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Why is an integrated bike deemed hard to maintain? My road bike has Di2, hydraulic disks, pressfit BB and is now 4.5 years old, still on its original BB and headset and the Di2 has obviously had no maintenance and the brakes just the odd change of pads.
It's all hidden / integrated cable routing, gets used year round and washed regularly, I really don't get the desire for a "winter" bike nowadays. Di2 or AXS gearing = zero shift cables to look after, hydraulic brakes = a set of pads every once in a while and the occasional bleed. Screw in or Pressfit BB makes no difference, they both wear out, both are dead easy to change, both are cheap to buy.
Decent wheels with good quality hubs are obviously important, mine runs on carbon DT Swiss with 240's, they just keep on spinning.
Geometry has not moved on.
My mid 90's steel race frame still has passably current geo!
I really don’t get the desire for a “winter” bike nowadays.
I like to try and keep as much mud and road grime off myself and the guys i ride with as possible. So proper, full fixed guards and mudflaps FTW. They won't fit on my summer bike.
I also use lower ratios in winter than summer.
Would you consider a used bike?
I have a now 10 year old Trek Crockett 7 that I use for winter road riding as well as gravel riding these days. Bought it 6 years ago. It's set up with Rival 1x11 which is totally fine. It's "old" but could very much pass for a modern bike visually...has partially internal cables but none of this handlebar routing stuff and it's easy to route.
The geometry is similar to that of a generic road bike now, rather than a modern slacked out gravel bike. Chucking 30mm tires on it and it rides amazingly. Nicer than newer gravel bikes with skinny tires on for road duties, but can still put 40mm tires on and have a thrash offroad.
Only thing I don't like compared to modern disc bikes is that it's QR not TA. Pain in the arse to be quite honest - enough that I am considering getting a new fork for it. Other than that I absolutely love it and hope it hangs around for a few more years to come.
I like to try and keep as much mud and road grime off myself and the guys i ride with as possible. So proper, full fixed guards and mudflaps FTW. They won’t fit on my summer bike.
I also use lower ratios in winter than summer.
The first bit I get, but the 2nd? Do you ride totally different roads on this here winter bike?
Do you ride totally different roads on this here winter bike?
They're covered in gravel, mud, leaves, rain and ice, so i go slower. It's also winter, so i don't tend to go at 100% even if it's dry.
The big ring and the top half of the block is pretty much useless.
This was even the case living in the UK.
I really don’t get the desire for a “winter” bike nowadays
1. Mudguards
2. It may be a false economy by buying a completely new bike, but grinding my 250 quid cassette through winter slop gives me the shudders. Likewise the rest of the drive train. My jockey wheels cost over 100 quid to replace, my chain rings the same
3. Wheels and tyres..super fast thin carcass tyres and 60 mm carbon rims are not ideal for Scottish winters
4. And here is the main one. Keeping my best bike for glorious summer days makes it all the more special when I get to use it. So much so I actually have 3 road bikes, a defy with guards and cheap tiagra kit for winter, a really nice defy with lots of carbon for most of the time, and an sworks tarmac with all the trimings for special days out
That said, I totally appreciate that one nice bike can be ridden all year round if it'll take Mudguards and will be much cheaper than 3, even if you have to replace expensive parts
I used to have a “wet” and a “dry” bike rather than summer and winter ones.
This is the route I took.
Winter use of anything in the Pennines be it on the road or off brings gunk and much.
I struggled with this and decided to go the wax chain route.
Setting up is not the great faff that some make out but I have found the rewards huge.
Going out and coming back with a completly clean drive front and rear is going to keep we waxing away in the future.
With flat top chains and cassettes rising I think its going to save me a lot of money as well as making cleaning so much simpler.
I'd just pickup a 2nd hand carbon disc road bike and use for winter. They are selling for peanuts at the mo. I recently picked up a carbon Merida Scultura Disc with Ultegra group for £750 off FB marketplace.
I wouldn't overthink the whole integrated / pressfit thing. For me, road groupsets, BB's etc last for yonks with close to zero maintenance. I've just changed the chainrings, cassette and rear mech out on my winter bike after over 12000 miles use.
90% of people I ride with also just use clip-on mudguards. Then you aren't stuck with mudguards on dry winter days... And you aren't limited to looking at specific bikes / frames. But I get that some people love mudguards...
Do you ride totally different roads on this here winter bike?
Depends on your local council. Reading and Oxfordshire are pothole central, Hambleden , Dolsedean An stonor Valleys are rougher than gravel tracks thanks to 'underground' streams flooding them (and it's almost summer!) Going upto the Yorkshire Dales is like going to another country with it's nice smooth tarmac!
Geometry has not moved on.
I think we've hit the tipping point where it definitely has.
At the sharp end race bikes are ~1" longer than they used to be, I was looking at a new Merrida and it has 20mm longer reach than my CAAD, and a 120mm stem. And my CAAD was aggressive for 20 years ago. And saddles have got shorter/blunter to exploit that further.
At the every-day middle-ground, tyre clearance, 28mm is now considered tight, before disk brakes 28mm required long-drop brakes.
Those stating they have a wet and dry bike, surely the dry bike never sees daylight as it perpetual winter in the UK these days. My bike is dirtier after the weekends ride than it was in February!
The easiest bikes to maintain have electronic shifting. Probable SRAM AXS is the absolute easiest for maintenance just charging the mech batteries and replacing the shifter coin cells every now and again totally eliminating gear cable faff.
For winter I would ideally run bigger tyres. On my summer bike it’s 28mm width so I’d be wanting to run 32mm at least. So that takes you to hydraulic brakes which are what you would want anyway.
Headsets and internal routing yes I can understand your concern here and there’s no advantage in hiding the hoses from the wind on a winter bike.
Threaded bottom bracket yes makes sense although once your set up with the tools press fit is easy enough.
Like anything else in this world you may be better off compromising a bit. If it were me I’d probably buy a Giant Defy with AXS Rival. I’d live with the press fit BB.
That’s why 2 road bikes really isn’t enough
one for dry days, one for damp days (most of the riding I do) when you don’t get much spray to merit mud guards, but the bike still gets filthy, and one for wet days.
op, push the boat about a bit and treat yourself..
😆
(Not so) stealthy nudge but there's a nice Mason Definition 2 for sale over in them there Classifieds 🙂 - pretty good winter / summer / wet / dry bike
I wanted one bike for fitness and commuting all year round for the road. I wanted mudguard / pannier mounts, lightweight ish carbon frame, room to run big road tyres (currently running Gp5000s in 30c but in hindsight I could have gone bigger as they don’t feel at all slow), slightly higher front end due to bad lower back sometimes etc. Didn’t want it to be astonishingly expensive.
Your requirement for UDH on a road bike seems a bit of an issue - I don’t think many bikes have this. I’m not sure it’s really needed unless you’re desperate to try and run Transmission.
On the bb I think all 5 road bikes I’ve had have been bb30 or some kind of pressfit. None have really had an issue with bb wearing out prematurely or creaking etc.
In the suggest what you have I bought a Dolan GXC frame only and built it up myself.
It’s running road kit rather than gravel - Ultegra di2 / Hunt wheels / various carbon bits. Rides really nicely - compared to the caad12 I had before it smooths out rough roads better, is a similar weight give or take, feels fast and efficient and handles quite well (until I put 2 heavier panniers on it which dulls the handling).
No integrated headset - but it does have internal routing. Wasn’t too bad to route the di2 wires / hydraulic cables through. I think they have some quite well priced full builds too and allow some customisation of build kit.
The cheapest build is £1799 and comes with 12 speed Shimano 105 which I think is pretty decent.
https://www.dolan-bikes.com/dolan-gxc-carbon-disc-gravel-bike-shimano-12s-105-r7120/
I did pay a bit more for a ‘custom colour’ but there are a few free paint colours for the standard price. The dodgy coloured saddle has now been replaced - it matched the bike I had before.
I really don’t get the desire for a “winter” bike nowadays.
I think "gravel bike" has largely filled the niche that "winter road bike" used to occupy.
It used to be a thing because it'd have long drop caliper brakes (to get around the mudguards), quite often a collection of hand-me-down parts from the last year's good bike and so on; it was a different beast to a "good road bike" which would not have clearance for bigger tyres or mudguards.
Obviously disc brakes, bigger clearance etc even on quite race-orientated road bikes have largely negated the need for a specific winter road bike; a gravel bike does all of that and more.
For me one of the things i'd consider, and will probably be shot down here, is that i find road tubeless at anything above 60psi a bit rubbish, maybe because i live somewhere with lots of bits of flint on the road.
So my winter "road" bike is a titanium Reilly gravel bike, with two sets of wheels, one with true 42c off road tyres and for winter road miles, mudguards and slick 35c tyres.
I find 35c is still fast enough to clip along on the road, but at 55-60psi in them, the sealant actually seals the holes unlike at higher pressures in 28c tyres i'd run in summer. Having tubeless that works is a big win in the winter.
I think crazy-legs has it.
The Gravel revolution has killed off a lot of the trad 'Winter' bike market.
With most frames now having lots of clearance,it's easy to chuck a set of guards on for the bad weather.
(IMO) if you then have another set of wheels , it makes them more of an all year round/doitall bike.
I actually have 3 road bikes
Those are rookie numbers. I have separate winter and non-winter fixed road bikes. That’s before you start on the best bike, race bike (for racing), training bike and gravel/Cx. We’ll skip TT bike(s).
I don’t actually have a _geared_ winter bike that takes full mudguards. But another Ti frame could do a job. Enigma Echo in a 54 to match my fixed wheel. 🤔
before disk brakes 28mm required long-drop brakes.
Nonsense. I’m running Dura Ace 9000 callipers with 30c GP5000s on my Defy SL. No mudguards as it has no mounts for them anyway. It’s a 2013 frame.
I think we’ve hit the tipping point where it definitely has.
In some niches, maybe. But anything designed for broadly the same purposes (so that excludes a lot of current gravel, road plus, endurance bikes, because they didn't really exist in the 90s) has broadly similar geo to their 30 year old counterparts.
Both my old but proper race bikes, that i raced (bought in 2001 or 2) have very similar geo as the 2023 race bikes i was looking at (but i bought an endurance bike as i'm 50 and never going to race again).
At the sharp end race bikes are ~1″ longer than they used to be,
Longer, or steeper, or set up for a more forward position? Some are also longer in the wheelbase to get the bigger tyres in, which isn't really geometry driven, the key points for position are (essentially) unchanged. (Stack/Reach).
I’m running Dura Ace 9000 callipers with 30c GP5000s on my Defy SL.
That's MASSIVELY dependant on the frame and fork. I've seen 9100/9200 brakes struggle to clear 28's on some frames and 9000 that'll "clear" a measured 32 (bit close for my liking, but not my bike).
I thought 30c was enough for any roads I'm riding. And it is. To be honest, I was surprised how much clearance was there when I looked closely!
11 year old carbon frame and forks. Hand built wheels, DA9000 calipers, and 30c GP5000s plenty of clearance
Those are rookie numbers
those are the ones I use for my typical road riding! I also have another fully guarded winter roadie which hasn’t been used in a while, a single speed, a tt bike, a cx bike set up as another road bike. Plus obviously a gravel bike and a couple of mtbs
tbf I prefer the ‘owning bikes’ bit to the ‘riding bikes’ bit..
I thought 30c was enough for any roads I’m riding. And it is.
It's not round here, which is why i eventually admitted that another head down, arse up road bike (to add to the 3 i already have) was probably a bad idea.
So now it's discs, and 34 mm clearance on my best bike (but no guards) and 28s with guards on my winter bike. Cos when it's winter I'm going nowhere without a tarmac base at the bottom of the mud and grit. In the summer, anything is game. Hence 34s (though it's only 30mm on there now i think).