Mulling over buying or building a Road Rat…

Is it much heavier than an entry level giant defy? In a geared guise could you keep pace with some roadies?

My small Rat feels pretty heavy TBH, but not really meant to be a lightweight racer. I use mine on the odd club ride, and I can just about keep up (but that might be a fitness thing as much as anything!). 53/39 with an 11-32 out back.

Don’t know about the Defy, but it’s certainly a heavy beast if you use budget wheels. I never really saw mine as a proper road bike, more a very fast mountain bike.

Keeping up will depend on your legs (and those of the roadies) I’m afraid!

Ye I was wondering exactly that, could you use it on a club ride

I like the idea of a Rat or similar as I think it might fair better in the winter, but also be slightly more resistant in the long run than an Al frame with Carbon fork

I did

P1030364 by eastham_david, on Flickr

It’s definitley harder going than my road bike, but was surprisingly sprightly when I put my road wheels and tyres on.

Depends what you want it for.

Not the lightest compared to a dedicated road bike, but I find mine pretty quick compared to my MTBs. Probably not best thing for pure road riding, but a great do it all bike. I love ragging mine offroad to be honest, just for a bit of extra challenge!

In it’s current guise…. planning to add gears prior to move to Dartmoor.

Mine certainly ain’t light, but to be fair I haven’t wasted cash building it light. I think it’s grand for my commute and it does most of my winter training. I can’t say I have any difficulties keeping up on the winter club rides which tend to be about 2-2.5 hours on a midweek night, but it’s certainly not as rapid as my carbon time thingy.

I’ve got mine set up as an SS (so quite light) at the moment but haven’t ridden it since I changed the forks (I prefer riding my CX bike so this is probably gonna get sold)

Nice forks Ken, what are they?

Off some specialized hybrid which I painted black and are aluminium disc only. Bought off here

look much better than the std ones thats for sure

Alfine RoadRat with V-Brakes is 20.5lbs without pedals. You could knock a pound off with the X Carbon forks. It’s around 0.5lbs heavier with the gears.

I guess it depends on your club run, but I’ve done group rides on mine without trouble with some lightweight 700x25c tyres on it. With proper road tyres it rolls pretty fast. If you want something more road orientated, the X is now available with the RoadRat steel fork for £350 f/f, £900 Weekday bike, £1200 Sunday bike. We can chuck some of the Roadrat 28c slicks in the box to swap out the CX tyres. Call or email for options. We’re pretty flexible as they’re all assembled here to order.

Cotic Road Rat;
Good points – revered on STW as a road bike for mtb’ers.
Bad points – heavy and possibly the ugliest road bike ever to be created.
A Giant Defy, although not as trendy on here, will be light years ahead of a Rat!

Bad points – heavy and possibly the ugliest road bike ever to be created.

Obviously subjective but I reckon they look ace in a functional / purposeful way. And they’re clearly not a road bike, and don’t claim to be. I’ve taken mine places where I’d never consider riding a road bike and it’s coped brilliantly.

Giant Defy is a completely different type of bike so it’s an absurd comparison… apples and pears.

Oh and I bought mine way before they were “revered” on here.