Originally Posted by
Andy_K
Suppose your typical weekend ride is a 6 hour expidition along well-paved rural roads and your commute is a 40 minute ride along urban streets infested with stop signs, traffic lights and potholes. Do you still not see why anyone would have a weekend bike and a commute bike?
...no, not really. Constant stops is where I like the race-like tarmac the most! - stop and start is exciting on the Tarmac. It's designed for sprints and quick accelerating. I had a Cannondale Touring bike before it, and I really hated stops a lot more with that because it felt so plodding to get going again.
Originally Posted by
Andy_K
The Tarmac is a race bike. It might be fun to use for the commute if your commute is along open roads. It might even be fun to use in the city when the weather is nice. On a dark, rainy night I think I'd be cursing the clip-on fenders, seatpost rack and skinny tires. Then when the weather turned nice and I took the Tarmac out for a weekend ride, I'd might be cursing myself for not having replaced the cables and cleaned all the shiny bits as the rear derailleur clunks instead of shifting. And I'd definitely be cursing the road grit when I had to replace those Dura-Ace parts three times sooner than my non-commuting buddies from the local club ride.
If you're commuting to save money (nothing wrong with that at all), a fatter tire means you can use a less bright light because you can roll over smaller objects that your light doesn't light up. In my case, I just own a bright expensive light that lights everything up on the road enough that I can clearly see sticks big enough to worry about, potholes, etc. I find the carbon frame works just as well as fatter tires do for vibration absorption - actually, I think they work better (until you get into tires at least 1.5", which start to noticeably slow me down).
As for the rack, I keep everything I need in my desk at work, and we have a cafeteria at work (and if we didn't, for smaller stuff an oversized under-seat bag would probably work). I don't need to carry much with me. I can understand wanting more storage space, but when I've occasionally commuted with panniers that are anywhere near full it creates some noticeable drag and it's not as fun. I'd rather have my commute be more fun, than carry more stuff (and for my particular commute I can do that).
I haven't had any problem with skinny tires in the wet as long as I buy a decent wet weather tire. Obviously I don't take turns as aggressively and stuff, but I have ridden in the pouring rain several times on my Tarmac and the grip has been fine.
I'm not really into the "bike as a trophy" thing - my bike is something I use, not something I polish up and display. Grime on my bike on a group ride is not a concern. I'm far, far more concerned with just having a good time with whatever I'm doing for the majority of my biking - which is commuting when I can actually regularly commute to work.
You left out another point - of course, leaving a $5k bike sitting locked up outside hardly seems like a good idea. I used to be able to do it at work - worked at a bank location, full time security watches the parking lot (and other people had expensive bikes there as well, nothing ever got stolen from out front). If I had to leave it locked up elsewhere, it would be a different matter, and I wouldn't be able to ride my nice bike...
Regarding replacing components, I didn't drop $5k on a bike to start worrying about "using it to much and wearing it out".
Of course, another decent alternative that I hear a lot about is to ride the nice bike commuting in good weather, and when the weather looks bad ride the cheaper bike. That makes sense to me - I actually own a 2nd cheaper bike myself for this and because I needed something for grocery shopping and some light touring that could carry some weight on a rack.
But saving all the fun riding for the weekends - that just seems ridiculous.
Originally Posted by
Andy_K
Returning to the wheels, like any wheels -- regardless of material -- they've only got so many miles of life in them. So the question is, how many of the miles on that $1500 wheelset do you want to spend riding from stop sign to stop sign on your commute?
Well, that's why I bought nice wheels - to ride them. If they wear out from riding, they wear out from riding. I'm not saying that if they did wear out, I might not replace them with something less expensive. I have expensive wheels on my Tarmac - but it came with them, and I did my research that they were still sturdy wheels that weren't going to need constant truing or something. I think they're Mavic Ksyrium ES's? Not 100% sure - but they're lasted the last 2 years, and finally maybe could use to be trued, despite my propensity to bomb off curbs onto the street, ride over grass, ride on packed-limestone trails - etc with them.
I ride my bike to use it. If you're biking to work to save money, I can see why you wouldn't want to use your expensive bike, sure. And only riding the good bike on good weather days - alright, I mean I can understand that.
But only riding it on the weekend? What a waste. I can't imagine dropping $5k on something I only use every now and then. Plus - bike commuting to work on my Tarmac is definitely more fun. :-D