I have an Orbea Gain which I use for commuting 13miles each way. Overall, it’s a little down hill on the way in and uphill on the way back, but only slightly.

For my route, it’s no quicker than a normal road bike but when I want to take it easy I can do it for about a 3rd less effort according to my power meter. The motor cuts the assist fairly seamlessly at 15.5mph, it’s just akin to pedalling a bit of a heavy bike at that point. It weighs about 30lb, so similar to a mountain bike and nowhere near as much as an e-bike with a gearbox in the frame. Feels a bit pointless if you’re constantly over 15mph, it works better when you chill out and let the motor do some work. Worth saying also, that the Orbea won’t take you straight to 15.5mph with a little pedalling. It’s very much an *assist* style, where it’s like having a gentle shove in the back rather than a rocket ship at the push of a button. You put in most the effort and it adds a little to it.

If it was more climbing and then more down, I think the benefits would be more apparent.

I was overtaken by a home brew e-bike, mountain bike with a massive rear hub motor and battery on a rack, the other day. I was doing 25mph and struggling to keep up. I have to say it did look fun.

Having tested in comparison to the power meter inbuilt in my Drivo turbo, the assioma’s have been 1 and 3watts for any steady effort up to about 400w. Mates have other crank based systems that are 20 or 30 watts different when compared to the turbo. Even accounting for error differences that’s too much in my book!

+1 for Assioma pedals, though mine needed a bearing change after riding through the biblical floods in Lancashire Jan/Feb this year. Only about £15 for new bearings

Novatec Jetfly might be a little more than £300

Yeah, as above, powder coat is thick and seems quite robust but the ones I’ve seen don’t quite seem to have the same full glossy sheen as factory paint.

Garrick Surface Coatings in Bamber Bridge did a full suss Marin for me about 10 years ago, they did a lot of bike frames back then and the guys knew what needed masking up etc. Not sure if they still do, but worth a call if you are local.

I have vague recollection of getting an error message when I tried to register my Mavic wheels on their website. Can’t remember if it was a typo on my part or I just tried again later and it was fine.

But regardless, I thought the warranty would be dealt with by the shop? They are the ones who then deal with the manufacturer. Surely the UK law isn’t such that you have to “claim” your warranty by registering a product?! Surely it’s a data capture exercise.

Is there any possibility the shop has registered all the wheels they stock from Mavic before they sell them on to the public?

When my Mavic freehub went wobbly I just dealt directly with the seller no problems even though I had registered them with Mavic.

I have to say it does seem like it picks up the fact I’m in the UK and not like I’m buying off a Chinese website in dollars. But I’ll check cos that would be a bit of a bummer, as it’s the same price as the UK RRP when you convert the Euros to pounds.

Really? Seems like a long way to go to get all the air out to start with?

I suppose it is easier that way with a funnel at the top

Depends which brand and the level of integrated kit I suppose but pick say the CAAD Force AXS at £4800. £1k frame and about £1.5k for the groupset. So £2300 left for wheels and finishing kit. I wouldn’t put a value if £2.3k on the rest of the kit that comes with it even if the Cannondale wheels are good. Maybe that’s an odd example because it’s an alloy frame but I bet there are others.

As per kerley, I’d rather pick my own spec at that price

A cat ran out on me 6 weeks ago on the road bike. Went down on my left side. Managed to ride home a mile away but could barely walk after an hour being home. X-rays showed no break but it was two weeks of planning every move round the house, paracetamol, ibuprofen, codeine, naproxen….and barely being able to lift my foot off the ground. Nothing helped the pain.

Back riding now, but still feels like something pretty traumatised right in the ball joint area of my hip. Still hurts getting my trousers and socks on.

But it all sounds pretty mild fayre compared to some of you guys!

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to specify “no wheels”?

When you break down the price of a complete bike, it is often cheaper to build one from scratch. Even £2k-£3k for a frame, still leaves a lot for groupset and wheels and finishing kit (which is often equally as average as the wheels)

+1 for imnotverygood and chakaping…..

People will be friendly or not regardless of what type of bike they’re on.

And as per chakaping, pretty friendly in Lancs regardless.

Probably a few things in favour of pro riders…. 1) they’re more skilled than us mortals 2) they’re using tubs which (I think but may be wrong) means the rims can disperse heat better 3) I doubt there are many tour riders at 100kg….

Pros aren’t using discs cos they’re better for them or that they need them. Bike companies need to sell disc bikes. And for a lot of the people they sell to, discs probably are better. Not for everyone though. Good rim brakes are still absolutely fine.

joebristol
Subscriber

@mtbtomo

My Cannondale CAAD12 105 with saddle, seatpost and bars swapped out, ~1600g wheels and tubeless tyres weighs ~7.3kg.

This sounds very light

Very polite way of saying ‘I call bullshit’ 🙃 It may be true but sounds very unlikely.

@Boblo Keep up! I’ve already admitted it not really 105 at all any more with the Ultegra crank, Dura ace calipers 😳🤣

@joebristol – It’s rim brake. Carbon hylix in-line seatpost, ti railed saddle, Cube carbon bars, carbon stem top cap….. Actually thinking about it a bit more….only the STI levers and the front mech are 105 😳🤣. The rear mech is a Microsoft Arsis, 165mm Ultegra cranks and Dura Ace rim calipers.

Mostly eBay secondhand or Chinese carbon. And I bought the bike in the sale. I know it’s not disc and aero but just illustrating that a few sensible kit choices can lose a chunk of weight without massive expense.

So unless I’m changing the hose, the insert will remain the same at both ends…. Or do I potentially need to change both inserts depending on which caliper I use?

Thanks guys.

When you say inserts Daffy, is it easy to tell the difference?

My Cannondale CAAD12 105 with saddle, seatpost and bars swapped out, ~1600g wheels and tubeless tyres weighs ~7.3kg. I reckon it will have been significantly less than £2k in total. So another £3k to find 500g? Easy. If you’re sensible and scrutinise everything.

Or have I missed something in the 90 odd previous posts since the OP?

A friend of mine has an Ican road frame and it was fine apart from I think he may have needed some carbon paste to stop the seatpost slipping a little. I’ve had an Ican seatpost and that has been fine too, but clearly not quite the same level as a frame!

Seen as there are so many disc bikes on the market and have been for years with shimano cranksets, surely there is no issue??

+1 for Prime and +1 for Hunt. I’ve had multiple sets of both, rim and disc versions. Might be wrong but I would guess that most wheels that aren’t cheapo sub £100 wheels will use alu nipples unless they’re handbuilt.

I tried to put a 105 stages on an XT crank once and whilst the axle/arm interface seemed fine, mountain bike chainstays are a lot fatter so mountain bike cranks have a more pronounced bend to avoid a frame clash.

So I’d say it should be fine on a road bike orientated gravel or cc bike, you will likely struggle fitting it to an MTB.

I did Sufferfest to RPE back when it was just MP4 video files.

I did quickly get myself a speed/cadence sensor but with no sensors it was an entertaining way of sitting on the turbo for an hour.

Judging RPE is a skill itself, aiming for numbers sometimes takes a bit of thought out of the “is this really an aerobic/threshold/VO2 [or whatever] effort”

A bit of admittedly sadistic entertainment to be had without sensors for sure I would say!

Sometimes I think it is just the bar clamp settling, I’ve had it happen a few times, not just on carbon bars

One sided is fine, I used a single side crank arm until I broke my hip and then went dual sided to see if the break made any difference. Some days it varies some days I’m 50/50.

Single sided is a lot better than no power meter whatsoever.

And even with dual sided, there are probably more important things to worry about in the overall scheme of things than one leg being stronger than the other, or being slightly out. People trained to perceived exertion before power meters didn’t they and managed just fine!

Yes, routing is internal but has nice big ports compared to some of the internally routed bars I’ve had.

On a bar that isn’t internally routed, then unless you wrap the bar tape right up to where you would normally wrap it (i.e. near the stem, rather than just past the hood/bend) then you’d still need some kind of tape to hold cables in place. I’ve used insulation tape alone but it looks a bit of a bodge.

I’m interested in these too….but to just to confirm it is a cable actuated hydraulic caliper? I assume they can be bled if needed?

It’s a Shimano Revoshift. I personally wouldn’t be swayed by any older but possibly higher end models.

My youngest struggled with trigger shifters. Especially with the required leverage needed for the thumb push on the trigger shifter. Plus it never seemed that intuitive to him, didn’t seem to change gears that much, you could see him thinking about it.

He’s had gripshift on his Cannondale Cujo since he was 8 nearly a year ago and that has made a massive difference. He finds it so much more intuitive, I’m not having to remind him to change gears or which thumb/finger to use, and it’s not at all stiff to use.

I think its a cheap but recent Shimano unit, not SRAM. SRAM could be stiffer? I’d say definitely worth a try.

When my kids were 6 I don’t think they ever had an issue with feet slipping off pedals even with the original plastic cage pedals, but the Specialized pedals that bizarrely came on my lad’s Cannondale(!) are moulded like proper flats with moulded pins are very good.

Don’t see how you can go wrong with that Lost Lad. New Claris is pretty good and functions well on my e-bike. Don’t see many (or any?) other 650b gravel bikes for that kind of money.

The 53 is definitely more akin to a “normal” 56 size – with a 560 top tube. In which case a 175 head tube isn’t too outrageous, especially if you slam the stem.

My prime black edition rim wheels are wider than the Hunt 50mm I also have. Tyres went tubeless on then just fine, no more difficult than the other 4 or 5 pairs of road wheels I have set up Tubeless before.

I would happily buy the disc version.

Yep, swap them between forks as you see fit. If you can’t get the headset properly loaded then you’ll know it won’t do the job. I’ve had one that didn’t grip the inside of the steerer at all well and seemed to pull out over a number of rides. But other than that all fine.

What do crown races have to do with it? You need the one that comes with your headset. Or one with the same dimensions. That’s it surely.

This might be slightly more than your initial question and doesn’t really answer it but….

I’ve had my two lads (9 and 12) doing the turbo since lockdown and a lot of the time I just tell them steady for half an hour. Over that time one has managed 137 and the other about 118 (and I should say it’s not higher with age necessarily). And I can now tell what is a good effort for them and what is them taking it way too easy.

I reckon they could now pace a 20minute maximal effort rather than being in tears after 2minutes for going out too hard. But do they need to???

Training kids is slightly different to training adults because often just general growth will provide more improvement than actual progressive training.

I could give them power zones, heart rates, cadences etc but training should be simple. Kids will soon get a measure of RPE and what a good sustainable aerobic effort is compared to a hard sprint effort.

I keep the sessions simple generally mixing between easy (just listening to music), steady, short sprints, and riding outside (for fun).

I think my point is, that there are ways to make training structured and progressive without needing to even consider an FTP test.

I was about a mile from home last week on the road bike and hit a cat that ran out on me. Hit the deck and had to go to a&e. I wasn’t going that fast or riding beyond what was sensible – I just wouldn’t have fallen off under normal circumstances if that cat didn’t come across the road.

So as per most the other comments, people should be kind in these times and not be too quick to judge.

And as always whenever I have had to call on local hospital, I couldn’t speak highly enough of the treatment I received.

As per Variflex I had a Stages on an alloy TCX SLR and there’s was plenty of clearance.

Not got the Cinelli any more, but still have this Saracen Avro, CAAD and a Tifosi