
don't listen to the naysayers. I had a Schwinn varsity back in the Jurassic Age,loved it. Schwinn bikes were great back then. They weren't as fast as the Euro bikes, but they were very reliable (much more so than it's daintier Euro cousins).
Don't know about yours, but Schwinn routinely shaped tubes, used silver brazing, and I think my
varsity even had one tube butted. Nice bike, I'd love finding one in a yard sale.

I had a Schwinn Varisty for 15 years, rode it in N.Y. City, Florida, Texas, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, and many other places. I kept me involved in cycling. Sure I got dropped occassionally riding with my buddies on their lightwieght "10 speeds" but on the cobbles in Scotland I never had to get off the bike, I made it up to Edinburg Castle on that bike although I still do not know how. I had really enjoyed that bike. The LeTour is a far better bike than a Varsity.

Ride on my freind, ride on....

The key thing is that I enjoy it enough that I got up and was on the road at 4am this morning, braving 40 degrees and stiff headwinds (no matter what direction I was going :) )

I am curious what makes it a Touring bike vs a Road bike.

I have not looked up how old it is yet - LBS gave it to me since he knew he would make money off labor and parts to upgrade it.

It looks almost identical to the Raleigh Gran Prix - what would distinguish a Touring bike from a Road bike ?

Should I open a new thread ?

Road bikes come in a two flavours,
Race geometry and Touring Geometry.
(ok, I'm excluding Hybrid, and comfort bikes)
Race has steeper head and seat tube angles,
shorter chainstays (shorter wheelbase) and
possibly less rake on front fork. All told you
have a quicker responding, faster steering,
bike than a touring frame.
For Touring you get slacker head and seat
tube angles, longer wheelbase for increased
stability under load (panniers etc.), most
touring frame have eyelets on the dropouts
for attaching racks for panniers.
For my $.02 those are the main differences.
(ok, there are probably some other obscure
differences but IMHO these are the main ones).

Hope that makes things a little clearer,
Marty

From memory I would say that a LeTour is actually a sport/touring bike. Full on touring bikes typically have heavier frames, mounts for racks, water bottles, generators, and fenders. Most "real" touring bikes have bar-end shifters and three water bottle mounts and cantilever brakes. For examples look at Bruce Gordon cycles web page, or at a Trek 520. As for the geometry a LeTour is probably closer to a touring bike than a race bike, but then again so are many of the bikes on the market now. If you are comfortable on it and enjoy riding it then it does its job. Becareful of upgrades though you can quickly ring up the bill to the point where a newer bike would be cheaper.

Originally posted by DonTx
Becareful of upgrades though you can quickly ring up the bill to the point where a newer bike would be cheaper.

Yeah, no kidding. I am teetering on that edge now, and still want to raise the bars some .....

Hi,
Rivendell Bicycles has an especially long Nitto Technomiic stem. They have a website, forget the URL

Originally posted by D*Alex
A schwinn Le Tour is a touring bike, not a road bike.

Now that's interesting. Both of my Audax/touring bikes have the same geometry as out and out "racers" but one has slightly greater fork trail and one has a slightly greater wheelbase.

One of them is built in 531c (competition tubing) Both have dropped bars and downtube levers.

Are they not road bikes?, or does the fact that I choose to use guards (fenders) and a rack remove them from that category.

Come on D*Alex, you're living up to your nickname a bit excessively aren't you.?

Originally posted by late
Hi,
Rivendell Bicycles has an especially long Nitto Technomiic stem. They have a website, forget the URL

Nice !! I'll check it out.

One of my favorite web sites to go stare at longingly.

http://www.rivendellbicycles.com

RollingGeek, to me, the most important thing of your post is that you are out there riding! Man, you just can't beat that! I also started on a hybrid, then moved up to the roadbike, and fell in love. My time now is divided between two old steel Schwinn Paramounts. You can call 'em road/touring/commuter/sport or whatever, but they are skinny tired-go fast-fun bikes to ride that keep me in the saddle, and that is all that is important to me! When you have a great bike to ride, centuries are a blast to do, also! And, when you have a bike you like, you'll like spending more time with it, and that just leads to better conditioning and skills, and the century will be over, and you'll be thinking "Is that all??" LOL
Congrats on the bikes, keep us posted and keep riding!

If you like steel lugged bikes check out the Serotta CSI. Ive been lusting after one of those for some time now.


www.serotta.com (http://www.serotta.com)

http://www.serotta.com/images/csi03_BG.jpg

Nice, but at those prices, all I'll be doing is staring at it wistfully for now :)