Barry2 

It's not being unfriendly, it's genuine concern.

From the original post, a self declared newbie plans to...... spend <£1000 quid on a lighter used bike, then within a month, travel 100miles/day, for 20 days straight.

1. Lighter than what ?
2. Budget is tight
3. Time is short to find a bike.
4. Time is even shorter to prove a used bike reliable.
5. Time is shorter still to fit the bike correctly/comfortably
6. 100 miles/day is not noobie stuff
7. 20 days straight is extremely not noob stuff !!!!

Sounds like £1000 spent on a failed bike trip that could have been donated to your chosen cause.

What you got was a reality check you didn't think you needed.

Sorry you found it unfriendly

Barry

Atlas Shrugged

My advice is find a reputable bike shop and work with them. Unsubscribe from BF and never look back, you are dealing with a group of judgmental old farts whose idea of helping is crapping on whomever they can. Regardless of the innocent question posted the usual suspects pop up and offer their unsolicited comment not even closely related just to see their own words in type on that fancy internet thing. There are countless stories of people who have taken on what seem like impossible challenges and succeeded and there is no reason why you can’t be one of those. The fact some fool thought getting your bike across the English Channel was going to be a difficulty outlines the type of people you are asking for advice from.

Broctoon

If I were undertaking a trip like this (which, by the way, sounds like it will be an epic adventure!) I would look for a true road touring bike: Trek 520 or 720, Surly Long Haul Trucker, or Salsa Marrakesh, maybe others. Co-Motion makes some really nice touring bikes, but they’re probably way out of your budget, and I don’t know about their availability in the UK.

Any of these bikes can be set up fairly light in the way you load them—or rather don’t load them. The bikes themselves are not very light or fast, with the possible exception of the 720.

Any of these can handle short stretches of gravel or broken pavement.

I’m sorry I don’t have a lead for you on a used one at this time.

My condolences to you and your countrymen on the loss of your monarch today, and best wishes as you prepare for the ride!

Milton Keynes

Well, you have to look at it from our perspective. We get a lot of trolls starting inane threads or suggesting totally implausible scenarios just as a wind up, and your first post made it sound like you were totally new to cycling, don't have a bike at all, and were planning on doing a pretty grueling ride to Ukraine of all places. No newbie could just get on a bike and do 20 century rides back to back, and it would be foolish to try.

Atlas Shrugged

Really? What a defeatist approach to life.

DMC707 

"I play real sports. Not tryin' to be the best at exercisin"

Milton Keynes

OK, you go out and ride 2000 miles in 20 days while I sit back & watch. I'll get popcorn ready.

livedarklions

I hope you'll see this as a constructive suggestion, but my sense is that your arrival in Ukraine is the most important symbolic aspect of the journey. Have you considered starting somewhere a bit closer, but doing it over the same amount of time? This pace just has disaster written all over it.

livedarklions

No, what he actually said he was riding from the UK to the Ukraine. That's an awfully weird way of putting it which made me suspect he wasn't serious. I am fully aware that transporting a bike across the Channel is not an obstacle, but go ahead and tell me how one rides across the Channel.

livedarklions

Crossing the Alps in the middle both ways, no less.

Atlas Shrugged

That, I am sure of!

To the OP, these are the naysayers and scolders responding to your request on the best bike for this type of trip.

​​​​​​"What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?" - John Green

alcjphil

There is a lot to unpack here. First, your initial post gave the impression that you basically didn't have a bike. Read it through, there is no mention about what training you have done or the bike you have been riding. Next, for 20 days, would you be riding unsupported or would you have a support vehicle? Pretty hard to keep things to a minimum for that many days on the road without support. What route would you take? If you have to ride through mountainous regions you would need different gearing than you would on flatter terrain. I have no idea about your route, but 20 100 mile days could take you all over Europe, unless there are rest days, it certainly wouldn't be the shortest route to Ukraine. Would you be riding alone? Wouldn't think so if this is a charity ride.. So, to the additional information: Your current bike is about as good as it gets for your current budget and you are well acquainted with it and its possible limitations and strong points. Long distance touring isn't about having the fastest bike but the bike that will get you to your destination every day, day after day. My take is that a meaningful upgrade from your current bike will cost more than your budget. Instead, make sure that your bike is in tip top shape before you leave and see if you can do small upgrades to it that will make it better suited to your trip

Barry2 

Strava, not unsurprisingly blew up and would not plot a route.
RideWithGPS surprisingly DID plot a route.

Calais France to Kyiv Ukraine

1,688.4 miles
65,288' elevation

Is there a website for this Charity ride ? I'd like to see it please

Barry

MarcusT

As you stated, your OP made it seem like you were new to cycling and were taking on quite the challenge.
All that aside, there was a suggestion for a Decathlon refurbished gravel bike. I believe that maybe a little heavy for your purpose, but getting a bike from Decathlon is not a bad idea. If something were to go wrong, there are stores all across Europe in case you need warranty work.
Cube also offers a few bikes in that price range for example: https://www.cube.eu/uk/2022/bikes/ro...o-desertngrey/

GamblerGORD53

Honda 150 will do ya .....

subgrade

You have repeatedly mentioned the Alps in this thread which suggests it's been a long time since you looked at a map of Europe.
Not only one does not have to cross the Alps on the route from Netherlands to Ukraine, one would even have to make a pretty huge detour to get to the Alps.

It is entirely possible to make this trip without encountering any mountains.

Herzlos

Yeah, that touring bike was bad advice on my part; I'd misread it and thought they needed to take loads of stuff.

If they've already got a boardman team cx then the best thing to do is probably give it a service and some new tyres.

afrdav

Hello, my route does not go via the alps.

livedarklions

My brain fart, sorry.

wolfchild

General sub-forum is a no-mans-land...Post your question in touring sub-forum and you might get more positive response.

Maelochs

Okay .... first off you mention bike-packing but also so you will not be carrying much. Is this a supported tour (as in motorized vehicles carrying some baggage?) or are you staying a hotels/homes along the way (otherwise you would Need a tent or tarp and a sleeping bag or some kind of insulated sleeping system.) Also ... clothing means what? Three weeks worth of clothing, including hot- and cold-weather gear, rain gear .... and "a little food"? When I was doing 100 mile-per-day loaded touring "a little food" would last about an hour.

Also ... water? One of the heaviest and most important things to carry, IMO .... no water, no life. Are you planning to camp, stay at hotels, ride through cities?

Also ... what about tools and spares? 2000 miles and you will never get a flat, tear a tire, break a cable? No screw or bolt will ever work its way loose and fall out? Not even a zip-tie to secure a broken rack or something? Fully loaded touring for a very long distance (to me at least, with my experience (not saying I learned much, but ... )) is a lot about preparation and a little about improvisation ..... duct tape and zip ties and bungees and "Man, am I ever glad I brought a spare tire ... "

For the record ... I have done a 100-mile-per-day tour with a couple newbies and it was Hard for them. We tried to average 10 mph and ride ten hours but a lot of days we ended up riding deep into the night to make the required mileage .... and the newbs were riding light (two of us carried most of the weight because we were really fit (oh, the days gone by ... )) and we ended up having to do credit-card/hotel touring some because they newbs weren't ready ... but it was for charity, and we couldn't say "No."

Also, a lot of our schedule was determined by pre-planned media appearances (no point in riding for a cause if nobody knows, right?) which meant that we had to do certain mileage and make certain stops, and also we had to visit certain urban areas .... then immediately bail out onto more rural roads where riding was safer. This made it easier to re-supply and do repairs ... but having a few basic parts and tools got us from where we broke down to the next urban area, and Not getting there on time wasn't really an option.

Apparently you have touring experience .... and are sure you can do the miles carrying the load, and I won't quibble .... but if you have that experience ... i don't understand why you would come here looking for bike advice---particularly since you are apparently in Europe where the market is likely considerably different. I am completely ignorant of the best places to buy used bikes in Europe .... online? Who knows?.

Is this something like the bike you own? https://www.bikeradar.com/reviews/bi...x-team-review/

Seems like about the perfect bike for the job .... 23 pounds or so without racks, but so what? Touring isn't about saving weight but having what you need. You can always ride a little slower ... If I were riding that bike on a tour I might look at slightly narrower tires and definitely slicks .... otherwise it looks just about right.

Also, if you are planning this for later this year .... you will be facing a lot of interesting weather, right? if you are camping, this Really matters. If you are just doing hotel-to-home rides, where you can warm up and dry all your gear before setting out, maybe less so, but freezing rain and snow and such are not small issues if you are 50 miles from your destination.

I guess my point is .... if you have planned for all this stuff .... the necessary logistics which will make your tour actually succeed as a publicity venture .... then simply buying a bike should be ... simple.

In any case, I cannot see that you could do a lot better than the Boardman. Sure, you could find something a few pounds lighter .... but with your (pretty tight) budget and the almost certain need to do some upgrades and tune-ups and such .... I can't see how you could get a better bike within that budget.

Slick slim tires, and head out.

I hope all the right stuff happens for you and the tourists and I hope you all deal with things in the best possible way. I have done a couple charity tours and it is always good to be riding a bike, and doing a tour and adding on top of that that you are doing good things for other people .... yeah, sweet.

70sSanO

Your response was great. This portion intrigued me.

I’ve seen articles about someone who accomplished some feat to bring awareness to a cause, but so never understood the charity part. Unless a person involved is a celebrity it would seem like an odd way to raise funds.

Are corporate sponsors providing the bulk of the money raised?

Do people really see someone riding across a continent actually contribute to an a cause unrelated to what the person is doing?

Is there an amount per mile that is pledged? Which I always thought was an odd arrangement.

It would be nice to understand how any of this works.

John

Maelochs

The idea on the two long charity rides I was part of was to raise attention which could be translated into dollars. Yes, the tour company hit up every corporation it could think of for kit and bikes and everything else. The idea was that these crazy people were doing this crazy thing and it was so extreme, you might want to hear about it .... and wow, they are doing it in support of some issue of which you have never heard (https://endtransplantabuse.org/), and maybe you want to learn more or get involved or support in some way! Here's the website or the GoFundYourself or whatever (they actually worked with legit non-profit .... so people could see that the money was going to help the people who needed help ... )

And after the second trip, the venture folded, partway through plotting the third trip.

The initial idea involved a lot more media but as with most start-ups, under-capitalization crippled it. The plan was to get the celebrity ride-alongs, the big kick-off concert, the final concert at the destination, and lots of media attention from start to finish. Unfortunately, not everyone fulfilled their promises, and it was the sort of project which needed to be strong from the start to carry momentum through the length of it.

Eventually it was decided there were better ways to spend the money, which would bring in more money for less effort. The tours got tons of local media but never broke through to the national media, and the tour company had a hard time even contacting most celebrities--- turns out you have to hire a media company to even talk to the staff of the companies which might then contact the agents of the celebrities.

If the company had started with the budget it planned on---if a bunch of funders hadn't decided to play personal politics and try to take control and similar stupid human tricks---it could have been an ongoing project which could have possibly actually done some good----imagine "Live Aid" extending over a month with a big opening and closing show, happening in different countries/continents each year.

Setting up the mechanics of the tour wasn't the money drain. The hard part was getting a serious publicity firm on board---the tour company talked to some biggish names, but they all wanted to wait to see what would happen before committing .... and the publicity firms wanted huge up-front money to guarantee a few big names to get the ball rolling.

The tours reached maybe millions of people .... but in a nation of 300+ million and 7.5 billion globally, that was not cost-effective.

Because publicity is worth as much as money in some cases---publicity equals public pressure equals political pressure--and because it would have been possible to make money if each tour was a series of big events---it was actually a viable idea. If the kick-off was big enough, then people could follow day-to-day online, with live streams and podcasts, gt invested in the riders, vicariously experience all the trials and tribulations as well as the joys and successes----basically a month-long reality TV series with a big concert at each end---if this had indeed turned into an annual thing ... who knows? it takes years to make big changes, and I doubt the concept could have survived more than a few years ... but who knows?

However, there simply wasn't enough up-front money to make it all happen, and when major investors bailed at the last minute---brinksmanship politics, they thought the management would give them their way when people's live and welfares are at stake ---- super bad karma for those people---the kick-off fell flat, and none of the rest really worked therefore, and the closing concert was small and mostly ignored and well .... life goes that way sometimes.

Sad times, but the saddest part is that the stuff we wanted to change---primarily organ-harvesting in Communist China---still goes on.
https://dafoh.org/
https://ishr.org/organ-harvesting/
https://theconversation.com/killing-...n-china-161999
https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/202...re-brain-death

Broctoon

That's a good one. I'll have to remember it. I see it's from An Abundance of Katherines, a novel of Green's that I have not read.

I did read his Paper Towns. (I know, it's meant for a young adult audience. I'm a not-so-young adult. Don't judge me. I read all kinds of things.) In it, the elusive heroine, Margo Roth Spiegelman, rhetorically asks her friend Quentin, "What are you afraid of?" while persuading him to do something risky, adventurous, and very fun one night. I often ask myself this, in Margo's voice, when hyping myself up for an adventure of any sort.

A few other gems from this novel:

"It is so hard to leave--until you leave. And then it is the easiest damned thing in the world."

and

"In your last moments... you’ll say to yourself, ‘Well, I wasted my whole damned life, but at least I broke into SeaWorld with Margo Roth Spiegelman my senior year of high school. At least I carpe’d that one diem.'" Spoiler alert: breaking into SeaWorld was not the adventure I mentioned above.

A few others of my all-time favorite (non-John Green) quotes:

"Then, who would live at home idly (or think in himself any worth to live) only to eat, drink, and sleep, and so die?" --Captain John Smith

"We've got a blind date with destiny, and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." --The Shoveller from Mystery Men

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man." --Jebediah Springfield from The Simpsons


afrdav, I hope your trans-European trip comes together. I also wish you a trip that is NOT 100% safe, comfortable, or predictable.

wolfchild

This whole thread made a pretty huge detour from OPs original question...OP made it clear that he already has the route planned and coordinated with each country which he will be passing through. All he asked was a question about a bike.