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not resolvedWell... the day has arrived... my hybrid is close to collapse...
So I need a new bike.
I've been thinking about getting a road bike. So here's my question (to those roadies on the forum): What's it like riding a road bike in Edinburgh?
Do you enjoy it? Or do the terrible surfaces suck the joy out of it?
I do genuinely enjoy it, but I have very little experience of anything bigger than a 23C tyre to compare it to. So maybe I just have Stockholm Syndrome.
I've cycled road bikes in Edinburgh for commuting/getting about for about 7 or 8 years now. Over time the tyres got fatter, I started out on 23s and now am on 32s.
I got a flat the other day on my road bike (old steel framed thing) and ended up taking my partner's aluminium hybrid with 35mm tyres to work.
"Wow"! I thought. I've been missing out. I found the more upright riding position to be advantageous for seeing around myself, I felt less inclined to constantly trying to go at full pelt and the option of having a triple again instead of just a road double was a revelation in gearing into matching the gearing into a headwind.
It's always a compromise if you want your bike to be more than just a gets-you-from-A-to-B quicker sort of thing, but I genuinely feel like I'm getting around faster and in more comfort on what should be a cheaper bike.
I'm totally going to re-gear my road bike and adjust the stem, bars and saddle to match the hybrid closer.
I ride a CX bike with 28mm slick tyres, It's like a road bike but has disc brakes and drop bars. It's 11 speed which with a double on the front gives me a massive range of gears, ideal for boshing up the WOL or cruising the canal. Love it.
I commute on my fancy road bike occasionally if I need it for some training or other, but that's a rarity and find wearing a backpack very uncomfortable on it so there is that to bear in mind too.
CX bikes ftw.
+1 for CX/Adventure road bikes.
I have a Genesis Croix De Fer which is great for cobbles/ canal/off road and still nippy enough on the road. 28mm Marathon plus for me.
Keep the advice coming, please. It's all been useful.
+1 for the CX.
If used every day they take a fair amount of punishment esp if cobbles are involved in the commute.
I've just gone the Croix De Fer route as well and really like it - no regrets at all. Previously on a Whyte flat bar 'urban' bike, so maybe not as big a leap as from a hybrid.
Definitely not as nimble, and I'm now a bit more wary in traffic which may not be a bad thing. I still grab for levers that aren't there now and then, and I find kerbs an issue as I can't pop the front wheel the way I could on the last bike. Hopefully this will all come with confidence and practice.
I use 35mm tyres (Marathon Plus) for comfort and to cope with my weight.
Have you thought about an Elephant bike, I think someone on here may have one.
I used to commute on a road bike with 23mm tyres but I got a Croix de Fer a few years ago and I'm still using the stock 35mm tyres. No regrets on my choice.
It's a bit slower but is more comfortable and also great for forest tracks etc.
Another CDF owner here, we are legion!
Have you thought about an Elephant bike, I think someone on here may have one.
I'm one of the offenders.
An elephant bike is great for what it is. It's cheap, can carry a lot, take a lot of punishment and is a very flexible load-carrying utility bike that isn't quite a full blow cargo bike. It's comfortable to ride and pretty nippy with a very good turning circle.
It also has a big old basket that overhangs the front so you aren't easy to filter or get through tight gaps. It's very heavy and slow as a pig on anything but downward gradients, and you feel like you are cycling a sailing boat against the wind in headwinds. And with a 3-speed hub you have to accept you have a small choice of gears and if you regularly carry a lot of weight (child etc.) that you will have to drop the ratio by increasing the sprocket size. Which means you easily spin out on the flats.
What will you be using it for?
The CX sounds interesting. One of my thoughts is that I want to get into cycling longer distances - e.g. 50km+ (long for me).
The problem with doing that on my current bike - which is a "sit up and beg" hybrid is that wind is a killer.
Having drops, the Croix de Fer would be more aero.
Thoughts?
CDF would be absolutely fine for those sorts of distances, and is a good frame to upgrade on if you felt you needed anything fancier component wise.
Advantage is it's going to be more comfortable and with say 28mm tyres on (or even 32mm) you'd not struggle to do 50-100km. I did a 400km tour with the wife on 28mm tyres on my CX bike. absolutely fine in the wind, rain, with bikepacking gear on.
I've drifted from 23mm to 28mm, as my frame has drifted from a low-clearance road frame to a light tourer. I did like my uprighty hybrid with 35mm tyres, but it sucked on hill as there was nothing to pull against. 12-25 over nine sprockets on a 40T chainring gets me everywhere within the city. I have two other chainrings but don't need them and can't use them unless I get off and force the seized front derailleur across.
Terminology gets increasingly mushy as the years go on... but my standard advice for this question is not to discount 'touring' bikes. Actually nowadays this is pretty much the same thing, as far as I can see, as recommending a CX etc. One way or another what I'm talking about is a slightly heavier/stronger frame - built for luggage - with drop handlebars - and the necessaries like mudguards.
My touring bike has rarely toured... but is still going strong from the 90's as my main steed. I've had it over the top of the Pentlands, I've carried big boxes of compost and rubble, I've towed and carried kids, I've ridden it regularly (although not recently) on the weekly Edinburgh Road Club rides, and I have even toured with it a couple of times fully loaded.
Good tires - usually pretty high pressure - strong frame - strong wheels - strong rack(s) - good mudguards. Take off the clutter (extra/both racks) and choose higher pressure tires (the tyre width much less important than the max pressure) when you want a faster ride.
On a slightly wider rim you can go both directions - really pretty narrow all the way through to something that'll cope not badly with rough surfaces.
Lastly - don't discount less fashionable gear/brake levers. Mine are bar end shifters on which the indexing failed long long ago (so now friction only). One brake lever pivot was repaired with a nut+bolt somewhere about '95 and hasn't failed yet... Nothing against modern kit - but for this bike reliability and ease of repair has been great over the long term.
Oh - and of course there's very little left of the original bike by now - most stuff's been replaced (including the frame because of a design fault early on). Come to think of it the brake and gear levers and Brooks saddle may be the only original bits.
re the CDF and long distance, despite what marketing folk tell you, any bike will be fine for long distance if you want it enough. I did the Etape Caledonia on a £300 sit up and beg hybrid and have done a 100km+ ride on it or the CDF 17 months out of the last 18, with a 230km ride in March.
I'm not going to break any speed records and am comfortable with that. The limiting factor when it comes to speed is not my bike, it is my gut...
Just one final thing I forgot to add - kind of obvious, but on ERC fast rides the one feature which always DID limit me on the 'tourer' was weight. Higher pressure tires on the flat mean a fast bike - but I always struggled at the end of the ride on the hill coming up from Musselburgh (in comparison to those I'd keep up with no problem on the flat).
I am another Elephant Bike offender. I agree with @kaputnik's comments above in all respects except one, which is his point about headwinds. I find that the Elephant Bike is so slow that headwinds aren't really a problem, and they feel much less annoying when trundling along at 10-12mph than they did on my previous commuter where I travelled at 15-20mph.
I have recently fitted the largest (22-tooth) standard rear sprocket to mine, and spin out at 18mph. It's not a bike for going anywhere in a hurry.
If you're seriously considering a road/CX bike, then you're probably not in the Elephant Bike market. However, if you're thinking of a relaxed, flexible, low-maintenance commuter bike then they are worth some consideration.
I like hybrids. They're not fashionable but maybe you should get another one? They will do pretty much anything after all. Not outstandingly, but they'll do it.
There are some rather swish road-oriented bikes, the trail-oriented ones are all a bit rubbish though.
Another consideration is that for longer rides, flat bars can be quite limiting - your hands are stuck in one (rather unnatural) position which may lead to numbness and neck pain. Drops or touring (butterfly) bars) offer you a variety of hand positions.
@sallyhinch
Only too true for the flat bar pain thing for all-day riding but the situational awareness and control of the front wheel from flat bars is unparalleled....
Before the CdF I used a Whyte Portobello, same frame but lower spec than the one IWRATS linked to above. It is fantastic commuter, really hard to fault.
Before buying it I'd been using an old MTB, so it felt like a comfortable step towards a faster bike. The more 'roady' bikes I tried out at the time felt a bit too, well, scary.
I added some old school bar ends to give a couple of extra hand positions, though it probably could have done with a shorter bar too as I did feel quite 'splayed' when on the outside of the bar ends.
I attended Chris Juden's talk on technical aspects of cycling at York last weekend, and he noted that well inflated larger tyres can roll more freely than skinnies. A huge amount of laws of physics stuff, thin and flexible sidewalls that take out less energy as they deform and return at the bottom of the wheel where the tyre meets the road. Clincher wires that are sitting solidly on the bead seat (folding tyres are best for this) rather than relying on the friction between the sidewall and the rim to transfer loads from road to wheel, and chafing away so that some lighter tyres will have the clincher wire separating from the tyre casing with generally a spectacular explosion.
I needed a bike that would be used for
daily commute with panniers
regularly carrying a child seat
the occasional sportive
the occasional longer slower tour
regular jaunts cross-country/off-road
and it had to be something I could leave locked up in public with a reasonable chance of it still being there.
So I chose a CX (a Tricross) and it's met all of these. Super comfy and bombproof for load-lugging and off-road, and surprisingly quick on-road. These days I just use 25c Gatorskins for everything except muddy stuff. That warrants a change of tyres.
I must admit I've got my eye on a CdF next time round, and I will absolutely, no question, be getting disc brakes...
Plenty choice and various interpretations by G -
EBC tourer at about £600 has disc breaks and comes with rack and mudguards.
It is a Tricross copy but with disc brakes. Discs make sense on commute.
I did Etape Caledonia on a Tricross. Took rack off.
Croix de fer is dearer as made of steel. Looks nice.
Lots of CX fans on here.
(I'll be honest, I'd never thought about CX bikes until yesterday.)
No-one defending roadies? All been converted to something more comfortable by the state of our roads?
I was looking at CDF on Evans' site. How much slower would 35s be compared to, say, 32s?
Will probably depend more on the quality of tyres than actual size - especially as sizing can sometimes be 'nominal' and vary between manufacturer...
Of course I would say 'get an old 531 frame built for 27 x 1 1/4" wheels and add 700c wheels with tyres to fit'.
But you wouldn't get disc brakes.
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