IDMark2
Dodgy Aerial
- Location
- On the Roof
Hi,
Just last month, with some freinds, I rode the Velodyysey route on my Scott P3 (bought used for about £100 two years ago). I enjoyed it but learned some stuff about my choice of bike and it's suitability for the job, particularly as the first week was covering hundreds of kilometres of wet, old railway and canal paths with sandy gloopy surfaces. It would have been alright if the sun was out, as it was later on when we got further south, but the gloop and rain of the first legs nearly broke me and the bike... I did break later on but I don't think it was the bike that did it. I blogged a bit on fourgovelo.wordpress.com for posterity...
Anyway, the lessons learned...
All the manufacturers seem to be jumping on 'Adventure Bikes' and the spec levels and approach of these do make sense to me. They just all seem to be drop bar bikes, which I don't fancy as much really for that sort of use and after my stroke I find the changing of hand positions to be more difficult to do than it used to be, just moving along the flats to the ends is much easier. I like the RapidFire shifters the Scott has as well, I tried my mate Specialized Sirrus one day, lovely and light but thumb for up and down shifting did get me all confused.
Budget £700-1000, any suggestions? Thanks.
Just last month, with some freinds, I rode the Velodyysey route on my Scott P3 (bought used for about £100 two years ago). I enjoyed it but learned some stuff about my choice of bike and it's suitability for the job, particularly as the first week was covering hundreds of kilometres of wet, old railway and canal paths with sandy gloopy surfaces. It would have been alright if the sun was out, as it was later on when we got further south, but the gloop and rain of the first legs nearly broke me and the bike... I did break later on but I don't think it was the bike that did it. I blogged a bit on fourgovelo.wordpress.com for posterity...
Anyway, the lessons learned...
- A Crud Guard on the downtube will not prevent you getting covered in sandy gloop, particularly when following a rider who has deemed fitting mudguards uneccessary for this trip.
- A pannier rack with trunk bag will not 'effectively make a mudguard redundant so I won't fit one' and will make you just as popular as the above person who didn't fit mudguards either.
- The sandy gloop was in fact a brake block and rim eating concoction of terrifying efficiency. A new set of blocks front and rear before I went, replaced after a week of grinding grimness. Rim wear line indicator now gone. Effectively this was grinding at all moving surfaces with a coarse grade sandpaper for five or six hours a day. All the cables will need doing now we're home as well.
- The sandy gloop will also destroy the ability of a zip on a trunk bag to operate, luckily it was too grim to stop and take many photos anyway.
- Slickish Gatorskins are not the right tyre choice for gripping in 25mm deep sandy gloop either, but we had no idea there was going to be this much of it... Having said that, one puncture in the 1200km wasn't too bad considering some of the surfaces we covered and they were as reliable as ever on proper roads.
- I weigh less than my P3 I think. It has budget suspension forks which I knew I didn't really need when I bought it but it had them and I bought it anyway. It was cheap for the quality of the rest of the bike but... They're heavy.
All the manufacturers seem to be jumping on 'Adventure Bikes' and the spec levels and approach of these do make sense to me. They just all seem to be drop bar bikes, which I don't fancy as much really for that sort of use and after my stroke I find the changing of hand positions to be more difficult to do than it used to be, just moving along the flats to the ends is much easier. I like the RapidFire shifters the Scott has as well, I tried my mate Specialized Sirrus one day, lovely and light but thumb for up and down shifting did get me all confused.
Budget £700-1000, any suggestions? Thanks.
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