I love mine. I bought the dirt cheapest E5 alu version with Claris on in a sale. Didn’t expect much, but the Claris actually quite good.

I rode it like that for a few weeks (and actually came 3rd overall in the Gold Rush GravelCross race), then swapped everything out for SRAM Rival 1/ with Hunt Gravel/4 Season wheels and Panaracer GravelKings. That’s dropped the weight from 10.55 kgs to 9.05kgs. Nice :-)

If you want a bike to just put a big smile on your face, it is great. It’ll be fine for your intended use but is in fact a very capable bike. It’s not just a good bike for the price, it’s a good bike. Period.

I say this as someone who doesn’t really like specialized by the way, to me, they’re too common, too much marketing hype, and too many stupid engineering decisions with press fit crud, proprietary bb widths and such like. I’m eating humble pie regarding the Diverge though.

Anyone know how the 14 day cooling off period applies to a subscription like this? Would it only be from the date of the original purchase last year, or does it apply from the renewal?

No it doesn’t.

I bought a Eurosport subscription last year, tried it, didn’t like it and called to cancel within 3 days of buying it, to be told by them that their small print includes a clause where you have opted out of the Consumer Credit Act’s 14 day cooling off period. I told them “You’ve got to be joking, that can’t be legal, etc etc…”   and they stonewalled me.

As I’d paid with Paypal, I created a Paypal dispute and got my money refunded… but it left me feeling Eurosport are a bunch of underhand shysters and I’ll never buy anything from them again.

Hunt’s 4 Season Gravel Disc wheels are 20mm internal width (25mm external).

Panaracer GravelKing SK’s in 38mm measure up to 40mm when inflated to 45psi on those rims (mine do anyway).

IME the GravelKings roll extremely well – far better on tarmac for instance than any gravel tyre has a right to, and downright F-A-S-T on trails and unmade tracks. They’re supple, comfortable, and grip surprisingly well on dry hardpack…   BUT:

– A mud tyre they are not (they clog very easily)

– Gravel Kings SK’s are fragile (mine picked up several cuts within 3-4 weeks, not on the sidewalls, but on the main centre sections of the tread).

I love the way the GravelKings ride, but I’m looking elsewhere for my next set.

Resurrecting this thread…    as I’m in the market for a set of tubeless, winter 28mm-30mm tyres.

Seems like the favourites from the above comments are the Specialized Roubaix Pro 2Bliss (what the heck is ‘2Bliss’ anyway??)

and…

The Hutchinson Sector

Any thoughts from people who’ve owned both… in terms of:

– Wet weather grip?

– Durability (to punctures, cuts, etc)?

– Ease of setting up tubeless?

Also, any other tubeless road winter tyre recommendations now that winter is just around the corner?

Arguing over nuances, semantics and the finer points of interpretation is one of the enjoyable aspects of this Forum, but really, can’t we all just get along?

i mean…  it’s just ‘cycling’.

When I was 12 years old, in 1976, me and my schoolmates rode our bikes off road on tracks through the woods near my home. The bikes developed, first by us stripping them of their mudguards, front brakes, etc, then by putting cowhorn handlebars on them (remember those?), eventually removing the gears, turning them into single speeds.

By that measure, my mates and I invented “ Mountain Biking”…..  at least 8 years before Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher and the Mt Tam lot did. And everything since that time has been an evolution of our efforts.  Of course, we didn’t ‘invent’ mountain biking, lots of kids were doing the same thing at the time, as presumably had lots of others before us… for generations.

It’s all the same, but slightly different: Mountain Bike, Gravel Bike, Road Bike… if you love cycling, you love ‘em all.

My mate and I hired a Golf at Palma airport and fit the two of us in it, plus 1 bike box and another bike in a soft bag, plus 2 rollaboard (Easyjet size) cabin bags.

You should be fine with just the 2 of you, so long as your suitcases aren’t too large.

@retrorick

Which 18650 battery do you recommend pls?

I’ve got to say – I’m not a fan of Specialized… but I LOVE my Diverge!

I bought the most basic model (alu frame/carbon forks, Claris gruppo) as I knew I’d be upgrading everything except the frame/fork and wheels. I must say though, it rides fantastically well in stock trim. I thought the 8spd Claris would be terrible and that I’d ditch it after 1 ride, but it is surprisingly OK. I don’t notice the gaps between cogs off road.

The handling is a joy – it’s responsive, accelerative, yet stable and predictable. It’ll take at least 40mm (measured) tyres, probably larger (despite Specialized stating ‘up to 38mm’).

It is perfect for its intended use: a mixture of gravel/dirt tracks, Singletrack and road. I used to ride either my CX bikes or MTB’s around on those kind of rides, probably 50/50 tarmac vs off road… the Diverge is in its element on those kind of routes. I am going to use it for plenty ox CX Sportives, and more than likely ride the Dirty Reiver on it in 2019.

It also – thankfully – has an English threaded BB!  :-)

What pressure is required to seat tubeless tyres onto the rims when using something like a compressor?

I tried 90psi with some Schwalbe Nobby Nics… no dice.

My condolences.

The “2 things I never risk my life on” are:-

– Bars

– Stem

– Wheels

– Brakes

– Forks

Oh.. that’s 5 things.

Have had many steel bikes, both custom built and off-the-peg.

Last one being a Ritchey Road Logic. Fantastic handling, well built, great ride, especially for the money… they’re inexpensive.

I saw this GCN video last year and thought “That is everything I want in a bike, except with narrower clearances (as mine is a summer/road only bike) and equipped for eTap”. 

Tom Sturdy knows what he’s doing and is/was a pleasure to deal with. He’s the chief instructor at the Bicycle Academy, has made a lot of bikes, is an ex pro Triathlete, and with degrees in aeronautical engineering and sports biomechanics he likely knows a thing or two about making stuff plus the way the human body works.

Mine is arriving in a couple of weeks time…  CAN’T WAIT!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4wAeTk4wAU&t=190s

So much wrong in the replies above, some of which display lack of a grasp of basic economics.. but hey ho. If a Government reduces the annual debt from (say) £80Bn a year to £50Bn a year the total national debt will still increase, but the burden on taxpayers per annum is decreasing.

From the OBR:

UK Net Borrowing as % of GDP

So in fact the Tories have reduced the debt as a % age of GDP from 10.2% to 4.9% and it is forecast to reduce further to 2.2%.

It’s easy to sling political views around, but better to look objectively at the facts.

Politics never does well on Forums like this.

While I have no love for the current Government, if people on here want to talk about wasting taxpayers money, let’s not forget that in 1997 when Labour came into power the National Debt was £7.8 Bn. When they left power in 2010 it was £145.1 Bn.

http://https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7568/debt/government-debt-under-labour-1997-2010/

A new Royal Yacht is bonkers.

So is Labour’s record of (not) spending taxpayers money wisely.

Be interesting to bookmark this thread and revisit it in a year – Dec 2018 – and count how many new standards *cough* “innovations* the industry will have rolled out.

By then:

“Boost 148 Sir? Oh, that’s SO last weekend….”

“A gravel bike Sir? Oh yes, I have a vague recollection of those… they were popular for a while weren’t they? I wonder what happened to them?”

My prediction is that the industry will heavily market e-bikes in every category (MTB, road, commuter, whatever), and that ‘smart’ bikes will undergo further developments making them mainstream, integrating electronics with automatic shifting.

At which point actually pedalling to ride a bike will be so passé it’ll be frowned upon and we will have entirely lost the soul of actually riding a bike.

… and now the industry is trying to push all this nonsense in the road market too.

Having failed to convince anyone that 35mm bar clamps are a good thing on a road bike (Oh come on – like you really need a 35mm bar clamp on a ROAD bike??? Yeah, right…) the industry wants to make people believe that unless they’re riding a thru-axled, hydraulic disc-braked, aero-profiled, electronic-shifting, 1 X bike with 30mm tyre clearance then their bike is sh*t, or outdated/obsolete.

Gosh, how on Earth did we manage until now?

I’m certainly no retro grouch, but a lot of this so-called “innovation” is pointless and ultimately it will destroy the road bike market with people becoming as disillusioned as we lot seem to be on here about what’s happened to the MTB industry in the past 10yrs.

“standard” introductions (BB30, BB30a, PF30, BBright, BB90/95, BB86/92, 386 Evo, OSBB in both Alu and Carbon, T47

So much truth in this thread… but one needs read no further than the above to get a glimpse into all that is wrong with the bike industry. Where exactly is the REAL innovation?

I’ve entered – the full route again.

2018 will be my 5th time riding it :D

Not a great favourite of mine, but I did love Free Falling, Learning To Fly and others..

Blimey, what a crap year: Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, Chuck Berry and now Tom Petty.

It’s what happens when Private Equity firms take over good businesses and ruin things.

Bridgepoint own both Wiggle and CRC these days and created the Wiggle-CRC Group Ltd. Same declining levels of customer service at each.

Sadexpunk – I’m in a similar position (albeit I’ve moved jobs more than you, so have more pensions) and am also going through all this myself.

I found a (hopefully) trustworthy IFA and am educating myself about all the Pension gobbledegook.

At first glance, the language and terminology surrounding pensions is an impenetrable, unintelligible, avalanche of sh1te. I think it’s designed to keep normal human beings in the dark!

But I’m having success, simply taking each term / product / point one by one and using Wikipedia, Motley Fool and Hargreaves Lansdown to educate myself as to what the heck it all means (not necessarily to buy or invest in their products).

Interested in this – as I recently bought a 29er which came with tubeless and there’s a very, very small hole in the rear tyre which just won’t seal and it keeps going flat.

There’s sealant in the tyre – it’s leaking from the hole, but spinning, riding, etc just doesn’t seal it.

I’m assuming either it’s inner tube time, or a new tyre?

This:

GCN Handbuilt Bike

But with 2 x11 and closer tyre tolerances.

I have an appointment with Tom Sturdy next weekend to get one made for me. The design principles meet all my criteria, except the occasional off-road ability (I don’t care about that – got enough Cross and MTB’s already – mine will strictly be for tearing up the road!)

Can’t wait!

Are any PF BB’s any good? Not in my experience – they are ALL sh1te. Every one I’ve ever had – utter sh1te.

I blame Cannondale for inflicting the stupidest, cost-cutting, no-benefit-whatsoever-to-owners, so called ‘invention’ on the market.

#NeverbuyaCannondaleveragain

Catlike have been great for me for many years now – well vented, comfortable and they look great.

Just bought a POC Octal for a change, as came off bike in June and bashed my helmet and fancied a change.

The POC is very, very light – and VERY comfortable. But, the straps at the front stick out quite a lot relative to other helmets, so not all my glasses actually work with it. Common issue apparently with POC.

An alternative idea….

As the P-R Sportive is logistically tricky, meaning car shuttling, or a long drive, or getting up at ‘stupid-o-clock’ for the bus, or staying in a dump like Roubaix itself, my top tip is:

The best parts of Paris-Roubaix are the cobbled sectors from the Arenberg onwards. Therefore, I have ridden it twice, staying in Valenciennes, which is a nice town with good restaurants, cafes etc.. ridden from there into Roubaix following the race route and taking in all the very best cobbled sectors, then heading back out from Roubaix to Valenciennes in a round trip along some really nice, quiet country roads through Cysoing, Mouchin, Aix, etc..

OK, it’s not the *actual* race route itself, but neither is the Sportive, and logistically it’s one heck of a lot easier and just as much fun.

And… BITD

Heros: Bardet for exciting racing, Uran for never say die attitude, Martin for constantly attacking

Villains: Aru for attacking le Maillot Jaune whilst having a mechanical – and the French fans for booing and being not good sports

Highlights: The race up the airstrip where Froome was in trouble – the only time it looked there was genuinely a race on.

Low lights: flat stage tedium

Your general thoughts:
Strangely this has been the most exciting – and simultaneously – the most boring, Tour in recent years.

Exciting that the top 4 were separated by less than 30 seconds entering the final week – so all to play for and the promise of great battles to come.
Boring because those epic battles didn’t occur – plus too many tedious flat stages.

What I want from sport is excitement and I think most people do. We want epic battles, we want toil and suffering, jubilation, heroism, intrigue and suspense. We want to be on the edge of our seats, or jumping up and down screaming at the telly.

I’m very glad Chris Froome won – but I would have preferred he’d been put under extreme pressure and this his victory was hard-fought, hard-won and that we’d witnessed epic battles along the way.

Sadly, we didn’t.

Majorca – west side of the island mostly, you want to be in the Serra de Tramuntana mountains

Tuscany anywhere – Lucca is great, as is the entire area between Siena/Pienza (white roads/strade branche)

Calpe/Denia/Javea/Altea- the entire area inland from the coast is awesome

Lake Como – utterly brilliant and you’ll get to see the Madonna di Ghisallo chapel and ride the Sormano climb.. epic. Lots there for a week or more.

Bormio – for the Stelvio, Gavia, Mortirolo. Hard. It hurts. Epic scenery though.

Pyrenees – stay in Argeles Gazost and ride the Tourmalet, Aubisque, Hautacam, Soulor and others. Probably one of my favourite paces I’ve been to. Lourdes is interesting too (ride 15kms along a converted rail track from Argeles Gazost to Lourdes and back).

Provence – am going back again next month, staying in Isle sur Sorgue. Will get to ride Mt Ventoux again but this time I’ll spend a week exploring Provence instead of just targeting Ventoux for and in-and-out.

Bordeaux/St Emilion – riding along the Dordogne is beautiful – I did a 100 mile ride on my fixie along the banks of the Dordogne 4 years ago :-)
Beautiful, quiet surrounding areas too – can’t go wrong really.

Ghent/Bruges – Tour of Flanders area… I’ve ridden the ToF 4 times and always thought what a fantastic place this area would be to go to in the summer when the sun is shining. Fantastic bike paths, bergs, roads, very cycling-centric culture. Lots of interesting things to see and do off the bike too. Not like rural France!

St Jean de Maurienne – you can get to some fantastic rides from here and it’s a great little place to stay – there’s the Opinel Museum here too. Ride the cols de Madeleine, Croix de Fer, Glandon, Telegraphe, Galibier, les Lacets du Montvernier, etc..

Atlantic Coast of France – 5yrs ago my wife, kids and I did a holiday where we started in Biarritz and wended our way up the West Coast of France to La Rochelle over several relaxed days – me typically riding for 2-4hrs, them driving/stopping to see things along the way, getting coffees, eating ice creams etc. Beautiful. Inland in ‘Les Landes’ is also great – quiet, flat to rolling terrain, very forested, clean air. Lots of great campsites in that area too. Plus interesting sand dunes, natural features.

Le Touquet – definitely going back here. 1hr from Calais by car.. it’s SO easy to get to. Really interesting little place, beautiful streets, houses, lovely rolling roads surrounding it. Interesting war cemeteries etc and of course – seafood!!!

email in profile if you want any more ideas, or greater info on places mentioned..

2hrs away by car are St George and Hurricane, UT.

I’ve ridden there and some very, very good riding to be found. Great, informative bike shop in Hurricane too.

Someone said there weren’t enough pics of Colnago’s, so here goes…

C59 #1

IMG_3312 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

IMG_3318 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

Halfway up Alpe d’Huez… the graffiti says it all really. Words to live by. :-)

IMG_0476 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

Arty shots (sort of…)

IMG_0356 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

IMG_0349 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

Col du Soulor – Pyrenees

IMG_0304 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

C59 #2

IMG_3291 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

IMG_3293 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

CLX 1 (2008)

I’ve owned three CLX’s now and this was my favourite. Sadly, I don’t seem to have any pics of the complete bike.

P1030433 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

The CLX is a fantastic-riding bike. It has a special blend of precise handling, great steering, plus incredible comfort. I owned this one for 7 years and it handled the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders with the same grace and aplomb that it handled the climbs and roads of Sussex and the Surrey Hills. So much so that many of my mates who test rode it ended up buying Colnago CLX’s.

I have since owned a CLX 2, ridden several CLX 3’s and I think the CLX 1 was the best of them. They’re all good, but the version 1 simply rode the best.

I now own a CLX 4 but that is a completely different bike. It rides much more like a V1-R with which it shares many design attributes: stiffer, harsher than the 1st gen CLX, not as comfortable (yet it’s not an uncomfortable bike). The difference in power transfer versus the 1st gen CLX’s is very noticeable when you stand on the pedals – it really picks up its legs in a racier manner.

Me and my mates’ bikes at the Madonna di Ghisallo, Lake Como

IMG_0243 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

Me, spring 2017. Yes – we found some cobbles in Sussex :-)

IMG_3141 by simonpearson[/url], on Flickr

Before I get accused of being a blinkered Colnago fanboy, I’ve owned many other very worthy road bikes such as Lemond, Specialized, Trek, Serotta, Ritchey, Steelman, Giant and others.

There’s one simple reason I love Colnago’s: ride quality. Nothing else has quite the same feel as the Colnago’s I’ve owned.

No-one can say that a Serotta, Steelman, Specialized Tarmac or Trek Emonda aren’t great bikes, they are; but for me, Colnago has it all: superb handling, delightful steering, extremely predictable, solid, confidence-inspiring descending. The fact that it’s a Colnago, with its little bit of magic and heritage, just adds a little but more :-)

I’ve had CX bikes (trendy new category-defining label to sell more bikes now is ‘Gravel Bike’) for the past 30 years, and just sold my current one in favour of a lightweight, fast 29er.

I’d say it all depends on the trails and terrain you will be riding. While Gravel Bikes are pushed as ‘go anywhere’ bikes – while they can ‘go anywhere’ I all-too-often found myself going slower on the rougher bits than I would on an MTB, and slower on the smoother bits than I do on my Road bike.

Their versatility is wonderful – but as others have stated, its also a compromise.

I reluctantly acknowledged to myself that the majority of routes I ride on my CX/Gravel bike are in fact faster, more fun and more pleasurable on a lightweight 29er, but YMMV.

See if you can take a ride on a borrowed CX/Gravel bike and ride your local terrain…

Thule Atlantis incl roof bars and foot pack in the Classifieds here:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/thule-atlantis-roof-box-roof-bars-foot-pack?replies=1#post-8539239

I rode along the Dordogne from St Emilion for a couple of hundred miles 2 yrs ago (only had 2 days) and would definitely like to do more. Mostly riverside paths, quiet roads. Lovely.

And the wine! :-)

Oh dear… I was contemplating riding the White Roads Classic in July, is it also shoddily organised/run?

How does SRAM eTap compare to Shimano Di2 and Campagnolo EPS?

I see the full SRAM eTap gruppo is about £1,000 cheaper than Di2 and EPS…?

Wow!

Just Wow!

Beautiful.

Trying to decide on a custom steel frame myself.

Currently looking at Donhou, Feather and Quirk but will check out Reilly.

I have a ted james, excellent. I do work for Bespoked and know the scene and builders pretty well…my UK choice:
Feather
Saffron
Field
Rourke
Talbot
Demon
Paulos Quiros
Donhou
Hartley
Shand

Euro ti:

Tang… interesting list.. why Feather at the top? I’ve been looking at them and they do look pretty nice.. but better than Donhou, Saffron, Demon?