n+1 for a significant birthday: advice please!

[Pale Rider]

As a general point on brakes, a long drop - plenty of leverage - quality, as in rigid, V-brake is very powerful.

Bigger discs give more braking power, say 160mm over 140.

If you thing about it, the 'disc' on a V-brake is the size of the wheel rim - enormous.

 

[jefmcg]

My point about disc brakes (uninformed, but more knowledgable voices have chimed in) is that this is a special bike, that you are going to be riding a long time, at least until your next landmark birthday**. Rim brakes aren't quite obsolescent yet, but they probably will start to become a minority in a year or two. You want your beautiful bike to be a much admired retro classic, but not before 2018.

**when you'll get a hover board - they will be here by then, won't they?

 

[Crackle]

May I just say that I don't particularly like disc brakes on road bikes just in case you need such an opinion.

 

[StuAff]

For this job, I'd go titanium (I love my carbon bike, but racks- no...or a bodge). Unless you really want to go for the weight-weenie not carrying much option, in which case carbon wins, but by less than you'd think. Apart from the names mentioned above, I am obliged to mention the Tennessee options, Litespeed and Lynskey. My T5 Gravel is awesome and very versatile, may have said this a few times already Being fitted with a rack on Monday. Also Kinesis Tripster ATR & Grand Fondo Ti.
A suggestion: get a fit done before going down the custom route- if a stock frame will suit, and it might well depending on geometry and your requirements, then you can save a fair bit of time and money that way.

 

[velovoice]

For this job, I'd go titanium (I love my carbon bike, but racks- no...or a bodge). Unless you really want to go for the weight-weenie not carrying much option, in which case carbon wins, but by less than you'd think. Apart from the names mentioned above, I am obliged to mention the Tennessee options, Litespeed and Lynskey. My T5 Gravel is awesome and very versatile, may have said this a few times already Being fitted with a rack on Monday. Also Kinesis Tripster ATR & Grand Fondo Ti.
A suggestion: get a fit done before going down the custom route- if a stock frame will suit, and it might well depending on geometry and your requirements, then you can save a fair bit of time and money that way.

All great bikes to be sure but do bear in mind the OP and the narrow range of bikes that may meet her specific criteria: women's specific designs or custom.

Also, as great as titanium is, I'd caution against getting too "fixated" on a particular frame material, for the reasons I've given above.

And one more reminder (as these types of threads always end up needing), the experience, advice and recommendations of anyone of significantly different height/build/proportions and riding preferences from the OP are going to be, by definition, of very limited value. Nothing personal... except that this is extremely personal I.e. individual.

 

[StuAff]

All great bikes to be sure but do bear in mind the OP and the narrow range of bikes that may meet her specific criteria: women's specific designs or custom.

Also, as great as titanium is, I'd caution against getting too "fixated" on a particular frame material, for the reasons I've given above.

And one more reminder (as these types of threads always end up needing), the experience, advice and recommendations of anyone of significantly different height/build/proportions and riding preferences from the OP are going to be, by definition, of very limited value. Nothing personal... except that this is extremely personal I.e. individual.

Indeed so. Our OP may not know exactly what she wants until she finds it

 

[Elybazza61]

How about one of these?;

http://www.shandcycles.com/bikes/stooshie/

Mudguard and rack fittings as standard.

They do custom fits for women too;

http://www.shandcycles.com/womens-bikes/

 

[derrick]

On the subject of disc brakes on road bikes. Most seem to come with cables. Hydraulic would be my choice. There is still a lot more to come with disc brakes on a road bike. And the brakes we are using now will be around for a few years yet. Unlike some of us.
Happy birthday by the way. I would check out Cervelo while you are looking. Nothing rides as good as a Cervelo

 

[velovoice]

How about one of these?;

http://www.shandcycles.com/bikes/stooshie/

Mudguard and rack fittings as standard.

They do custom fits for women too;

http://www.shandcycles.com/womens-bikes/

If I were in R's shoes, I'd totally be looking at Shand! Does anyone have any personal experience with them, which would assist her? Especially from a woman of around 5'3" with similar proportions.

I see that Emily Chappell is currently riding a new Shand. She is short bodied + long legged, but somewhat taller so may be on a standard/stock sized bike.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

...do you already have a Brompton?

 

[rvw]

Oh, and I should point out .....

I'll shut up now, otherwise I'll get thumped when she gets home.

Perhaps I should point out that this is to get me up to the level of your nice Van Nicholas - bought with the insurance money from my accident...

The Dolce has cross levers. I am (gently) encouraging @rvw to think about making sure she's got a hood braking solution that works, rather than sticking to riding on the flats. When she might as well get a straight-barred bike!

This is one of the issues that concerns me most (having, in fact, been a significant factor in the accident above, as I couldn't both steer out of the way of the dozy driver and move my hands down to get to the brakes at the same time). With very small hands, while I can reach the brakes from the hoods on the Dolce, I can't reach far enough along the levers to be able to exert enough pressure in an emergency. So I can brake, but I can't brake hard. (And no, it's nowhere like having flat bars - think width of hand position!) This is one of the reasons I tagged @User13710 and @wanda2010 - there are so many different bits of fit to think of, not just the size and geometry of the frame!

Thanks to all for the suggestions - lots to think about. I think a visit to Enigma sounds like a good idea. And I apologise in advance to all those whose advice I don't end up taking: by the law of averages, you will be in the majority, but that doesn't mean I'm not grateful for the help!

 

[youngoldbloke]

Re. brake lever reach - worth noting the current Ultegra levers allow for quite a lot of adjustment.

 

[wanda2010]

I'm very late to this party and can't add much apart from concerns with reach. All my bikes have very short stems so I can reach the brakes but it's still not ideal. I was measured for one or three of my bikes and my 'ideal' reach is 47/48 something or other (mm? cm?), which makes a custom bike the best scenario. I'm 4'11 so titch wheels are my preference even though I have a Islabike (small) with 700c wheels.

A Brompton and custom are on my list. Let us know how the Enigma visit went.

 

[Kestevan]

Re. brake lever reach - worth noting the current Ultegra levers allow for quite a lot of adjustment.

True. This was initially a concern of Mrs Kes.
Previously she had preferred SRAM levers as they were more forgiving to smaller hands. The new Ultegra 6800 levers need a much reduced hand span, and she found these very comfortable and easy to use from the hoods.

Conversely the new hydraulic drop bar levers were simply too chunky for comfort, and despite the reduction in grip strength needed to apply the disk brakes she liked the "normal" rim brakes better.

 

[ianmac62]

Hi @rvw - sorry I'm so late to this party too, especially having been name-checked.

I see from my notes that when I was thinking about a titanium frame, I considered Enigma, Van Nicholas, Spa Audax, and Baldwin of York. I then read a piece by Alex Beresford in an early edition of Sportif magazine entitled "New School Ti" (five useful pages - and I'll bring a photocopy along to the Southend night ride to give to @srw for you) and he mentioned Mawis Custom (Kleinbittersdorf near Saarbrücken, Germany where Mathias Scherer is building a sub-kilo titanium frame), Enigma near Eastbourne, Dolan, and Baldwin Burls:

www.mawis-bikes.com
www.enigmabikes.com
www.dolan-bikes.com
www.baldwintitanium.co.uk
www.burls.co.uk

But the next stage wasn't to visit a factory or workshop; it was to go back to the small bike shop where I had bought a Bianchi road bike in an unusual size and had it fitted. I'd always been sceptical up to that point about bike fits but the little two-man business saw that this bike fitted me like a glove. Not only that - people on my next CTC ride here in Northampton commented on how I looked just right.

So I had confidence in this little shop; and you'll know it or, at least, where it is: Windmill Wheels at Wymondham - we had lunch in the café (unattached to the bike shop) on Day 1 of LonJoG. The two young men - Jack and Ally - are also Enigma dealers. First I just examined the Enigma bikes they had in stock and also the Enigma frames which they hadn't built up into bikes yet. Then, because of my unusual body shape, they recommended direct contact with Enigma. They gave me a .pdf drawing of how my Bianchi was set up.

I went to the London Bike Show in February 2015. I was there when the show opened and I was the first customer onto the Enigma stand. Because the Show started slowly, I had Jim Walker (the founder-owner) and Paul Smith (the chief designer) to myself for a long time. If you do go to their factory, I'd recommend getting an appointment with Paul Smith. I found that he and I were on the same wave-length: he tours - and we had been to the same places (Channel to the Med; South to North of Ireland; LeJoG pretty much by the same route and so on). So, as I wanted a bike for "credit-card" touring, he knew exactly what I was talking about. The other thing was that I wanted a horizontal top tube - just a personal thing! And disc brakes - which involve tiny changes in the frame geometry.

By the end of the morning, Paul had produced a first-effort .pdf of dimensions and geometry and given a copy to me and e-mailed a copy to Jack at Windmill Wheels. I visited the shop three times for fittings on their jig so that I was happy, Jack was happy and Paul at Enigma was happy before I paid a deposit and ordered my frame. It had already been decided at the Bike Show that, if I went ahead, the frame would be built by Joe Walker, the owner's son.

Well, I won't bore you with more of the notes I made of the process but I do have pages and pages of documents as Jack and I decided on the rest of the bike.

I was pleasantly surprised that delivery time was matched. Indeed the bike was ready early. Jim Walker had said to expect 100 days from the time I ordered. In fact, it was more like 90. I talked to them at the Bike Show in February and I collected the bike from the shop on 6th July.

Hope this helps in some small way!