Can anybody recommend a robust bike for £500?
- Thread starter HMS_Dave
- Start date
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Bonefish Blues
Banging donk
Crankarm
Guru
Elephant bike ex-Royal Mail Pashley bikes. Very strong and surprisingly quick. Can carry heavy loads obviously. £280.00
https://www.cycleofgood.com/elephant-bike/
https://www.cycleofgood.com/elephant-bike/
SkipdiverJohn
Deplorable Brexiteer
What you need is something like one of these:-
1995 Raleigh Pioneer Trail 18 speed 700c hybrid with a Reynolds 501 frame. Cost me £10 to buy.
Or if you really want to go upmarket, keep your eye open for a Raleigh Gemini 18 hybrid. Reynolds 531 frame, slightly better spec parts than the Pioneer. These weren't cheap bikes when mine was made in 1988/89.
The Gemini cost me £20 to buy, but needed less doing to it than the Pioneer, and looks to have hardly been used TBH. Both bikes are now fully sorted running on replacement 700 x 35c Schwalbe puncture resistant tyres, and the final cost of both ended up being about £50 each. Not much between them in ride quality, weight, or useability. Both have got strong 36 hole hybrid/tourer type wheels which are holding up fine. With the reinforced tyres, the weight has gone up by about a pound on factory spec, so the Pioneer is about 31 lbs and the Gemini about 30lbs due to being a slightly smaller frame and made from 531 not 501. Either bike is comfortable enough to ride for several hours in a day, when I feel so inclined.
You cannot compare decent bikes like these to some of the really cheap and excessively heavy steel hybrids around now. That said, the PIoneer is currently running the wheelset off a 99p Apollo I picked up, but the rest of it weighed a ton, especially the forks which would have passed muster on an MTB!
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HMS_Dave
Grand Old Lady
Thanks all for you suggestions. The reason i say steel is im coming from an older school of thinking about aluminium being weaker and steel being the best material for a bloke my size, i was unaware that aluminium frames had improved in terms of it's strength and i could have just been plain wrong on my thinking in the first place. Perhaps then it is another option... I think though for now it makes reasonable sense given the current issues in the world and what not and agreeing with your suggestions that second hand old bikes are still probably the best way to go, to stick with what i have just a while longer. Im not quite there yet. I've had a quick look on the internet and slicks or road tread tyres do exist at 26x4" fat bike but are perhaps on the expensive side and/or difficult to get a hold of. It would be difficult to justify paying soo much for these tyres as i didn't pay that much for the bike...
Bonefish Blues
Banging donk
Nah, you're right - just ride, that's what matters 
roley poley
Veteran
wow that's where our old postie bikes went to, we were told they were going to needy people in Africa when they pulled them off the street a few years ago .They were almost bomb proof and I was sad to see them go to be replaced with a larger fleet of vans .Never got the royal mails angle on them going green on this one .Highly recommended if it suits you and the money and project seems to be pulling in the right direction
SkipdiverJohn
Deplorable Brexiteer
Aluminium is much weaker than steel and has a vastly inferior fatigue life than steel. It is also very susceptible to cracking caused by manufacturing weld defects that would not affect a steel frame. The only way they can make an aluminium frame equivalent in strength to steel is by using more material, and fabricating it in larger diameter tubes which make it stiff enough not to flex and fatigue itself to destruction in a relatively short time. The problem is stiff frames give a harsher ride compared to flexible ones, and aluminium frames cannot be designed to be flexible without compromising their fatigue life. I've yet to find a more comfortable riding frame than one made of butted Reynolds 531.
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HMS_Dave
Grand Old Lady
That was my understanding. Steel is generally more comfortable. Id much rather that personally.
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Bonefish Blues
Banging donk
Without getting into a well-trodden discussion about steel and aluminium (a good frame's a good frame, irrespective, provided properly designed and constructed IMHO) the most important factor on ride comfort is the tyre used.
A higher volume tyre with compliant walls (think more tpi) will be comfy no matter what it's fitted to. There's been a major move towards these tyres in the last decade, including among pro cyclists - oh and they roll better than thin, high pressure tyres, too.
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HMS_Dave
Grand Old Lady
I must be mad...
OK i've given this much thought and im beginning to like the idea of one of these elephant bikes. It really is growing on me having one of these old mail bikes or what are Pashley Pronto's i believe. The 3 speed is the thing really putting me off though as i don't own any tweed clothing
. Seriously, i don't have many hills and will be used by myself to wobble in front of traffic and on canal paths trying not to fall in but its not very low geared im assuming... I know it's difficult recommending what bikes for big people to use for non big people. Its a case of how long is a piece of string as to what and will not work, i understand that. What is for sure is that i'd be putting more stress on the components and 'elephant bikes' are tried and tested. They are pricey still but at least supports a number of good causes including sending one of these bikes to a disadvantaged population in Malawi. So it gives me great pleasure knowing that if im struggling to ride it, so is somebody else who i gave the great misfortune of buying somewhere else in the world I really would like to see the back of my 'fat bike' and i may have a friend who wants to buy if off of me when the current epidemic is over. They are strong and mine is some crap brand ive never heard of that all look the same out of China and it supported me at around 25 stone and nothing broke but ready or not, i want to move on from it as it is really a specialised bike certainly not built for road use.
biggs682
Itching to get back on my bike's
@HMS_Dave keep an eye out for a decent 90's non suspension MTB as @SkipdiverJohn and @vickster said , even if you sent it in to your local bike shop for a full service after buying it you should have change from your budget with ease
SkipdiverJohn
Deplorable Brexiteer
This sort of early 90's MTB were pretty decent. Nottingham-built Raleigh from 1991. 26" wheels, lugged 501 frame and 21 gears. I paid £15 for mine and all it really needed was new pedals - and a BB rebuild, which the seller neglected to mention!
I used salvaged BB parts from a scrapper I found dumped on the street so the whole thing ended up costing me £20. I've done hundreds and hundreds of miles on it since with no issues.
