My brothers and I have come up with a brilliant idea for a bike ride all except it’s on the road, I don’t have a road bike and I’m not actually arsed about road cycling. A winning combination you might say but I wouldn’t mind taking up the challenge with the brothers and I virtually came up with the plan so looks like I might be in by default.

The route is about 500 miles to a small village in France. We have volunteer support crew (littlest brothers fiancee) and we think about 5 days in June/July next year.

Training, well, I posess no real stamina at present and longest I’ve done so far is 60 miles London (Weybridge) to Brighton off road. A while ago. I’m carrying a fair reserve of energy that could be reduced somewhat. It isn’t unreasonable to expect my wife to be pregnant sometime in the next year with our second so that complicates the situation also.

So, can anyone recommend a good lightweight bike with comfort in mind? Some of the Kona/BeOne’s on CRC look alright. What sort of bike is suitable cyclocross/tourer/road/sportive etc. How do miles on my FS Kona equate to road miles? Am I mad? Will I survive?

Ta!

If you’re not bothered about ultimate speed then why not consider a good cross bike instead of a racing bike? They’re alot more comfortable, have nicer handling characteristics and if you put drop bars on to get better aero efficiency are not that much slower.

60 miles offroad is probably harder than 100 miles on, to be honest. You’ll be fine.

There are comfort orientated road bikes, I think they are called Audax bikes..? Specialized Allez I think is their offering. They are bloody heavy though.

Having said that my Kona Zing is perfectly comfortable for me all day and that’s supposed to be quite racey. Road bike set-up is absoutely critical, and difficult to achieve because there are far more variables than on an mtb. Took me 18 months of fettling, two bars, two stems and a lot of grip tape to get mine sorted.

If I were you I would consider speed. You can look at it both ways – the ability to go faster for the same effort means you can also go the same speed for less effort. No need to make it harder – get the fastest bike you’re comfortable on.

Cheers, some good comments there. I looked at the Kona Zing range on CRC. I though about fit as well, was considering getting a bike fit but was wondering whether to do it before I started so I was relatively comfortable from the off or wait til I had a bike and had ridden it a bit to arm me with a bit more knowledge before I bought…

I’d say get the fit with the bike, cos you might end up buying the wrong bike or getting preconceived ideas from your initial poor setup.