Advice for new bike
 

Hello all,

Although I've been commuting by bike for about three years now, I'm something of a novice about bikes, so apologies for all the incorrect terminology, misunderstandings and other rubbish I'm about to write.

I live in Edinburgh, Scotland and am in the lucky position of having £1000 to spend on a new bike. The bike will mainly be used for my daily commute (about 4 miles each way). There's a few hills involved.

So far, I've been doing this commute a hard tail MTB (GT Panterra) and I think think I'd like to try a different kind of bike.

I've spent a couple of days reading through the previous post and I must admit I've now got more questions floating around my head than I started with. So, I've tried working out what do/don't want from my new bike:

THINGS I REALLY DON'T WANT:

• Front Fork Suspension

THINGS I REALLY DO WANT:

• A rack that its onto the frame, not just the seatpost (I had one of those on my MTB, but stopped using it as it was a bit all overthe place
• wheels/tyres better suited to the fact that I cycle 95% down tarmarced paths/roads (with a little cobbled bit at the end, which really wakes me up).
• A bike built to deal with the poor roads/paths in Edinburgh (quite a lot of potholes, raised manhole covers, etc).
• Less gears - I've never used half the 27 gears on my MTB and when I do shift gears I tend to shift about 3 at a time.

THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT:

• Brakes - my MTB has disk brakes and I love them. Reliable, powerful. However, the one at the back gets in the way of fittng a frame-attached rack
• Hub Gears. I like the idea of less moving parts exposed to grit/dirt/muck, but don't know if there's a downside to them.
• Handlebars. This is a biggy. I like the idea of drop handlebars, (more riding positions, etc), but I'm a bit scared of the thought of being less visible and havng less visibility. Hmm.
• MudGuards. Can't say I've ever seen the need for them yet. Occasionally I get a fine spray in the face, but that's sort of refreshing. Living in Scotland we're pretty used to being wet.

I bought the MTB thinking I might get in to doing some off road riding, but this hasn't happened (and I can't see it happening in the near future).

I can see that I might use my new bike in the future for a bit of light touring (c. 50 miles a day), which will mostly be down canal towpaths or surfaced bike paths.

Initially I was looking at hybrid bikes, but I'm coming to the conclusion that they might be too near to my existing MTB and a CX bike might suit me better (but they don't seem to come with brake disks).

Any suggestions of other factors to consider, or recommednations for bikes to look at gratefully recieved.

One last thing - it has to be a bike available with a UK based dealer.

Thanks in advance,

Craig.

17 different drop bar, 700c, disc brake bikes

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=368115

Thanks for that - it's a useful list of bikes. There's so much info on this forum, I don't think I'd have stumbled across it!

Not all seem to have UK dealers, so I'm not sure they're available to the scheme I'm in, but plenty of them do.

Have you had cause to use the info? Did you reach any conclusions about any of the bikes?

I'm going to offer one of two dozen recommendations to check into a cyclocross bike. It will provide just about everything you're after and a great many come with disc brakes now if you're sold on those. (I commute on a CX bike with discs, so no complaints here.)

With any decent level of componentry you're probably not going to shrink the number of gears you have, unless you go fixed/single speed or find a bike with an internal hub. Otherwise the lowest you'll probably end up with is 24 (which is called typically 8 speed and then specify a triple crank, rather than "24 speed")...much lower than that and you dip out the bottom end on quality, unless you're buying used/vintage.

Word is that 8 speed will be going the way of the dinosaur soon as well.

I just will never use rim brakes again so, as I've got this thing for one bike doing everything (yeah....right), I was trying to find the most versatile compromise. I had a Condor Cycles cyclocross with discbrakes built but it got stolen. So in the process of looking for a replacement, and with the added opportunity to persuade/convert/push others, I (and everyone that contributed) compiled that list.

I find that fairly "fast" lean to steer geometry of cyclocross bikes, i.e., not laid back touring turn to steer, will handle most situaions well, i.e., commuting in London traffic, road training and racing, cyclocross, light off road, touring, etc. The level/quality of the components just dictates how often the bike will need looking after/servicing. Generally, as long as the components are around Campagnolo Centaur/Veloce or Shamino Ultegra/105 (I don't know enough about SRAM to pass judgement) then it's a nice balance between expense and performance.

Apart from that ALWAYS get the wheels either fully rebuilt in a good LBS or at least re-tensioned by a wheel builder before you ride them for the first time. I prefer aluminium frames only because of the winter grit/salt and wet, i.e., rust. The caveat is all the Al bikes I've used were always harsher/stiffer than the steel ones.

I've got an insurance replacement being made by Condor which should be almost identical (slightly faster geometry and water bottle bosses) to the bike that got stolen so, at least in my my opinion, CX disc brake is the way to go. Now if they could just get rid of derailleurs too.

Hope the verbiage helped. It comes down to the individual though just like saddles (rolls and turbos are bricks) so get out there and test ride as many as you can.