vickster
Legendary Member
A £600 new gravel bike may well be heavier than a £600 roadbike especially if one has disc brakes and the other not
Bike
- Thread starter AresTo
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A £600 new gravel bike may well be heavier than a £600 roadbike especially if one has disc brakes and the other not
roubaixtuesday
self serving virtue signaller
I would have thought the tyres alone are likely quite a bit heavier?
Gravel bike: more robust, much better off road, often more versatile for rack mounts, mudguards etc
Road bike: lighter, slightly less effort on road.
Depends on personal preference.
Jameshow
Veteran
Both will just as long as each other, the main killer of bikes is no maintenance.
vickster
Legendary Member
Try them, different manufacturers may size differently in terms of the measurements of the parts of the frame. One small might be completely different to another, there’s no standardised sizing between manufacturers.
You have no idea what size roadbike you need having never had one before
presta
Guru
When you sit on a bike your centre of gravity lies in front of the saddle, so your weight is distributed between the saddle and the pedals. If you sit upright, like a Dutch tourer, your CoG moves backwards, and there is more weight on your bum, less on your feet, but if you lean forward like on a racer there is more on your feet, less on your bum.
Like this:
Since weight on the pedal is what drives the bike, more weight = more torque = more power = more fitness required. Thus racing cyclists position their weight over the pedals where they can get maximum power. That's fine if you have the fitness for it, but if you don't, you're going to find yourself looking for somewhere to put the unwanted weight, and that ends up being on the handlebars. (There are other options like pressing down on the rising pedal or using an excessively high gear, but since they're both a waste of energy, they can be discounted.) You need a small amount of weight on your arms of course, but if it's too much your arms or hands are liable to complain about it.
No reason at all if that's what he wants, but I wish I'd given some consideration to the connection between bike geometry, weight distribution, power and fitness before I started.
If I adopt my normal riding position on my Horizon tourer, without any weight on the bars, there's 50% of my bodyweight going onto the pedal, which is 35kg. At my optimum cadence that's about 300W, which is about three times the power that I can manage. Sitting in a more upright position is the answer of course, but if I raise my position enough to match my fitness level I'd need a pair of reins to steer the bike with: no amount of faffing with saddle and/or bar adjustment is going to fix that.
However, since I was already committed to a particular bike, with a particular geometry, faffing around with bar and saddle adjustments were all the options I had. The net result of that is that I've wrestled with trying to avoid hand and other problems for years.
When I first got into doing more cycling I was using an old racing bike, not the Horizon. I've not measured my weight distribution on that, but before long I was getting hand problems, and I just ignored them and carried on regardless. Eventually the thenar eminence on my hands had taken such a pasting from the bars that I was in danger of losing the use of my hands. It had become a two handed struggle just to lift a saucepan on and off the stove.
That was when I bought the Horizon, and at the same time I had an adjustable stem put on it so that I could get the bars as high as they'd go. I also used to ride with the front tyre so soft I could ground the rim by bouncing on the bars, but my hands still took a year or more to improve, and even now my grip is still weak; they've never fully recovered. It was about 7 years before I got to the stage where I felt I could try lowering the bars, and since I gave up touring my fitness has declined, and I've had to start raising them back up again.
In retrospect, I think other problems I've had might also be rooted in the same issue: I sometimes get more upright by sliding my weight forward on the saddle, so that the nose of the saddle tends to support my perineum instead of the back supporting my sitbones.
vickster
Legendary Member
Any bike shop will put basic flat pedals on a bike for you to try
vickster
Legendary Member
You need to go look at some in your budget. If going new and roadbike, your choice is actually pretty limited
As I recognize that most road bike doesn’t contain pedal. Is there any recommendations of pedal ? I think I won’t go for lock pedal.
vickster
Legendary Member
Just go with whatever they give you. Any bike shop will put a basic flat pedal on for you,’if not free, maybe for a metal pedal for £20 or so.
Jameshow
Veteran
What size inside leg are you, and how tall are you.
For instance I'm a 32 inside leg and a 5ft10
I ride a 55cm / 22" frame.
Others might ride a 2cm 1" smaller frame.