Cyclescheme time of year.

Been eyeing up the renegade for a while but got email last night from work saying cyclescheme is open for March.

Only thing stopping me pulling the trigger is the brakes. I’d prefer hydros.

Anything else out there worth looking at?

Pinnacle Arkose d2 would be a shout but is just outside of the £1k limit 😔

I have a 2016 Renegade Expat, which is basically the same bike with a few minor changes in spec.

My thoughts – it’s ace!  It’s been my “Not the Mountain Bike” Bike for a couple of years.  It’s ace for any riding that isn’t “proper” mountain biking, i.e. anything from roads through to rough forest tracks and easy singletrack.

Frame and fork are very nice, 3 sets of bottle bosses on the frame plus 2 on the fork on the cutrrent model which means you can get proper bikepackery if you so desire. There is even a frame pump peg on the headtube on mine.

Would I like Hydros?  Yeah – but like you it pushed me out of budget.

Standard spec is absolutely fine for the money but I have changed a few things.

Saddle to Charge Spoon as I really didn’t get on with the stock saddle. YMMV.

Wheels to Hope 20Five – probably vanity.

Chainset and BB to Tiagra –  the chainset was a bit meh, looked scruffy quickly and shifting wasn’t great. When the BB wore out the choice between new BB and Chainset for £80 or chucking away another £30 on a crappy megaexo bb was a no brainer.  Tiagra chainset (and the rest of the tiagra bits to be fair) are actually very nice for the money.

Tyres to Schwalbe G-One. Better off road than stock better on road than the WTB Nanos I tried.  Stock tyres are fine though to be fair.

View this post on Instagram

That was a bit grim… Ice cream headaches and rubbish legs…

A post shared by Dan Lees (@danlees78) on Jan 19, 2019 at 7:30am PST

If there is a downside it’s that you can only buy them from Evans, who are a bit of an unknown quantity post Ashley acquisition.

We have Tektro Lyra mechanical on the Boardman.

I’m impressed by the power and lack of faff. I’ve just changed cable after nearly a year of use. The pad adjustment is a touch finickity, but quick to do both sides.

They wouldn’t put me off a bike.

Cheers! Very thorough reply there bill!

I’ve had cable discs before, and honestly they weren’t that bad.

I’ll think about it over the weekend, had crazy idea of just buying a full monty frame and building it up with a What I’ve got… Hmmm

Honestly, the cable disks on mine, Spyres, slow me down fine and I weigh 100kg.

They aren’t as good as the hydros on the MTB but for this type of bike they are fine.  Plus if you have aspirations of bikepacking to far or not even that far flung destinations, they are easier to fix.