Hatched yesterday after one too many glasses of Leffe, I committed to ride the same route today, three times, on three different bikes to see if there were any particular conclusions that could be drawn.

Route
Typically takes about 100 minutes, a bit of up and down, mostly singletrack, rooty but not rocky, all rideable bar some steep wooden steps. Conditions under tyre were mainly dry and dusty with only a few softer patches.

The bikes
First up was a rigid ss with v brakes and fairly modern 2.2″ tyres with minimal grip, pumped up hard.

Next up was a geared cyclocross bike, compact chainset, barend shifters, cantis and fairly aggressive knobblies pumped up to 75psi.

Finally a rigid geared bike with mechanical disk brakes and 15 year old 1.9″ tyres, again pumped up hard (notice a theme?)

The approach
The intention was to ride reasonably steadily – the purpose wasn’t which bike was quickest as doubtless whatever I rode first would be – and take roughly the same time for each section.

In the interests of ‘science’ I will record what I consumed:

Before – left over barbecue with spicy sauce on two cheap rolls.
During each ride – a bidon of water, nothing else.
After 1st ride – salt beef sandwich, small portion of spicy tomato pasta salad, half a small bar of Dairy Milk, a can of Diet Red Bull
After 2nd ride – jalepeno chicken wrap, small portion of roasted tomato and basil couscous, half a small bar of Dairy Milk, a can of Diet Red Bull

Conclusions?
– all three bikes were ‘fit for purpose’
– each one made the route different. On the ss the temptation was to get stuck in and the v brakes and ceramic rims worked a treat in the dry. The cyclocross bike had me being a bit more selective in avoiding things with the cantis making me more anticipative when I had to brake – go into a corner a bit ‘hot’ and there wasn’t much you could do but hope you’d come out the other side. On the disk braked bike, while I was tired, you could charge around with the knowledge that stopping wasn’t a problem.
– getting your legs ripped by thorns three times over isn’t fun

– I should have included a bike with suspension in the test
– I think the differences in brakes and tyres would be much more apparent in the wet or on a more technical route so might be worth repeating at some point
– it was a good way of making me go out three times!

Anyone else tried this or similar?

Your toes are in a different time zone to your ankles.

You are a Giant, and therefore all results are not really applicable to normal people.

How did you pedal with only one leg ?

…All that aside, good effort.

What would be interesting would be to set a target time on one bike, then aim to ride as quick on the others,although to be honest, the only real difference between all three bikes is the hand position. They are all rigid, all hard tyred, all as suitable as each other.

…and if I where you, a Giant, I would put a pair of compact drops on the crosser which would minimise the distance between the tops and drops and allow a more consistent riding position.

…and shut the door to the shed in case the goose that lays the golden eggs gets out.

trailflow – Member
How did you pedal with only one leg ?

Well, this bloke manages it.

Well, this bloke manages it.

RESPEK!

This is just retro bike willy waving is it not 😀

ah right they are retro….. I was just thinking he could sell them all and get one decent bike and have some left over to fix the lawn

Lawn? He lives at the top of a beanstalk, he’s lucky to have any grass at all.

And you’re surprised by the minor differences because?

Good effort. If it was me I don’t think I could tell the difference between those three bikes. Could you go back and do it again on a hardcore hardtail, an fs xc bike (100-120mm), an fs trail centre razzer (120-140mm, an fs freeride bike (150-160mm) and a full on dh bike…

Oh and maybe all of the above including yours but in 29er, a fat bike, 3 different types of cargo bike and a BMX. Also a Jump bike, another jump bike with 24 inch rims, and a brompton.

Oh and a dahon.

Aside from all that, this threat is genuinely good and funny.

What a pile of old tat you ride. 😉 x

His feet are as big as Africa!

two fake ifs and an onone badged up as a dekerf, how dare you 8)

Never mind the two fake IF’s and the re badged on one I want to see pictures of the left over barbecue with spicy sauce,salt beef sandwich and jalepeno chicken wrap.

I bet the jalepeno wrap was the best all round performer.

Oh and you made a fatal flaw by not having any of you home made brownie to round it all off.

Hot damn, I thought this science lark was easy. Clearly the experiment was fundamentally flawed from the outset and a paradigm shift is required if there is to be any credibility to the results. I therefore need to repeat taking into account the following:

– need to consider a wider range of bikes
– must get lawn in order before publishing results; time spend with a mower is worth 3 x that on bike, 5 x if a retro mower
– nutrition should be more carefully controlled, or indeed controlled at all. Pappy white bread must be at the core and processed meat products have to feature – was it Swiss Tony or John Donne who said “what is man without pork”?

Anything else that I need to take into account?

The giant thing?

Sadly I am ill equipped to address that although Mrs Big Ted is 4’9″ which may balance things out a little.

I do this on a regular basis albeit on a much shorter route on my commute, mainly for the sake of variety.

My commute is about 5 miles each way over v hilly “lanes” (read rutted tracks with potholes like lunar craters and a nice topping of cowpoo) around the Eastern edge of Dartmoor. There is one big steady road climb on my outward journey, rest is short sharp hills and one really steep, long descent down a holloway with no view of oncoming vehicles / sheep / cattle / ramblers. Return route has two shortish but v steep 1 in 5 climbs and a very fast downhill road run at the end.

I flit between the following depending on mood, weather etc:

Rigid single speed steel MTB running 32:16 with discs and knobblies (pumped up hard)

Single speed drop-bar Roadrat with mini Vs running 42:18 on cross tyres

Slightly battle-weary geared alloy hardtail with discs and knobblies

In terms of time, the best run ever is on the SS MTB surprisingly – mainly because it’s light enough to muscle up the climbs (no suspension bob to worry about) while the discs and tyres give me loads of confidence to hammer it on the downhill bits.

The Roadrat makes the route the most fun, but the brakes and narrow tyres have made for some hairy moments meeting oncoming traffic / stray cows on the downhills. I’m pretty much covering the brakes all the time. The gearing is also slightly too high for the return climbs and I end up pushing one section of about 50M most of the time (to be fair, it’s one which you can walk up quicker than riding on a geared bike anyway though). It’s also really sketchy in the wet.

The geared MTB is the slowest of the bunch and generally feels a bit “lifeless” and boring on this route – it just feels (is) really heavy and rides particularly strangely after the other two as it doesn’t really do out of the seat climbing but it’s still my bike of choice for any lengthy offroad excursions after work.