Approx. 10 mile commute. Road Bike vs E-bike

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I like Skol

A Minging Manc...
I'd suggest that you use the bus once or twice a week at first
These non-cycling trips (either by public transport or car) are good because you can take in all your supplies for the rest of the week. I walk into work carrying 3-4 shirts and a clean pair of trousers, all on hangers and covered with a re-used poly bag from the dry cleaners. 3-4 small towels and 3-4 clean undies so I can shower and dry on arrival and take the towel/undies home to be washed each day. I also use the car days to stock up my food stash, a box or two of my preferred cereal, a 2pt of milk if it is day 1 and an apple a day for that week. This way, when on the bike I often only have to carry my sandwiches on the trip in and the towel on the way home.
I have a pair of panniers so can manage without the top-up trips if I have to but it is so much easier to take it all in on one trip then travel light for the rest of the week.
 

KneesUp

Guru
These non-cycling trips (either by public transport or car) are good because you can take in all your supplies for the rest of the week. I walk into work carrying 3-4 shirts and a clean pair of trousers, all on hangers and covered with a re-used poly bag from the dry cleaners. 3-4 small towels and 3-4 clean undies so I can shower and dry on arrival and take the towel/undies home to be washed each day. I also use the car days to stock up my food stash, a box or two of my preferred cereal, a 2pt of milk if it is day 1 and an apple a day for that week. This way, when on the bike I often only have to carry my sandwiches on the trip in and the towel on the way home.
I have a pair of panniers so can manage without the top-up trips if I have to but it is so much easier to take it all in on one trip then travel light for the rest of the week.
A very organised approach. I don't commute far enough to get that hot unless it's full summer, so I just cycle in sedately in my work clothes - it helps that I wear 'smart casual' to work. In summer I take a change of clothes in each day though. I also find that having a bike at lumnchtime expands horizons - I have more than enough time to go to the proper supermarket and get lunch and bits needed for home.
 
I picked the ebike, then I sold it 6 weeks later, because by then I could peddle faster than the ebike was limited too, the hills going back ended up the only time that the bike helped, and although I was slower than the ebike going up them, I was faster over the full distance of the commute, much faster going there, a little faster going back, I would still like a ebike, but an emountain bike.
 

smutchin

Cat 6 Racer
Location
The Red Enclave
I would love to be in your position. A 10-mile commute for someone who is young and already in pretty decent shape sounds like my idea of fun. My commute used to be 12 partly-hilly miles on the bike combined with an hour on the train, and it was only the bike part of it that kept me sane. It also got me very fit.

Of course, there will be days when it definitely doesn't feel like fun, but after a while of regular commuting, you'll reach the point where you just HTFU and get on with it. It can also be a good stress-reliever at the end of a hard day at work.

I would be tempted to get an e-bike as well if I could afford it (I'd love a Hummingbird), just for the days when I really wasn't up to doing it all under my own steam (even with a cold I'd rather be on the bike than on the train), but I'm guessing with a kid on the way you're probably not after such frivolous spending advice.
 

mustang1

Guru
Location
London, UK
I'm one of those who has zero problems with e-bikes and do not consider it heaating. Having said that, I'd say road bike and here's why:
1. You've already ridden to work so I think being swaety/taking showers etc is not a problem.
2. I would have thought you needed way more than a grand to get a decent e-bike.
3. By the end of the year, you're gonna feel pretty ace going up those hills on a road bike.
4. Reading in between the lines is not my forte, but I think you kind of mentioned you are fit enough.
5. You can get a decent bike for a grand. Either a road bike or CX/gravel bike that will take mudguards. Actually I saw a review of Pinacle Arkose for £800 that accepts full fenders. That leaves money for a couple of tools, fenders, lights, lock.
 

Siclo

Veteran
@Wayfarer Have you considered picking up the Rochdale Canal at Stanycliffe? It depends on which side of the centre you're aiming for I suppose. Its a bit rough in places, there's a few cobbles and I can think of one set of steps, it'll also add a mile or so but time difference will be negligible. I wouldn't recommend it in the winter or probably after dark, the denizens of some bits can be...interesting. Certainly a nice ride from about now although you'll need rubber that can cope with towpath debris.
 

Drago

Legendary Member
You seem fit and healthy. Get the best quality conventional bike you can afford. It might be harder work, but ultimately you'll enjoy it more, find it more rewarding, and will reap the benefits of improved health and fitness
 

KneesUp

Guru
You seem fit and healthy. Get the best quality conventional bike you can afford. It might be harder work, but ultimately you'll enjoy it more, find it more rewarding, and will reap the benefits of improved health and fitness
Or get a bike that's good enough (so the risk of it being stolen is smaller, and the cost of replacement parts is lower, and the fear of riding it in all weathers is smaller) and if you love it and want to ride more for leisure, fill yer boots and spend what you want on a nicer bike, if you feel the need.
 

Joffey

Big Dosser
Location
Yorkshire
I'd go for the road bike but would maybe rethink the Cannondale. I'd be wanting something with hydraulic discs for close to a thousand quid. And I'd maybe go for more of a 'road bike' rather than a tourer.
 
Road bike every time. Nothing more satisfying than when you get fit enough to drop an E-bike limited to 17.5mph electrical assist on the flat. A road bike will be more fun to ride as well, much lighter without a heavy battery pack that you have to remember to take off and recharge. Ok the E-bike might be slightly less effort off the lights and up hills, but if most rest of your commute is flat then you are just carrying dead weight if you are in any way fit.

Although there is one guy on my commute who rides a very dodgy looking, presumably home-built E-bike who is very speedy. It's a very unassuming bicycle shaped object but it has what looks like a car battery mounted to the rear pannier with bungee cords. He absolutely zips off the lights, leaves mopeds for dust, and can sustain 30mph+ with little effort. Certainly illegal. I managed to catch his wheel once, is was like cycling behind a derny bike.
 

KneesUp

Guru
I think I must be getting soft. I commuted in South Manchester every summer when I was a student, on a steel road bike that was pretty decent for the time (531, handbuilt wheels on Mavic module E rims that I nicked off my dad's bike ...) and yes, I was faster then that I am now on my slick wheeled mountain bike, but I was significantly younger, on flatter terrain, and carrying just a packed lunch in a rucksack rather than whatever the hell is in my panniers now that makes them weigh a ton. It was all well and good, and back then I enjoyed the feeling of skittling over the rough roads (Withington was especially bad) and listening to the chain rattling against the chain stays. If you hit the rough stuff just right you sort of floated over, but that only worked for rough tarmac. Potholes were a (w)hole different matter. I think what I'm saying is that it wasn't that comfortable, and smacking into a pothole on 700x23 was unpleasant and potentially expensive. I didn't mind it being uncomfortable when I was 21 and cycling to a job I didn't *have* to do, for money I was going to spend on beer and holidays, for 3 months a year, in the summer, with no luggage to speak of. I think when you're doing it every day, whether you like it or not, whether it's sunny or not, whether you're at an age where everything seems possible or not, and on current road surfaces, I'd want a bike that is more comfortable.

A mate had the same summer job as me and our commutes merged around Mauldeth Road. He commuted on a slick wheeled rigid MTB with flat bars and bar ends, When we met on the way in occasionally, I didn't notice riding any slower, and I didn't hang about (best average was 19.9mph which I was quite pleased with given the number of traffic lights and junctions and given that my Cateye didn't do rolling average, that was journey average - that .1mph extra still bugs me a bit though!) If we left at the same time and I was doing Silly Commuter Racing (SCR) I could leave him behind a bit on the very slight downhill on Wilmslow Road - I generally rode home as hard as I could because I knew I could have a shower when I got home - but I suspect he was just spinning out because he had off-road gearing. And he generally would catch up at a set of light somewhere anyway.

And in all that, his bike was more comfortable because he wasn't running thin tyres at 120psi, safer, because he wasn't in the drops and so could see better, plus he had bigger tyre contact patches , and more practical because had we been doing it every day all year rather than for 3 months of summer, he could more easily have fitted proper mudguards and a rack. It might at that time (mid 90s) have been more steal-able because it was a very nice bike at at the time MTBs were really fashionable in a way that my steel road bike was not. That said mine eventually got nicked when I left the garage open while I nipped out to get milk in my car because it was absolutely pelting down with rain in a way that Noah would remember and I reasoned that in the 10 minutes I was out, no-one was going to come around the back of the flats. I was wrong, and the bike went. I was getting milk because that very same mate was coming around and I'd run out. He still has his MTB as far as I know. Anyway, I digress.

I think what I'm trying to say is that each kind of bike has it's own use. You can commute on a racing bike, but it's designed for racing, so it's compromised as a commuting bike. It's more fragile than most types of bike, and less comfortable. And it's harder to attach things you may want to carry to it, as well as more difficult to attach mudguards to. However, if you use a racing bike for you leisure riding, then you can of course use it commute on, it's just not ideal. But if you have that kind of bike anyway, then use it.

If, however, you're buying a bike specifically to commute on, then buy a bike more suitable for that purpose. Look for something with rack mounts, room for mudguards and slightly chunkier tyres - it doesn't have to be a flat bar bike - the Geneis Croix de Fer is often mentioned as a good commuting bike as it has mounts for all sorts, is tough as boots and yet is also versatile.

But really my top recommendation is - genuinely - get an old MTB and chuck a rack, some slicks and some mudgaurds on it. It's cheap, it's comfortable, it's reliable, the parts are cheap, it's tough and it's never going to be the first bike a thief is going to go for. Stick the spare cash you've saved in an ISA or a tracker of something, and if you ever want a "better" (more expensive) bike, you can get one. And if you don't, go on holiday with the money instead :smile:
 

beatlejuice

Gently does it...
Location
Mid Hampshire
Firstly I've never been to Manchester, so know nothing about your route. However my home town does hills quite well. I have a Decathlon Triban 3, fitted with a Copenhagen wheel. I have another set of Shimano 500/501 wheels. I am nearing 60, my knees aren't good and I have an old elbow injury which causes problems on long rides. Have the option of taking it easy with Superpedestrain's Pedelec wheel if i am feeling like am not up to it. Changing for one to the other is easy.
 
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OP
OP
Wayfarer

Wayfarer

New Member
Location
Manchester
Just want to thank everyone for their advice and encouragement.

I received my new road bike a week ago and it's going great. I'm cutting down those commute times and feeling less saddle sore (haha). No regrets at all!

I'll try the Rochdale canal route one day too.
 

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