CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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Okay so I'll admit I've partially fallen in love with this bike over the colour scheme, which doesn't strike me as a sensible reason for choosing a bike.
For those of you who know actually know one end of a bike's specs from the other, what do you make of this bike? Is it worth the money being asked for it?
"which doesn't strike me as a sensible reason for choosing a bike"
Oh so not true!
Though it does help if it's the sort of bike you want.
*goes and rummages around in his bike shop bookmarks for a few minutes*
Yep, £850 seems about the going rate for a disc-braked Sora-equipped CX/commuter device.
How are you with drop handlebars?
That looks nice. It has frog leg type brake levers,though not quite same as the specialized tricross. This might be why it is fifty quid dearer than the male model, though they are quite different bikes as male model has 700x50 tyres!! And no frog legs
Tricross is £750 this year - specification is lower than previous tricross bikes.
My feeling is tht £850 is a tad too dear
I'd never go for next years spec so early. Most retailers will be offloading 2013 bikes at huge discounts so you're more likely to bag yourself a bargain there with better spec. I don't think Sora is that great on an £850 bike now. Starting to see Tiagra at that price point.
The bottom of the range tricross for 750 quid has the new version of the cheaper gears / transmission the 2300claris. The STI feature where the gear changer is integrated with the brakes has come down from tiagra to sora to 2300 in the usual shimano way.
You can get a cannondale synapse Claris with this system for £650
What specialized have done over the years is to keep the price the same but reduce the specification. Or sometimes reduce the price and reduce the specification. Giant on the other hand on their albeit pricey Defy Advanced 2 have kept the same specification and taken 100 pounds off though still £1900.
If purple bar tape is the decider the specialized dolce has this, and purple bottle cages and a purple seat pack. Though is white itis not as nice as the grey/purple of the giant
After deciding on the type of bike I wanted, the looks were defo the clincher
Very nice, though possibly quite hard to keep clean? Also best not left,for any length of time around Gorgie area of edinburgh or of course Govan in Glasgow.
Fair enough, I think I followed most of that.
@Uberuce, I've never had a bike with drop bars before so I'm not sure, that said lots of people ride with dropped bars so famous last words, how hard can it be?
@deckard112, please forgive my ignorance at this point but Sora? Tiagra? I'm not sure what the terms refer to.
Suggestion then is to wait to see if it gets discounted end of next year?
@bikeability, pretty :D Though gembo is right, pain to keep clean. My current bike is supposed to be white...currently more of a grungey black colour.
To summarise, there are cheaper, just as good things out there at the moment. Better to look at them or wait for this one to come down in price later on?
Heh I feel like such a newbie >< Just really struggling to get a grip on the terminology.
"...how hard can it be?"
I spent six years barely using my drops (except when I felt I really ought to try on a really windy day every couple of months) due to them just not feeling at all natural despite many adjustments and grumbling about the feel of braking from atop the hoods until I converted to bullhorns, despite having mostly used the drops on the previous bike.
Roughly speaking, Sora = 2xxx-series = entry-level (road-bike) Shimano. Tiagra = 3xxx-series = one-up-from-entry-level Shimano. Sora used to be all eight-speed but is now nine, except for 23xx which is their legacy eight-speed slot. Tiagra was always nine-speed, I think.
I've never got on with drops. The one and only time I tried to use them I went over the handlebars and I've never got the nerve up to try again. I love my touring bars but I accept that they make my bike look a bit odd. I'm hoping they also render it fairly unstealable
As discussed before, a newbie is someone willing to learn and aware that they need to, which is good. A n00b is neither, which is bad. There's a nae-kiddin' academic thungmy about this: the Dunning-Kruger effect.
When you have full STI shifting, which the device in question does, there is nothing hard about drops. Or at least I found it to be so - amazingly intuitive.
As wingpig mentions, you might end up using the actual dropped part once every almost never, but the STI hoods remain win. I'd say 98% of the use my drops get is to give my wrists a break on long rides; the rest of the time I've got my hands on the hoods.
Sora and Tiagra are trademarks of the almighty Shimano Corporation, that make humungous numbers of bike parts and do so so well that even grouches have to admit they're often the best option.
Shimano(and all the other manufacturers) split their products into quality brackets, so you can easily tell how shiny something is by the name. For them it's [no-name guff] -> 2300 -> Sora -> Tiagra -> 105 -> Ultegra -> Dura-Ace.
From Sora upwards, it's functionally the same product, but increasingly lighter and slicker.
Thank you Uberuce.
So does Sora refer to the gearing? I can't find the term in the specs on the Invite 2. Lots of things that say they're Shimano but mostly with a code after them...
Sora refers to a level of quality of a component or components, which together make up a groupset:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimano#Road_groupsets
However, it is possible to "mix and match" between the different components within a groupset, such as by having Sora brakes, Tiagra shifters etc. Therefore, identifying "Sora" on its own doesn't refer to anything, unless of course the entire groupset is Sora.
The parts of a groupset are listed here:
"Better to look at them or wait for this one to come down in price later on?"
If you like it, just buy it. Think of the money "saved" later as the price of not riding around on it now. It all balances out.
@zenfrost
The matching male model is cited as Claris which is the name they are calling the 2300 range. These now have the gear changer integrated in the brakes.
sora gets given the 3500 number. ST350 is not something I can say for sure? STI is the integrated transmission (gear shifter and brakes together).
You will have to seek clarification from Shop or Giant.
Safe to say Entry Level
But think, what fun we have had perusing such fine details and you said it was just the colour scheme that was doing it for you.
Drop handlebars have the advantage of giving you flexibility of hand positions. For longer rides this can be a real blessing - giving you the opportunity to change the position of your body.
The type and position of the handlebars can affect enormously the comfort of their use and the ease of using the drops in particular. You need to think about factors such as reach, height and drop. Reach you can change pretty cheaply by getting a new stem. Height you can fix on a new bike (when the steerer hasn't yet been cut) or to some extent with a stem. Drop is governed by the type of handlebar as follows.
Broadly you get roughly 3 classes of handlebar; classic - on many racers; ergo; compact or shallow. The latter has the least drop and allows easiest access to the drops so that you can battle against the wind more easily.
After many years of struggling (and failing) to get into the drops on my blue bike, I found that it was far easier on the newer titanium bike. This has compact drops. So I have bought some compact drops off ebay to go with the replacement frame for the blue bike.
On the Giant, the drops look fairly compact - it's worth trying this out if you test ride. However new bars can be found fairly cheaply.
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