I_HAS_A_BICYCLE

Hi guys,

I'm in need of a new bike. My Dawes Mirage 06' is suffering from the extra millage I do now in Scotland. (I cycle for fun up hill, down hill, Forrest and marsh, don't ask about the marsh). I found the roads to be a whole lot harsher than London where I moved from.

I'm stuck between choosing a tourer or another Hybrid. I need to carry things and my bike cries whenever I use my pannier. I've tried everything and it's officially dying a premature death. It's four months old.

My price range is £400.

It looks like it's in good condition until you ride it.

fairymuff

Well, at £400 you are likely to struggle finding a proper tourer. If you're not carrying too much load, you can tour on a hybrid fine. My wife and I both use a Trek 7.3 which is great for light touring (we just did the C2C on them, carrying our stuff in panniers, but staying in hotels, so not a heavy load). Seeing you're in the UK/Scotland, you might want to spend a bit more on the disk brake version...

I_HAS_A_BICYCLE

Disc brakes would be good. I find V-Brakes to fail straight away once rain settles here in Scotland. It's a nice bike and it looks like it would do the job. I can stretch my budget to £600 for a tourer.

fairymuff

Evans do a number of touring bikes. There are two under £600. You don't get many (if any?) with disc brakes (and I wholeheartedly agree that you need them for touring in the UK. V-Brakes clog up with mud in no time. No such issues with Discs). A word of warning about those tourers: I'd keep a good eye on the gearing. Very few of them come with gearing suitable for touring. Some of them just have a double in front. You can't go low enough in gearing for loaded touring in my opinion. I had my LBS swap out the 28 tooth granny for a 22 tooth. My knees need it...

The Trek 7.3 with discs is £550 from Evans. If you're not too tall, you could try the Valencia, which is last year's 7.3 with discs, and discounted at Evans, with limited sizes available. I have the 17.5" model which just fits me (I'm 5'10), but is slightly small. It's a steal at £360, though I have to admit that the silver 2011 7.3 (which my wife rides) looks a lot cooler.

In the last two years, I've ridden my Valencia (with panniers at the back ~10 KG load), from Barrow-in-Furness to Preston, Swindon to Cardiff, Penang to Kuala Lumpur, as well as across the Pennines on the CTC. It's held up wonderfully.