[Closed] wrong/shit bikes and honesty.

I do my research and buy something I've a pretty good idea will be there or thereabouts, and then tweek it, in true Triggers Broom stylee, until it feels 'just right'. I'm an uncomplicated creature. I know what I'm looking for.

^^Same as Binners 🙂

To be fair to Tony he is absolutely massive. And I mean huge. Not only very tall but built like several poo houses all together in one. That must mean he has to try bikes which are outside the normal range of bike fit, and I assume just like the small bikes that my wife rides, sometimes the manufacturers get it right sometimes they don't, and there's never a test version in the extreme sizes.

This +100. I am also a big lad and an yet to find a demo bikes in XL, never mind anything bigger. Quoted maximum rider weight limits (where available) are normally about 60% of my body weight and a few things need changing before I ride a bike - normally longer seatpost, longer stem, bigger grips etc.

In this situation, sitting on a bike in the LBS is next to useless and a short demo ride is not a lot more useful. The approach I tend to take is to use the geometry charts to find a position similar to my last bike, it doesn't mean it is good, just familiar. I could be missing out on lots.

This serial-bike-swapping-thing is something I can never 'get' about some of the forumites in these parts. It seems like a disease.

Must be awful once it sets hold. The nagging doubt. The swapping. The loss of value in a depreciating asset. The frustration. The endless cycle of all of these.

Get this: I've never got rid of a bike in over 20 years of riding.

I still own every bike I've ever owned and they all get ridden too. That's 10 bikes. I've always felt that every one of these bikes is totally awesome in its own way, so why would I want to get rid of any of them?

The bike I actually ride most and commute to work on (a tiny-framed £40 20" wheeled Raleigh Shopper with SPDs I do 60+ miles a week on) is totally inappropriate - yet absolutely brilliant fun to ride. So much so that it brings a smile to my face most days.

I ride the whole length of the Ridgeway on my cyclocross bike with rubbish cantilever brakes and 35mm tyres - and get battered to shite the whole way - but more to the fun of the experience!

I head out around Coed y Brenin on my Yeti ASR5c and enjoy a full-on trail bike operating in its perfect environment.

I ride my 1997 Giant MCM Team - with leading link forks and 28 spoke radial front wheel - and am reminded why 90s bikes were so light and awesome, but also about how refined modern MTBs have become.

For me, it's never about riding the 'perfect' bike, more that these bikes with their different characters provide different 'flavors' for which to enjoy the same trails in different ways.

I've never owned a bike I didn't like, so I can't even vaguely relate to wanting to get rid of one.

This serial-bike-swapping-thing is something I can never 'get' about some of the forumites in these parts. It seems like a disease.

like I said, I don't want to eat toast every morning for breakfast, just like I don't want to ride the same bike.

I love buying or building a new bike, then taking it out to see if I like it, to see if it is suitable.
I also only ever have 2 bikes at once, 1 for offroad and my tourer. I ride every single day, so I need it to feel right.
I suppose I am in a good situation to buy what I want when I want it.

If you substitute "bike" or "partner" this thread gets a lot more interesting.

Correlation?

Given that I have, at times, had up to five girlfriends at the same time, you could be on to something.. 😳 😆

a tiny-framed £40 20" wheeled Raleigh Shopper with SPDs I do 60+ miles a week on

😯 Are you the man who passes me riding to work the other way sometimes - if so . congratulations on your recent upgrade to an ancient ladies road bike with a dropped top tube (a Raleigh Wisp unless I'm mistaken).

I don't think I have ever been 100% happy with any bike I have bought. Some I think were awesome at the time and when I drag them out of the garage rafters they always seem to disappoint in some way. Usually I fool myself into a bit of upgrade therapy and never actually apply a scientific methodology. I still to this day cant tell you what geometry I should look for in a bike. The nearest I have gotten to this is that if something is not bothering me then it is probably not far off optimum. You could argue that for most things it is simply close to what I am used too but I can't really quantify it any better.
There is certainly such a thing as "unsuitable for the ride bikes". That I can live with and am currently looking for the one bike to do everything at the moment (well MTB wise anyway). That does mean that for the first time there are going to be bikes sold that are not kids bikes thy have grown out of. Sat here at the moment hand wringing about this trying to pretend that selling is more hassle than making more room in the shed rafters.

I can't do what you do Ton. My last two bikes were researched to the nth degree. I have a Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Evo and I spent about 2 months deciding it was the bike for me, and a month speccing it. I bought the frame only and only fitted bits I knew worked based on years of riding other things, and didn't buy anything new, untested, unknown. I was careful about what size of stuff I went for- I got a 780mm bar so I could cut it down if I needed to, a 60mm stem because I knew it was a touch shorter than my old bike and so on. Everything on it now was on it when I bought it two and a half years ago, unless it broke (and I replaced it with the same/nearest bit available at the time) and only now am I swapping to a 40mm stem and fitting an offset shock bush to keep it up to date with modern geometry.

My other was a £600 cross bike on bike to work and I think that took me 4 or 5 months to decide, and while what I ended up with isn't perfect it's near as dammit for what I paid. I'll keep both for around 4 years, maybe more, before I swap.

Are you the man who passes me riding to work the other way sometimes

Possibly..! 😆

We may both be barking up the wrong tree here, but I'm gonna take a stab that you might be the guy I sometimes see riding the other way on what looks to be a late 90s Specialized (A40 cylepath, Oxford-Witney way).

My bike's a 1985 Raleigh Sapphire, by the way. 8)

I can't get on with hardtails. I love my full Suss and love my Croix De Fe on and off road.

I'd rather ride one or the other, not something in between.

yet to find a demo bikes in XL, never mind anything bigger.

I'm gonna take a stab that you might be the guy I sometimes see riding the other way on what looks to be a late 90s Specialized (A40 cylepath, Oxford-Witney way)

A good try, but you're about 100 miles out (I'm in Cardiff).

I've not ridden a demo bike before buying/building any of mine.

that is because toys r us always have a load in stock.... 😀

I've currently got a fleet of 4 bikes, They're all too similar and not quite what I want...

Scandal 29er - it's good ,it's fast, but I don't like it on technical stuff, and don't really have any great desire to ride it, think I'd be better off with a cross bike.

Soul 26" - good, but I mainly use it for techy stuff and trail centres with knobbly tyres, which I can't be arsed to change - it's also 3x9, so lose chain quite a bit, no clutch mech available for 9 speed - should change to 2x9 really.

iO 26" singlespeed - it's alright, but if I'm really honest with myself, I don't need it, I don't live close enough to anywhere to use it for popping to the shop/pub/post office etc, I've got better bikes (above) for local rides, and can't see me really riding it off road or as a 'winter bike' as I don't think I'll enjoy slogging away in the wrong gear most of the time.

1994 rigid marin - recent impulse purchase.

I could really lose everything besides the soul, put some more 'all rounder' tyres on it or get a spare set of wheels, and it be all the bike I need. Besides a road/cross bike.

I would really be sad to see the soul go, but the others I could take or leave to be honest, that probably says enough in itself.

BUT I've just seen the new marin pine mountain 1 and have an irrational urge to pre-order one....

My last road bike was on the small side in the frame, but with a long stem my position was still OK. Quite a lot of pressure on the hands though as it had a short head tube and very little spare steerer tube.

Still, I kept it as the less comfy position was faster. When I actually started riding drop bars a bit more it didn't even seem that bad a position.

I've just bought a new road bike, and replicated the bar position, so I got used to it.

I also have a mountain bike that's frame is a bit on the small side however I can't be bothered changing it as size isn't that critical on a mountain bike I'm never going to use for massive rides.

This implied I put up with things but I did go through a few stem lengths to get the road bike to feel right (overshot by 10mm on my first attempt) so I really don't know!

You have a lot of bike experience to draw upon and know when a bike is wrong. That's not typical of the general public...

Last year I built up a Charge Duster Skinny for my GF, for back-road and occasional off-road use. My GF loves it and can't believe how enjoyable it is to ride compared with the bikes she had before. The key to comfort was the XS frame size, then building it reasonably light and easy to handle. Hydraulic brakes were a total revelation to her.

As I have just one bike and it has no suspension and no gears then it could be said I have the 'wrong' bike quite a bit of the time on each ride I do.
But wrong for what and why should it matter?

I enjoy the sense of not having to choose which bike to ride, not having to choose which gear to be in and not have to do much maintenance with little chance of anything going wrong.

I also do photography using just a single prime lens so just the way my head works.

your cannondale is a bit like buying a giant propel to ride to work through the city.

wrong tool for what you were looking for.

your cannondale is a bit like buying a giant propel to ride to work through the city.

wrong tool for what you were looking for.

trailrat, I did not buy it. I took it in px to hopefully sell on. the px deal enabled me to get ride of my spesh enduro, and to purchase a salsa fargo.

swings and roundabouts eh.... 😉

I never research anything until I bought an Intense Tracer VP, which turned out to be a pile of shite after spending a year, a shock upgrade an tune on it waste fully.

I researched loads of 120mm bikes and was very happy with my ASR (which I should have kept and upgraded the fork) which I chopped in for an Anthem 29 for racing. The anthem has been perfect, no nonsense no fuss and I've upgraded parts to lighten it.

My other bike is a heart felt purchase Enigma Ego 26. It's as tough on you as any hard tail over 100k of rough ground - I'm not really a hard tail man - but for most of my riding I love it to bits.

I'd research now though definitely.

and to purchase a salsa fargo.

Ohhh nice.... pics please 8)

Have tried 40-odd bikes over 37 yrs!

This includes all kinds of disciplines as I like cycling and bikes across a range (non-competitive, if you don't count for keeping ahead of friends on singletrack or beating my own record on that killer hill)

Must admit I got addicted to buying and trying - in search of a hardtail holy grail. Most have been used bikes that have spent ages trawling ads for for the right size and price so I can try them out, if I didn't like it I sold it on. Always cost me in the end but not by huge amounts, a headset here, a set of brakes there...

Only a few have been real keepers. A few I've regretted selling (Gary Fisher Big Sur, Cannondale F500, Kinesis Maxlight, Kona Cinder Cone)

I seem to like light MTBs and heavier old-school road bikes/tourers. Never got on with any full susser except for a late 90's V-Link that had about 5mm travel front and rear - it was ace, like a flickable soft-tail 8)

Have enjoyed a size too large but never a size too small.

I can still enjoy buying an old beater (last one was a rusty Rufftrax for a tenner) and thrashing it around as is - so not that fussy really. In times of relative plenty I've specced a lightweight handbuilt hardtail with everything I've wanted off the shelf, and enjoyed it but not honestly any more than the £75 quid used cromo Cinder Cone that I built up with spare parts, powdercoated and ragged about on for years with a big grin and next to no maintenance. That is the nearest to my hardtail heaven I suppose, nice geometry, comfortable for most stuff including climbing.

Currently clearing the stable as don't have the space or time and we need the cash. I'll be left with a Dutch shopper and an old rigid M-Trax and that'll have to do for everything. It's also a size too big on the trails but I love it for explorating, day-long rides, light touring etc.

Most expensive mistake I made was a Kona Ute - tried it unloaded, felt great. In real life it noodled under load and shuddered down hills, no-handed it would set up a death-wobble that I've never before experienced. Couldn't live it with and lost over 200 quid for the pleasure of trying it out.

I'm fussier about saddles than any other one thing, including bikes.

I also do photography using just a single prime lens so just the way my head works.

+1 It's a good place to be. I prefer 50mm prime lens for the same reason. Just need to get my head in the same place for bikes 😳

no_eyed_deer - Member

Are you the man who passes me riding to work the other way sometimes

david jey - Member
I'm gonna take a stab that you might be the guy I sometimes see riding the other way on what looks to be a late 90s Specialized (A40 cylepath, Oxford-Witney way).

I smell bromance 8)

😆

Naa... just nutters on bikes mistaking others for other nutters on bikes..

I really quite enjoy riding the wrong bike. Quite often for me, the wrong bike isn't even a bike 😉

Yup. I really didn't enjoy trying to get the trance to fit me so cut my losses.

It may be a decent bike to some but not for me.

Its has to feel right to me, Im a heliver faffer when it comes to suspension etc, for the first few weeks I thought I had bought the wrong bike when I bought my Bronson c after coming from an el Gaupo, which I loved to be honest, being an inbetween height for santa cruz,small is far too small for me and Im on the bottom limit for a medium, seriously struggled to get on with it,but after changing 2 stems, moved saddle forward and bought a tuned monarch plus from TF and it feels like and entirely different bike, love it now 😀

ton - Member
...riding offroad on what is really a road racing bike is the most stupid idea, or the most stupid thing i have ever done on a bike...

Once road bikes were the only thing we had to ride in the mountains and looking back I don't remember much about discomfort but more about lack of grip from the skinny tyres, sketchy brakes, and the rear tyre flexing into the brakes on steep climbs.

Trying to analyse it from the perspective of 40 years is tricky, but I suspect the reason is that the overall style of the bike was different compared to a modern roadbike. We rode with taller frames than are used now, so less standover, and more important, a longer headtube and wheelbase.

The longer headtube put the flat of the dropbar more or less level with the saddle, and I think that is the critical difference compared to the lower race oriented bar position of modern bikes.

About 5-6 years ago I was looking for a roadbike that I could use offroad, ie ride 20-30 miles, follow a track, come out the other side and then ride home, and maybe it's my age, but I didn't find much comfort on a modern road bike or a cx bike for that use. It seemed to make more sense from the comfort angle to put up with an mtb on the road rather than endure the bashing from a roadbike offroad.

Assuming the bike fits ok, then the place to stop the discomfort is where it starts, at the tyres.

I have found that Big Apple 2.35" tyres make a huge difference. They allow a decent pace on the road and swallow up most offroad surfaces. I have worked my way through a series of 29er frames trying to find the optimum one for road/offroad use.

And this is it (29er TD-1):

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It works on long rides. That was 70 odd miles across a couple of ranges, about 30 on road, the rest mainly on gravel tracks, but at least 10 miles was pretty rough and rocky.

at last, a gentleman who understands where I am coming from.....maybe 😆

cheers epicyclo.

I have to agree too Ton. I hate riding my CX on anything other than the commute, it's like using a fork to eat jelly.

Nobeerinthefridge - Member

I have to agree too Ton

I reckon a few others do also mate, but afraid to admit their purchase may have been not quite suitable.
following fashion is not always the right thing to do. 😀

It more like the riding I do on my tourig bike, which is a conveted old school mtb. MTBs can ride really well on the road IMO so a good comprimise but I need to add a longer stem, remove some spacers, fit some high volume slicks. Much better on road and still pretty good off road.

Nobeerinthefridge - Member

I have to agree too Ton. I hate riding my CX on anything other than the commute, it's like using a fork to eat jelly.

Sometimes, eating jelly with a fork is fun. Looking back, I only really enjoyed my cross bike when I was doing something stupid on it. The one job it was actually good at, was no fun. Sold it, got another rigid mtb, but I don't really seem to do "rigid mtb stuff" on it, I go and ride EWS #enduro trails and puncture every couple of miles and scare my balls off and generally eat jelly with a fork.

I have to agree too Ton
I reckon a few others do also mate, but afraid to admit their purchase may have been not quite suitable.
following fashion is not always the right thing to do.

This, tried a mates CX bike and hated the poor brakes, crap ride quality and lack of grip.... If your commute was rough lanes and maybe a short stretch of off road but mainly tarmac I could understand it....but he was trying to use it like a mountain bike on our usual trails and coming a cropper all over the place, it was like Bambi on ice!....as others have said, I'd consider one as a commuter for disc brakes and a less stretched out position than a traditional road bike but for off road stuff there's far better suited machines out there....and I say that as someone who likes to ride a hardtail on DH trails so I'm generally happy with inappropriate bikes out of their comfort zone.

[quote=Northwind ]Sometimes, eating jelly with a fork is fun.

+1!

The problem some people seem to be having is trying to do "proper off-road" as if they were on a mountain bike. Sure I've done a bit of that on my cx bike, and I took it as a backup to CYB a couple of weeks ago in case I had problems with my even more unsuitable option - I'm sure it would have been fine on the blue. However where it really comes into its own for me is on old-fashioned touring stuff, where there may be some gravel and other unsurfaced roads, but nothing at all technical. Just riding a bike. In fact exactly the sort of thing lots of us did with ton in Scotland earlier in the year. I can appreciate that for some people a cx bike is the wrong bike for that, but for some of us it isn't.

ton - Member
I reckon a few others do also mate, but afraid to admit their purchase may have been not quite suitable.
following fashion is not always the right thing to do.

I've got a cx bike, but when you think of it, they are optimised for quite a short brutal ride, and the guys who use them effectively are the real hard men in our fraternity.

For me a cx bike is fun for an hour or two- a bit like using a real track bike on the road, fun for a little while but painful thereafter. (I'm quite partial to the wrong bike, wrong place. wrong time scenario, but not for too long 🙂 )

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We don't have a huge amount of rocky trails round my way, lots of muddy woodland with tight singletrack though, and the cross bike there is hilarious. Often scary, but hilarious.

I had planned to be using it as a road bike as well (it replaced one that was stolen) but off road is more fun.

I did 100km over the weekend on unsealed road, on a carbon aerobike.
Whereabouts is that photo Bigrich? Looks awesome...

Brisbane Ranges, Miles and miles of great tracks.

get on the drops and pedal harder.

Happily I'm poor so I don't have to buy into fads

I've got a mountain bike and a town bike... both triggers brooms and both very comfortable and capable..

The only real difference between them is tyre choice and handlebar choice

[/smug]

bigrich - Member
Brisbane Ranges, Miles and miles of great tracks.

get on the drops and pedal harder.

On the theme of wrong bike, wrong place, here's my Brisbane pics.

Took my Giant Bowery up Mt Nebo.

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and on the way home, went through the Samford forest, and spent a couple of hours riding around the Bunya mtb tracks.

[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/743/20877002921_b54faed0f7_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/743/20877002921_b54faed0f7_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

[i]get on the drops and pedal harder[/i] - never a truer word said. 🙂

I too have a CX bike - it must be cos it says so on the side. Now, I know that it isn't really a CX bike in the traditional sense. It wasn't bought as a CX bike; I didn't want a CX bike.

It is perfect for

Just riding a bike. In fact exactly the sort of thing lots of us did with ton in Scotland earlier in the year

That said, my touring bike - which is the right size for me, and has been chopped and changed to try to get it comfortable - gives me cramp and is more tiring to ride than any of my other bikes. It is not right for me and will likely go soon, either as a bike or maybe just as a frameset.

So, I agree with you Ton. But not necessarily about the CX bit.

Epicyclo - where did you buy the Smooth Drop bars?
I've looked but can't find them for sale.

I wish I was as good at riding bikes as choosing them! 😉

I think it helps being pretty average-sized with fairly long limbs so I'm bang on the size most bikes are designed around and quite flexible regarding sizing, and about the right weight that most forks and shocks are tuned for (yes you can adjust some bits but without a custom tune you can't change the shim stack characteristics).

If you have more torso length and less limb length then you'll inherently fit a narrower range of sizes. And if you're really tall or really short then you'll have much more of a struggle not only to find bikes to fit but to find bikes to demo, to find reviews from similar sized riders, and so on...

My MTB history since returning to the dirt in 2009 has been:

Mid-2009: Boardman HT Pro
Early-2011: Cotic Soul
Early-2014: Banshee Spitfire

The Boardman donated parts to the Soul and then as I upgraded the Soul the Boardman got built back up for my wife but now mostly gets used by me for toddler transporting with a WeeRide on it. The Soul was used for everything until the Spitfire came along, and now is mostly used when it's wet/muddy locally. All the bikes get used for commuting (sometimes with 'creative' routes over urban features or down some mini-DH runs) as well as MTBing.

I got a BMX in 2012 too for commuting and messing about on. And I have an elderly Brompton from my London commuting days.

Looking at the pic I've posted above reminded me of one factor.

I've already mentioned that the old road bikes had higher headtubes than is popular on modern race oriented bikes.

I buy a larger size than I should in a road frame so that the top of my bars is the same as the height of my saddle, which gives me a more comfortable 1950s position.

In this case it was an XL where in theory I should be on a medium. Obviously not suited to the real racers, but I'm a cruiser not a racer. That probably won't help Ton much because he's already at the limit of size by the sound of it.

Moses - Member
Epicyclo - where did you buy the Smooth Drop bars?

I've answered your question in Malvern Rider's thread (just in case you haven't seen it there)