Mahoolihan

Hi all. I'm ready to move into a different bike, and would love some guidance. here's the quick and dirty:
1.) I am 6'5", about 370 lbs. I have lost 80 lbs so far, purely by cycling.
2.) I ride about 12 miles to work a couple of times a week, all on urban roadways.
3.) I also ride once or twice on the weekends, and am hoping to extend those rides to 50 miles or more at a crack (they're currently 20-30 miles)

I have looked at a Giant Escape 1, and am also intrigued by the Specialized Sirrus Sport Disc. I am targeting a price point of $600-$800 USD, but will go higher if the bike will serve me better as both a commuter and a decent set of wheels for long rides.

Here are my specific questions:

a.) Are there any glaring problems with the two models I mentioned?
b.) Are there other models I should add to my list?
c.) Are there any real advantages to disc brakes? (I've never had a bike with discs before)
d.) What other questions should I be asking?

Thanks in advance for any help and insight you can offer.

bassjones

What are you currently riding? Why do you want to upgrade? Your goal of 50 mile plus rides indicates you may want to consider endurance geometry drop bar road bikes instead of hybrids. There are quite a few in your price range including models made by both Giant and Specialized. Hybrids are good for short rides, but have some glaring weaknesses once those rides start stretching into 40 miles and more.

ColaJacket

Agree that we need to know what bike you currently have.

What do you like about it? What do you not like about it? Has your fitness improve that you're ready for a little less relaxed position? On your current bike, is something uncomfortable when you get to 20-30 miles? If so, what part of your body is uncomfortable. And is it just uncomfortable, or is it hurting/painful?

There's nothing wrong with the bikes you listed, and some people do ride those bikes for 50 or more miles. But as Bassjones said, most people will find them uncomfortable for riding rides that long.

But it would be helpful to know where you're starting from.

GH

DarthMonkey

First off congrats on the progress. Keep at it.

I'm not claiming to know enough about the bikes you mentioned to provide any sort of helpful opinion there. I also agree that the more knowledgeable posters here will be better able to help if you provide more details on your current situation.

I'm chiming in because I'm 6'5" and five months ago I was pretty close to your weight. So I am speaking more from a "been where you are" perspective.

I am currently riding the same mountain bike I was 5 months ago (and well before that too). I made a new bike a milestone weight reward, so I ordered it recently, but I won't pick it up until later this week. I went for a cyclocross type geometry with adaptability for other uses. Cyclocross is a bit more relaxed than a dedicated road bike, but still has drops, and is more aggressive geometry than a hybrid. It can take skinny road tires or wide knobbies for trails (how wide varies from bike to bike). Many are already setup for fenders.

Gravel bikes with drops are very similar.

The actual bike I ordered was a Soma Double Cross Disc, but that is going to be well over your target price. It will be my first bike with disc brakes. If I had been shopping with your budget I probably would have stuck to rim brakes, because they are cheaper than the cheapest disc breaks, and I didn't want crappy disc brakes, just to have disc brakes. They were plenty of break discussions in other areas of the forum to give me enough background info to want to avoid cheap disc breaks.

The real problem I found was test riding a bike in the appropriate size. Almost every store in my area doesn't stock anything over a 58cm frame, some companies don't even make them bigger than that or if they do it is sold as frame only. All those 58cm bikes seemed a little small in one dimension or another. That is why I decided to order a 60cm frame. The LBS I used helped with measurements and let me ride several different 58cm bike geometries to get an idea of what stack, reach, standover height, etc I would be comfortable with, so that we could compare them to the size/geometry chart for the bikes I was considering.

At our height I would stress doing test rides or a professional sizing/fitting as the most important first step. Comfort over distances is dramatically impacted by fit, and you can only do so much adjustment to make a bike "bigger"(and some of those changes have their own trade-offs), so make sure you start as close to (but not over) the ideal size as you can.

Inpd

At your weight, a steel cyclocross bike would be a good idea. The wheels and frames are designed for high impact and therefore for people who are large.

Mahoolihan

I am currently riding a Del Sol LXI 7.2. It's really a comfort bike, and I feel like I have "outgrown" it, so to speak, plus, it's a little too small for me, so I want a bike that's right for a guy my size.

Mahoolihan

I am currently riding a Del Sol LXI 7.2. It's basically a comfort bike. The problem is that the frame is a little too small, so I have the seatpost extended all the way, and my butt hurts even after 15 miles or so. I feel like I should be distributing more weight to my arms to alleviate some of that. Plus, I am pretty compressed on this bike, and I would like something that stretches me out a bit more, if that makes sense. If I didn't hurt so much, I would ride in to work more often, and would be taking off the pounds even faster. Plus, I have a century on my "bucket list," so there's that. I would really like to give RAGBRAI a shot next year. All of those things make me want to upgrade my machine now, so I can do the necessary training and get more comfortable in the saddle for long rides.

bassjones

If your goal is RAGBAI, stay away from hybrids. At your budget, I'd be looking for used steel road bikes from the mid-late 90s/early 2000s. One of the Lemond bikes, maybe... I'm your height and was your weight. Be watching for 60-63 cm bikes.

ColaJacket

This is some good advice, especially if you want to do RAGBRAI next year. You could go for a cyclocross bike for a gravel grinder/adventure bike, which are similar enough to road bikes that they would be suitable for long rides like RAGBRAI, but are built a little tougher and accomodate wider wheels than most road bikes.

Here's an article on Adventure/Gravel bikes. They even suggest a Giant bike, the Giant Revolt. And a Specialized, the Diverge. They're a little more expensive than what you mention, but they might be better suited to your needs.

I wouldn't discount Road Bikes, though. You can find some road bikes with 700x28 or wider tires. My Fuji Sportif came with 700x28 tires/wheels, and it looks like it can support bigger. I got mine in April from Peformance Bikes. The 2014 came with Tiagra and disc brakes for $799.

GH