If it’s purely road I wouldn’t bother unless you have to buy a mech anyway and the price difference is negligible.

Even on my mostly off-road gravel bike I’ve been using a non-clutch 105 rear mech with an extended hanger all year with no issues. I think the chainring does the majority of retention, the clutch seems more to limit chain slap which isn’t really a thing on the road.

I went larger “because marketing” and actually ended up feeling less stable on the bike because more of my weight was pulled onto the front by my hands being further apart.

I’ve since settled back to a normal width (40cm for me) but a more aggressive flair/shorter drop for the techy stuff and that seems a lot more comfortable to me.

That looks bloody excellent!

If you get a front wheel with a non-boost Hope Hub, you can run that with QR or Bolt Through forks with an easy endcap swap for about £15 (or even boost bolt-through, but the kit is slightly more).

Quote often find a front wheel built around a Hope Pro 2 hub for pennies on ebay/marketplace if it’s a relatively unfashionable width/brand rim.

Another E-Bike related brake bargain is the SRAM Guide RE’s.

If you don’t need/want tons of adjustment they’re essentially a Code DH caliper with a basic Guide lever. I’ve put them on both MTB’s now as I love how powerful they are and it means I can just have one spare type of pad “in stock”, can often pick them up for about £50-60/end.

I don’t think having a bigger bike than you ‘need’ is a bad thing. I took my 130mm travel Santa Cruz 5010 to Morzine the first time, and the following year I had my Cotic Rocket at 160/150 and I progressed massively faster as the bike took care of the chunky bits and left me to concentrate on line choice/not being a wimp.

I really like 650×47 on mine, from a comfort and grip point of view. I also like how low the whole bike is/feels for handling.

I’m sure 700×45-ish would also be great, but I’m short so with the small frame size I’d probably end up kicking my front wheel a lot when turning at slow speed. If you’re on a medium/large frame I’d go for whatever you can get/have already that you can fit a decently wide tyre to.

Is it because you’re riding a dog rather than a bike?

Sorry..

@mashr oh yes it wasn’t a complaint, purely my fault for not realising it was a bank holiday!
Or rather I think there was a note at the top of the website saying there were no next-day deliveries that weekend but it still let me select the free next day delivery option at checkout so I was mildly hopeful it might still turn up.

I paid the £9.99 for 1yr unlimited next day delivery from Wiggle, and I think the only time it hasn’t arrived as promised over 12 months was when I ordered something over the Jubilee double bank holiday weekend and it rocked up 2 days later. That’s the only time in probably 30+ orders over 12 months though!
I never pay next day for CRC though, but it tends to arrive withing 24-48hrs regardless.

@andykirk I made the mistake of joining the Neo Retro Velo facebook page. It has put many similar expensive and unnecessary thoughts in my head, but that’s not unusual!

Yep Downhill Maxxis Tyres will be like pedalling through treacle! So I’d say you can make a big difference for quite a small investment in some more suitable ones.

Draggy and heavy tyres can completely kill the feel of a bike and make it seem much heavier and more sluggish. What variety of Maxxis Tyres do you have? When I took my double casing (DD) DHF & Aggressor off for a normal set of Minions when I got back from the Alps and it dropped 1kg off the bike and felt like a completely different machine!

I have a Ritchey Swiss Cross Disc as a road bike, and I was looking into whether I was missing out on weight/speed compared to a carbon bike. Not for competitive reasons, but I was curious!

I borrowed my colleagues high spec Canyon Ultimate CF race bike which has carbon integrated everything and weighs mid-7kg’s. For me it felt livelier/faster but actually wasn’t on country roads near me, it didn’t hold speed as well especially over broken road surfaces and felt a lot more nervous. The Eureka moment though was when I took his Mavic Cosmic carbon wheels off and fitted them to my Ritchey! Absolutely transformed it and I went straight out and bought a set second hand, it was the best of both worlds for me. I had my comfortable stable bike, but with a noticeable amount of extra kick and response on the climbs/sprints and a couple of mph of ‘free’ speed on the flats.

TLDR; If you like your current bike, treat it and yourself to some nice wheels.