My car broke last week so I have a week of commuting ahead of me, 14 mile each way (8 miles on road, 6 miles on muddy canal tow path)

I rode in last Friday but found it pretty hard work on a cheap secondhand Carrera Subway that I picked up. I had lower back ache, sore arse from the crappy saddle and pretty heavy legs, seemed a real effort.

Not sure whether to stick with the Carrera and change the saddle (although I think it maybe too long anyway from the back ache I had last week) or ride either my mmmbop (change the tyres from 2.4’s to some 2.1 Panaracer XC Pro’s I have laying around) or even my Trance (lock the reba’s & back end out)

Any advice apart from eating alot on going from riding just at the weekend to 140 miles in week?

Get a set of slicks…….much easier…High vis jacket and some good lights….

put some narrower tyres on the mm bop and lockout the sus forks.
enjoy it, use it has training, rather than going out after work.

in 30yrs of working life i have cycled to work every day.
my commute is now 7miles each way, furthest was 18miles each way.
my son is 19, he rides 16mile each way now.
he eats non stop………….like i said, enjoy it. 8)

would it add much to the journey to make it all road, i would prefer an hour cruising on tarmac before a days work
offroad commutes are great in the summer, but i cant be doing with it at the moment

Depending on how much/what sort of riding you were doing beforehand those issues might be just what you’d expect if you jumped straight into a 14 mile commute, whatever you were doing it on. So maybe just stick with it and see how you go?
Do you use padded shorts?

Got some decent lights and a high viz.

I wouldn’t want to ride on some of the national speed limit country lanes, people use them as a rally course so some of the commute has to be off-road.

Got some decent lights and a high viz.

I wouldn’t want to ride on some of the national speed limit country lanes, people use them as a rally course so some of the commute has to be off-road.

Edit: yep padded shorts, 5tens etc…

Could well be my fitness, our weekend riding is very much start, stop, session a feature for a bit walk up ride down type of thing

slicks.

get some nice high pressure tyres and you will whip along.

if you can stick to 99% road, or surface path” and some Conti ultragators are ace.

road training tyres, but availible in 26″ size,

good up to 120psi.

NEOWM!

sounds good to me
ide love a bit of cycle path to break mine up (and tempt me out of the car)

stick with it!

Sounds to me that it is just a type of sustained riding that you are not used to. I agree, if it’s just a week or so till your car is fixed pick up some cheap slicks for the hardtail, give yourself loads of time so you are not rushing and knackering yourself and some sensible additional calories to help you recover for the ride home.

Be interested to see what effect it has on your usual riding/fitnes after a week

Might want to add some stretching as well, might help the back

If it’s just for a week, just get on with it, no point in spending any money. Infact, for one week, I don’t know why you even bothered buying another bike, when you have two already.

If you’re thinking ahead, about doing it more often, I do 14 miles on the canal (spring-Autumn), approx 7 miles surfaced, 7 miles rough and muddy. I’m happy with some Conti speedking 2.1, light, fast rolling and give some grip on the muddy sections. I found that no suspension made a big difference, so definitely lock out the forks or better, buy some rigids. I also put some bar ends on, so I could adjust my position a bit, which alleviates circulation in hands (and might help with sore arse and back), a bit. I’m lucky with the saddle issue, I can ride my SDG Bel air without padded shorts, with no sore arse problems.
I’m told that back ache problems are caused, in part, by position, so maybe experiment with your position over the pedals (don’t forget, the saddle tilts aswell).
The biggest issue on the canal will be punctures from thorns, drove me a bit mad last year. This year I’ll try some puncture resistant inner tubes or going tubeless.

Buy a (proper sized) cross-bike, and don’t bother with the car even when its fixed – won’t take that long to make it pay.

I brought the Carrera a week prior to my car breaking by pure chance to start doing some sort of commuting. I was going to start by driving part way and riding the last few miles just to get used to it and maybe doing the full commute once a week.

I don’t have the luxury of tweaking the setup on the shorter commutes now, but I’ve just been out comparing the setup of my mtb’s and the Carrera.

I’m going to swtich to a shorter stem and by default change the bars as they’re 25.4mm bars and I only have spare OS stems/bars laying around. Also going to add some bar ends on and nick the spoon saddle off of my HT as I seem to get on with them fine.

In theory that setup should help, but I think its my general fitness of continued riding, going to leave myself and extra 20min’s tomorrow morning and trying a cruise and enjoy the scenery a bit.

Oh and if its of any interest the commute on Friday took me 1hr 10min, pretty much the exact same time each way.

Just over a year ago (Autumn) I had a similar car issue (different car) and the same route took me 55 min on a lava dome with suspension & nobbly tyres. I put that down to fitness gained over that summer???

The first time I did it on my 456 with big tyres and bouncy forks, it took me 1hr 30mins. After a new light frame build with light tyres, rigid forks etc and a few weeks fitness, I was managing 55mins. Never really managed to get below that tho, the towpath is too stoppy starty with various obsticals and other users. Definitely made me feel better, felt more awake at work and still full of beans in the evenings.

You might want to consider cutting the width of your bars down a little too if this is going to be a commuting bike with bar ends, wide bars with bars never works that well. Remember you will also want a longer setup on a commuting / roadish bike that a mtb so I would not go replicating your MTB sit up and beg position with a short stem.

I know it sounds obvious, but lower back ache could be a symptom of a poor saddle angle. Definitely have a play with the bike adjustment before simply throwing money at the problem. I rode a loaded Carrera Subway from Lands end to John O’ Groats without any real discomfort.

One of these bikes would be handy
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3085/3144849864_c6a959fc8c_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3273/3144022813_42bcb44213_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3079/3144849788_3ceeb365bf_b.jpg

Definitely made me feel better, felt more awake at work

This is what I really miss on the odd occasion I have to drive in, I’ll spend the first hour stretching and yawning!

If your canal tow path is anything like the one I commute on, you might pick up quite a few flats with slicks on, too much broken glass and Hawthorn cuttings littering ours!

A cheap CX bike is another option, if you can find one that takes mud guards too.

Slicks do not mean more punctures, in fact a commuting pair of slicks usually have more puncture protection than off road tyres (normal tyres, not talking tubeless).

It’ll take you body a while to adjust – but it will adjust, and it will be good for you in the long run.

Find some time to adjust your trail-HT into a much more ‘traditional XC’ body position, fit some fast-rolling XC tyres, you’ll be fine.

I find 1.9 WTB exiwolfs great – narrow ‘xc’ tyres are so out of fashion you can usualy pick them up dirt cheap. The Fire XC’s are very blocky and not super fast rolling.

Tubeless is also the bomb for low rolling resistance, if you can be bothered with the faff.

Thanks for all of the advice.

I adjusted the Carrera setup in the end, it was alot more comfortable this morning and I had no back ache 8)

Decided to leave myself an extra 20 minutes to do the commute, to try and take off the pressure of racing the clock. I also packed my camera to get some early morning pictures and to break the ride up a little.

So all in all it was a good ride this morning, just cruised along the first country road section and canal path (stopped 3-4 times for some pictures), then picked up the pace for the last 4-5 miles of town roads/cyclepaths. Bizarely took me the exact same time as when I struggled last week.

Felt nice and awake this morning although feeling a little tired now, think that we just need to adjust our sleeping pattern to cope with the earlier mornings.

Here’s the pictures from my commute to bore you all 8)

A4 in the distance

Kennet & Avon canal

Commuter

DX light on full

Silent killer swans in line formation

Commuter (again)

I’ll be popping in here on Friday for a cheeky pint as a reward

Nice 🙂 it’s too dark when I leave for my commute to take pics yet 🙁