My new bike, suggestions?

After my current bike got stolen I now need to by a new one.
Ok I'm looking for suggestions. My pervious bike was a hard-tail MTB
with semislicks. In effect it was a mountenish hybrid. The good
things was that it did almost everthing I needed of it, carried me
(10Xkg) and my monthly gorcaries (25kg). It allowed my to ride to my
perents 25km, It allowed me to go on long rides around sydney (100km)
and if I was feeling realy game I could almost ride up the mountain
along the expressway. (Though I couldn't do all these things at the
same time).

The poor things was it was rather heavy and it was slow. (Or
perhaps that was just me). Even in the fastest gear peddeling the
fastest I could (~100 RPM) I could only get up to 43ish km/h. Which
ment that I was almost always being overtaken.

I think what I need is most likely a slight lighter version of
my old bike with a broader range of gears.

--
Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia. See
http://dformosa.zeta.org.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html to find out more.
Free the Memes. Will set followups on crossposts of 3 of more

Peter Signorini said:

For road riding you'd be much better
with something like the Schwalbe Marathon, Vittoria Randonneur Cross or
Continental Top Touring 2000. Thes tyres come in a 26" size, run a pressure
of 70psi and have a round section with a finer road tread (no knobs). They
are excellent for tarmac and dirt road riding.

I haven't tried another set of tyres on the same bike, but the one I've
got with Schwalbe Marathons feels slow. I'd suggest an absolute slick, or
minimal tread. Won't make an appreciable difference offroad unless you're
a long way into the rough stuff. Dirt roads and fire trails can be ridden
on a decently wide slick with no problems, though knobs do hook up better
when it's loose (duh!).

For 26" I quite liked the WTB slickasaurus and the IRC metro
lasts for ever, rolls fairly well, and is fairly cheap. I've ridden both
of them over 10,000km on road and probably a hundred or so on various
patches of dirt in that.

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
"One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that,
lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of
their C programs." -- Robert Firth

Bleve said:

Or, if most of the riding is on road, maybe a hybrid (taller gearing
than a MTB) or even a roady. A roady tourer could be worth a look.

I'd have a hard time going past the value you get in a good hardtail these
days. 44-11 should be tall enough for most mortals to spin along at
anything they're likely to do. I've overtaken buses downhilll with that
gear (around 75, lots of spinning and tucking).

I'd agree that something dedicated for road is quicker on road, but not by
much. For a punter I think the lower gearing of a converted MTB is more
useful as well. A 1.5" slick at ~80 psi is more comfortable than a 110psi
23mm tyre as well.

Roadies have their place [1], but a slicked up hardtail can be a pretty
good substitute if you only want one bike. Weird attitude to have that
last...

[1] The cafe isn't it? </troll>

--
Dave Hughes | [email hidden]
"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does
not ask remains a fool forever." -- Old Chinese saying

Random Data said:

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 06:54:16 +0000, David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus)

Quoted message said:

The poor things was it was rather heavy and it was slow. (Or
perhaps that was just me). Even in the fastest gear peddeling the
fastest I could (~100 RPM) I could only get up to 43ish km/h. Which
ment that I was almost always being overtaken.

That's a fairly low cadence. You should be able to go to 120, at least for
short bursts, and that'll lift you up over 50km/h. In fact, on a
standardish 26" wheel and 44/11 gearing (bog stock these days) you should
be able to do 16m/s at 120rpm. That's 57km/h, which I'd be rather happy to
hold for any length of time.

The biggest thing against you on an MTBish style bike is the position.
You're normally quite upright. Bar ends let you stretch out a bit, or
learn to do the dodgy elbows on the bar aero tuck as modelled by Landis
last night. Remember you can't get to your brakes in a hurry if you do
this.

Quoted message said:

I think what I need is most likely a slight lighter version of
my old bike with a broader range of gears.

Got a budget? There are a lot of good value MTBs that aren't particularly
heavy. 9 speed with an 11-34 cluster lets you go nuts, and you can even
increase the size of the chainrings if you really want.

Or, if most of the riding is on road, maybe a hybrid (taller gearing
than a MTB) or even a roady. A roady tourer could be worth a look.

David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus) said:

After my current bike got stolen I now need to by a new one.
Ok I'm looking for suggestions. My pervious bike was a hard-tail MTB
with semislicks. In effect it was a mountenish hybrid.

The bike I currently use for road riding (commuting and touring) is very
mjuch like this. A rigid steel MTB with treaded road tyres. A great
all-rounder that I've used heavily for many years now.

Quoted message said:

The good things was that it did almost everthing I needed of it, carried
me
(10Xkg) and my monthly gorcaries (25kg). It allowed my to ride to my
perents 25km, It allowed me to go on long rides around sydney (100km)
and if I was feeling realy game I could almost ride up the mountain
along the expressway. (Though I couldn't do all these things at the
same time).

Sounds like it was a very useful bike. I'd consider sonmething similar.

Quoted message said:

The poor things was it was rather heavy and it was slow. (Or
perhaps that was just me). Even in the fastest gear peddeling the
fastest I could (~100 RPM) I could only get up to 43ish km/h. Which
ment that I was almost always being overtaken.

Weight is much more cheply taken off your body than off the bike, and in
larger chunks! As far as gearing is concerned, you can easily alter the gear
range, and greater practice at spinning will raise your cadence to 110-120,
which will help you to raise your speeds. Also your semi-slicks could be low
pressure slugs. I'm not impressed by the semi-slick concept of a slick/low
tread centre and knobs on the sides. For road riding you'd be much better
with something like the Schwalbe Marathon, Vittoria Randonneur Cross or
Continental Top Touring 2000. Thes tyres come in a 26" size, run a pressure
of 70psi and have a round section with a finer road tread (no knobs). They
are excellent for tarmac and dirt road riding.

As far as speed is concerned, what are you riding for? Is it racing that you
want to do, or transport, or touring? Speed is nice, but I ride for fun. My
bike is heavy and has 26X1.5 tyres, not 700X23mm racing slicks, but I
happily keep pace with (often outpace) the friends I ride with. I still get
to my destination in plenty of time, and reason that the heavier bike is
just a form of load training :-)

--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)

Look out for a lightweight cro-moly (name brand steel, Reynolds, True
Temper, Deda, Columbus etc.) frame that hasn't been raced, or buy a new
one (Salsa, DMR, VooDoo, Jamis, KHS etc., Google 'Steel hardtail' 'MTB
cro-moly' etc.). You can make a high-end cro-moly hardtail into an
excellent all-round bike, put a rigid fork and panniers on it, 27 speed
drivetrain or hub gears, singlespeed if you're hard core, commute
(disguise it with grotty stickers for security), tour, then unload it,
get some nice tyres and go fast! I like Vredestein S-Licks, which are
the fastest rolling, least puncturable 26" tyres I have ever used, and
they seem not to ever wear out. 2 punctures in a year's worth of
commuting through the city.

MH (whose city [censored] is alas, 7005 Alu, but whose MTB is good ol'
Reynolds 525)

David Formosa (aka ? the Platypus) said:

After my current bike got stolen I now need to by a new one.
Ok I'm looking for suggestions. My pervious bike was a hard-tail MTB
with semislicks. In effect it was a mountenish hybrid. The good
things was that it did almost everthing I needed of it, carried me
(10Xkg) and my monthly gorcaries (25kg). It allowed my to ride to my
perents 25km, It allowed me to go on long rides around sydney (100km)
and if I was feeling realy game I could almost ride up the mountain
along the expressway. (Though I couldn't do all these things at the
same time).

The poor things was it was rather heavy and it was slow. (Or
perhaps that was just me). Even in the fastest gear peddeling the
fastest I could (~100 RPM) I could only get up to 43ish km/h. Which
ment that I was almost always being overtaken.

I think what I need is most likely a slight lighter version of
my old bike with a broader range of gears.

--
Please excuse my spelling as I suffer from agraphia. See
http://dformosa.zeta.org.au/~dformosa/Spelling.html to find out more.
Free the Memes. Will set followups on crossposts of 3 of more

"Random Data" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Bleve said:

Or, if most of the riding is on road, maybe a hybrid (taller gearing
than a MTB) or even a roady. A roady tourer could be worth a look.

I'd have a hard time going past the value you get in a good hardtail these
days. 44-11 should be tall enough for most mortals to spin along at
anything they're likely to do. I've overtaken buses downhilll with that
gear (around 75, lots of spinning and tucking).

I'd agree that something dedicated for road is quicker on road, but not by
much. For a punter I think the lower gearing of a converted MTB is more
useful as well. A 1.5" slick at ~80 psi is more comfortable than a 110psi
23mm tyre as well.

Roadies have their place [1], but a slicked up hardtail can be a pretty
good substitute if you only want one bike. Weird attitude to have that
last...

[1] The cafe isn't it? </troll>

Dunno about the lower gearing. Admittedly I don't hit many serious hills,
but I'm seriously considering getting a double ring crankset (with 165mm
arms) because I never make use of the granny ring. The slightly smaller
secong ring on the double will actually give me a wider gear range but even
with the triple, I've only ever been at the bottom of the cassette on the
second ring a couple of times and no urge to drop onto the granny. 39/25 is
pretty short.

Resound said:

Dunno about the lower gearing. Admittedly I don't hit many serious hills,
but I'm seriously considering getting a double ring crankset (with 165mm
arms) because I never make use of the granny ring. The slightly smaller
secong ring on the double will actually give me a wider gear range but
even with the triple, I've only ever been at the bottom of the cassette on
the second ring a couple of times and no urge to drop onto the granny.
39/25 is pretty short.

That's Ok. I am guessing you don't do much loaded touring, particularly not
in the mountains. David didn't say what he wants his bike for so we have to
be fairly general, and cover all cycling styles.

In cycling it's always going to be 'horses for courses' but in my opinion,
it's a lot easier to ride a bike equipped with a wide-range triple on the
ATB than it is to take a 39/25 equipped road tourer loaded with camping gear
over the Bogong High Plains. Around town I never use the granny ring either
(and rarely the middle), and the granny only occasionally gets a run on
touring day rides, but on hilly multi-day camping tours it's an essential
gear. I've recently gone from 26/32 to 22/32 and it is just the thing for
climbing steep (1:8) rocky back roads.
--
Cheers
Peter

~~~ ~ _@
~~ ~ _- \,
~~ (*)/ (*)