New Bike Suggestions?
02-11-09, 08:16 AM
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New Bike Suggestions?
Hi, all.
I'm an American living in Japan. Coming here has been my first real exposure to bike culture: back home, I had a mountain bike, but I only used it a few times in the summer, not really to get around. Here, everyone has a bike, and uses it to get pretty much anywhere that's shorter than going by train. Mimicking what I saw with the locals, I picked up a cheap "mama-chari" (the local nickname for a run-of-the-mill city bike) and have been using it every single day since then.
Now, though, I'm commuting several miles to work every day, and the mama-chari is getting to be a bit of a nuisance. Don't get me wrong: it's great for carrying my things with the front basket and rear rack, and the fenders keep the road grime off of me, but it's just... slow. And heavy. Those, too, can be assets when you're trundling along a busy city street with a load of groceries, but I also want to take it longer distances. Maybe follow the Yamato River out to Nara as a day trip, even. So with that in mind, I've started to think about upgrading the bike I use to commute, and keep my current one just to tool around the local area on minor errands. (I should probably also mention that I'm a poor college-grad still paying off his student loans; my target is something roughly in the $500-600 range.)
So far, my best bet would appear to be the Escape R3, made by Taiwanese manufacturer GIANT. (I don't know if this model is available outside of Japan, but it's come to my attention with several recommendations from both friends and bike mechanics.) It's a 24-speed hybrid bike with an aluminum frame, chro-moly front fork, 700c wheels and 28mm tires. It's fairly light for its equipment and price point, and scores bonus points for having both fenders and a rear rack available as options from the manufacturer. The only thing that really gives me pause is the rear derailleur, which is a SRAM 3.0 (I've read some pretty discouraging reviews). I don't like the shifters either, which are the twisty kind rather than triggers, but supposedly SRAM's X-4 trigger shifters are easy enough to substitute in before I take it home.
That said, I'm open to other suggestions as well.
Apart from the one above, I've also been considering:
Let me know what you think.
I'm an American living in Japan. Coming here has been my first real exposure to bike culture: back home, I had a mountain bike, but I only used it a few times in the summer, not really to get around. Here, everyone has a bike, and uses it to get pretty much anywhere that's shorter than going by train. Mimicking what I saw with the locals, I picked up a cheap "mama-chari" (the local nickname for a run-of-the-mill city bike) and have been using it every single day since then.
Now, though, I'm commuting several miles to work every day, and the mama-chari is getting to be a bit of a nuisance. Don't get me wrong: it's great for carrying my things with the front basket and rear rack, and the fenders keep the road grime off of me, but it's just... slow. And heavy. Those, too, can be assets when you're trundling along a busy city street with a load of groceries, but I also want to take it longer distances. Maybe follow the Yamato River out to Nara as a day trip, even. So with that in mind, I've started to think about upgrading the bike I use to commute, and keep my current one just to tool around the local area on minor errands. (I should probably also mention that I'm a poor college-grad still paying off his student loans; my target is something roughly in the $500-600 range.)
So far, my best bet would appear to be the Escape R3, made by Taiwanese manufacturer GIANT. (I don't know if this model is available outside of Japan, but it's come to my attention with several recommendations from both friends and bike mechanics.) It's a 24-speed hybrid bike with an aluminum frame, chro-moly front fork, 700c wheels and 28mm tires. It's fairly light for its equipment and price point, and scores bonus points for having both fenders and a rear rack available as options from the manufacturer. The only thing that really gives me pause is the rear derailleur, which is a SRAM 3.0 (I've read some pretty discouraging reviews). I don't like the shifters either, which are the twisty kind rather than triggers, but supposedly SRAM's X-4 trigger shifters are easy enough to substitute in before I take it home.
That said, I'm open to other suggestions as well.
Apart from the one above, I've also been considering:
- Colibri 700 (probably the lightest of this bunch, and comes with fenders, but I know next to nothing about the manufacturer)
- Riteway Shepherd (probably the least expensive of the ones I'm thinking about, but unsure of the quality at this price point)
- GIOS Cele (a bit iffy on the front suspension, which appears to add weight)
- Bridgestone Orby 700 (looks like a decent value, though somehow owning a tire-brand bicycle seems unhip)
Let me know what you think.
Last edited by osaka_chari; 02-11-09 at 08:30 AM.
