The Evolution of a Sirrus

In 2008, I decided to take up cycling again on my 65 th birthday. Knowing very little about modern bicycles, I chose a comfort bike that I thought would be body- friendly. The bike was fine and I rode a lot that summer but as they say, your first bike teaches you which bike to buy next. At this point I had learned that I liked road riding and that what I really wanted, was a roadbike. Come October, during shops yearend clearances, I started to look for a flat-bar roadbike. I didn’t think that my back would be up to riding with dropbars. I found a really good deal on a 2008 Sirrus Comp and as they say, the rest is history.


I rode the entire next season with the stock bike and really loved it. After realizing an issue with limited hand positions on the flat bars, I added bar ends and they were a great help. Over the next year I began doing longer organized tours and decided to try trekking bars. They were an easy switch, using all the same gearshifts and brake levers. I found the inline hand/wrist position to be the most comfortable for me but found the outer hand positions to be too widely set.



It then suddenly struck me that this ideal hand/wrist position was the same as the one using dropbars on the hoods. Cruising Craigslist one day, I found a good deal on a set of dropbars, brake levers and bar-end shifters. This allowed an easy inexpensive changeover to dropbars – I did have to change the Dia Compe brake levers to relatively inexpensive Tektro 520 levers to provide the optimum long cable-pull for Vee brakes. Everything else worked spendidly.
By the following year I was starting to do more and more touring (mostly supported tours and credit card tours) It was now obvious to me where my cycling interests really lay. Every day I look back and am so thankful that I bought the Comp model, I call it my Faux Roubaix, because I always decided it was worth putting money into modifying it rather than selling it (and taking quite a loss) to buy another bike. Every year I invested a modest amount to modify it into what I thought I needed.


The following year I decided that I needed lower gearing for carrying more load up bigger hills, so I redid the entire driveline (crank, rear derailleur and cassette). It was wonderful. It now has a Deore trekking crank (48- 36- 26), XT rear Derailleur and a Sram 11-34 cassette. The front derailleur continued to work fine. I really loved the dropped bars and found that all my fears of them were false. By now I was doing all my own wrenching ( having learned from books, building a town/shopping bike and investing in a few bike-specific tools).


Last year, I decided that I had had enough of the bar-end shifters and converted the bike to brifters. I used the new SORA #3503 ones. This necessitated adding Problem Solvers to the brakes to change the short cable-pull brifters to the long-pull Vee brakes (I have always been quite happy with the Vee brakes). I have been extremely pleased with the shifters and often say to myself – why didn’t I do this sooner? Also, last season, I outfitted the bike with lowrider front racks for self-supported touring. I continue to use the bare bike for training and with racks for the type of touring that I need. I continue to love this bike and am so glad that I have evolved it into the type of bike that I wanted. Two years ago, after discovering cracks in the original Alex rims, I put on a new set of Mavic/Shimano wheels. After seven years now, the only original parts on the bike are the frame/fork, brakes, stem and seatpost.





Hope you like it,

Doug