Road Cycling - Bike Buying ? for heavy rider

Quick question,
I am 6'7" 250lbs and want to get into cycling and need advice on my bike purchase. I am looking to spend around $1000 and am really confused with all the options.

If any bigger riders could chime in with experience I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
Tabb

Type the words Tall riders and Large rides into the search engine and it will give you a couple of threads on this topic.

thanks, will do.
one more ? anyone familiar with Ibex bikes. Looks like a pretty good deal on the Aprisa 6500, full ultegra group and other nice stuff.

Hi Tabb.

Did you read this review of the Ibex Aprisa 6500 at www.roadbikereview.com (http://www.roadbikereview.com/2003+Road+Bike/Ibex+Bicycles+Aprisa+6500/PRD_142968_4338crx.aspx#reviews)?

When I started riding I was about 255 lbs. I bought a Trek 1200. I wanted a higher end bike, but was concerned about the fragility of fiber and other lighter weight parts. Other than spokes, I have had no bicycle difficulties. My suggestion is stay away from carbon fiber and you’ll do fine. You will have some spoke difficulties after a while. I await your next thread re: strong wheels for bigger riders. :)

That was my first thread.:D

Hi,
you want a stiff frame. Your frames is going to be so big; that many bikes will
just wimp out because the long tubes won't be able to resist bending when you drop the hammer. Which really, really sucks.. I suggest you look at used bikes, even with your budget. Bikes that jump to mind would be Paramount, Waterford, Cannondale (especially one of their touring models), and Klein, and the Lemond Zurich.

For a big frame you need fat tubes, which usually means Aluminium. Canondales are strong , reliable frames, and they do a 63cm size(60cm top tube). Do you know what size and length you need?.
For the components, you dont need ultra-light parts, but you may benefit from extra-long (ie 180mm ) cranks, wide bars and touring guage (ie 36 spoke) wheels.

Thanks for the help guys
Hopefully I will find something soon.

Originally posted by Michael Marshal
I await your next thread re: strong wheels for bigger riders. :)


I'm already there! Last January I tacoe'd my rear wheel and because I didn't want to wait for one to be ordered, I took what was on hand. The old wheel was a 36 hole rim and the new one was a 32 hole rim.

All went well until about two weeks ago when I started breaking spokes. On 31 July I took out six of them. Then, one week ago, I took out another. Yesterday, as I was riding SPRONG! and two more went. So far, it has been the nine spokes and two truings.

I am 6'3", 240lbs and I started a thread called Large Riders looking for help. Since I am now riding a relatively cheap comfort bike, the wheels and spokes are not that expensive. However, next year when I go to a road bike, look out. I have many recommendations by riders larger than myself.

The advice I can give you is make sure you have a 36 hole rim and express your concerns to the LBS. They can advise you on what might - repeat might - work. Nothing is 100%.

On a $1000 bike, you won't bet the best wheelset, but make sure it is at least 36 holes.

You should look into Felt bicycles. They are a great value. I too recommend switching out the wheels to either 32 or 36 spoked wheels. I have a pair of Rolf Vector Comps, nice looking, but I retrue the wheels after every third ride. I'm mostly a mtn biker, so for me to spend more on my road bike is painful. Plus, I use it mostly for training, so I don't mind retruing my wheels often.

I would suggest a 32 or 36 hold Mavic CPX33 rim with an Ultegra hubset and either DT Swiss or Wheelsmith spokes. Can't go wrong!

L8R

TrekRider,
take a look at this....http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?category=113&subcategory=1128&brand=&sku=9369&storetype=&estoreid=

This is a brutally strong rim at a fantastic price. You can have your LBS build it up, or have Nashbar do it for you.

While we are talking about it. I have had tremendous success with Velomax wheels. They use a straight pull spoke that screws right into the hub. Not a hitch so far. Check them out.

thanks for the help guys, this place is a wealth of information. One other question, I was looking at a bike today that hade ritchey aero pro's on it, now I know the spoke count isnt as high as some suggest, but are these good rims? The price on the bike is really low so it was tempting.

Thanks again
Tabb

I am 6 foot and weigh 240.

I was at 285 when I picked up a Trek Police model bike. I had tp check with several dealers before one would sell this model to me.I picked this bike because it looked like it was heavy duty and would put up with my mass. My assumption was corrrect and I ride this on bike everywhere.
On the police bike, I'll keep my heart rate in the 140-150 range and average 12.5-13 mph on hour long rides.

I would like to average some higher speeds and longer rides without causing coronary damage. My son-in-law got me thinking about road bikes. The local shop recommended the Specialized Sequioa, but the son-in-law thinks a Trek, Lemond or a steel bike would be better.

Any ideas?

Originally posted by tabbytabb
One other question, I was looking at a bike today that hade ritchey aero pro's on it, now I know the spoke count isnt as high as some suggest, but are these good rims?
Thanks again
Tabb

I posted this in this (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30373&highlight=michael+marshal) thread.

Just heard back from Bontrager.

Thank you for your email and interest.
Our strongest road wheel would be our Race Lite Tandem wheels. However, you don't need anything that strong unless you have a some serious wheel problems in the past. If not, I would look at Race Lite Aero's or the Race Lites.
Regarding weight: we discuss this every year and still do not have a weight limit, maybe we need one. But one thing is certain, if and when we do establish a limit, it will be more than 250lbs. That doesn't mean the wheels are indestructible, it only means with reasonable care and maintenance the wheels should last a long time.


Ride them with confidence,

Jeff

I’m still undecided. I will make a decision by the end of the day. I’ll flip a quarter if I have to.

I don’t know about Ritchey. I did talk to folks from Velomax and Bontrager. Both of them were very confident that their wheels would hold up.

Originally posted by MrEWorm
I would like to average some higher speeds and longer rides without causing coronary damage. My son-in-law got me thinking about road bikes. The local shop recommended the Specialized Sequioa, but the son-in-law thinks a Trek, Lemond or a steel bike would be better.

Any ideas?

All good bikes. You might want to consider the Allez series instead of the Sequoia series. The Allez does have some steel bikes in the series.

Sequoia series has more "comfort" features than the Allez series. Things like suspension seat-post, etc. That adds some weight and causes some loss in effeciency.

Ride them and see what you like.

Would a touring bike, like the Trek 520, be a good road bike for a heavy duty fellow?

Originally posted by late
TrekRider,
take a look at this....http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?category=113&subcategory=1128&brand=&sku=9369&storetype=&estoreid=

This is a brutally strong rim at a fantastic price. You can have your LBS build it up, or have Nashbar do it for you.

Thanks. I think "brutally strong" is the way I will have to go.

One thing on durability of wheel sets. The pair I am riding now are seven months of hard riding - several thousand miles. They were fine for the first seven months, then things started to go wrong.

For those large riders looking for a good, strong wheelset, listen to those largies who have been riding their wheels for several thousand miles with no problems.

Originally posted by late
TrekRider,
take a look at this....http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?category=113&subcategory=1128&brand=&sku=9369&storetype=&estoreid=

This is a brutally strong rim at a fantastic price. You can have your LBS build it up, or have Nashbar do it for you.

I have 36-spoke 519's on my Airborne and, yes, they're very robust. But one thing I'll tell you: build up those 48-hole rims Nashbar is selling and you will have one set of very, very heavy wheels. So heavy that buying an expensive lightweight road frame to mount them on is probably a waste of money.

Building up a cyclocross or touring bike with wide-range gearing and those wheels, on the other hand, could make a lot of sense for a big rider. Possibly the best compromise between the aerodynamics and efficiency of a road bike and the indestructability of a really good unsuspended MTB.

RichC

Bianchi Imola or Eros with Mavic Open Pro's. simple.

Here is some advice that I got on another forum. I had asked the question about Mavic Kysrium Elites supporting my weight. One person suggested upgrading to the SLs, but another, and sounder bit of advice was to opt for a 36 spoke rim in the rear, 32 front, Mavic MA3's, or something of equal width and spoke count, double butted spokes, eyelets, etc... hand built by someone who knows what they're doing...

This is equal in value to the advice to get the Mavic wheels from Nashbar, that have 48 spokes.

Sounds like very good advice. Now, all I have to do is find a good wheelwright.

I weigh 280.
When I started riding I weighed 330.
I originally had the original 32 spoke HEAVY Wobler rims on RX100 hubs that came on my Specialized Sirrus.
I upgraded these to CXP23's on Ultegra hubs. These had 28f/32r.
I put about 2000 miles on this wheelset.
I now am riding Mavic Cosmos that came on my new bike.
I've got a few hundred miles so far on these wheels.
I've had NO wheel problems caused by my size.

I also heard from Mavic themselves (thru the engineering department at Felt Bikes) that the Ksyrium Elites were perfectly adequate for my weight (290 @ that time), but the SL's would be a little better. The only downside was ride. Those wheels will be very stiff for a bigger rider.