Bicycle help

cableguy2003

cableguy2003

cableguy2003

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Joined
29 Jan 2003
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Strange topic , but some of you may know your onions.

Ive been using a bike as a fitness thing for the last 8 months but a cheapo £90 full susser hasnt been holding up to well and its time i got a decent setup.

However i use a bike for a broad range of things so i either need hybrid or 2 bikes , so just wondering your opinions really as ive seen an actual MTB that i love , but obviously thats going the two bikes route.

I use the bike mainly for the daily commute to work , this is 10 miles round trip , not all tarmac, couple of grassed bits , few gutters etc..

At weekends i do like to go the odd blackroute/proper off road/national park kinda stuff.

And finally im entering quite a few sponsored bike rides this year varying from 33 mile to possibly nearly 200 miles ( that one over 2 days ) so for this i need something that can progress at a decent pace on tarmac.

So the question is do i go for 2 bikes , or a hybrid , im thinking hybrid is TOO middle of the road , will probably break on a black route and probably slow me down on the tarmac in 100 mile bike rides ?

Your opinions please and recomendations of particular bikes welcomed.

Thanks a lot
 
Budget about £500 initially for either a good mtb or a good hybrid , if i go mtb then i can spend £200 ish on a road bike a little later on ?

I rekon that hybrid above wouldnt be up to what i do at weekends :(
 
The best compromise really would be a fast hardtail mountain bike, which has a fork that can be locked off. Then get a set of extra wheels with road tyres on them, so you can switch them out for proper road riding and commuting.

You will get better help in the Sports forum by the way.
 
i cant go into any specifics, so id tell you want i am planning, as i am in a similar situation.

Get a fairly strong hybrid bike, no disk brakes, that you think will be able to handle grass, with bumps, not a wimbledon court :D

and get a good road bike for fast things.

although i hate the roads in london, i have to cycle though oxford street, and the state of the ground is just madness
 
Buy your mountain bike and buy some seperate Hybrid wheel/tyres for road use.

When its time to do your off roading just switch back to the chunky mountain bike tyres.
 
I agree. Look at the Specialised range for a hardtail. At that price you'll get something reasonable with a locking front fork. Get another set of wheels with road/light offroad tyres (or just swap them to some Maxxis ones when you're ready to go on the black runs :))
 
If any of these sponsored bike rides are on the road you want a proper road bike for them.

You sure you could do a 200mile bike ride lol? you must be extremely fit to do that, the best I've done is 160miles, took about 10 hours I think and I was knackered after that!
 
willhub said:
If any of these sponsored bike rides are on the road you want a proper road bike for them.

You sure you could do a 200mile bike ride lol? you must be extremely fit to do that, the best I've done is 160miles, took about 10 hours I think and I was knackered after that!
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10 hours is a good time for 160 miles , on MTB tyres over mixed land i.e hills and downhill i average around 13 - 14 miles per hour.

I did say the 200 miles was over 2 days though :) 200 in one day , i think not lol
 
Have a look at Giants range. They produce some very good bikes at reasonable cost. Thinking about the XTC series in particular. You dont need seperate wheels though. I'd just get a set of tyres that are less knobbly than the ones the bike comes with. In saying that, I use my Kona Dawg for just about everything :D
 
best for me is 60miles in like 4 hours 30 though i had to stop and start millions of times at traffic lights.. thats the most annoying thing.
 
cableguy2003 said:
10 hours is a good time for 160 miles , on MTB tyres over mixed land i.e hills and downhill i average around 13 - 14 miles per hour.

I did say the 200 miles was over 2 days though :) 200 in one day , i think not lol
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I see, on my road bike I nearly always average about 18mph, sometimes up to 20mph. I could do 100miles, but I'd not be able to do it even in 2 days as for me it takes me a couple of days to get my legs to recover and all the energy to come back, wish I was like you and could recover fast.

When I go from Manchester to York, over the pennines, 4000+ft of climbing, I usually average about 17.3mph, but once there was this tailwind and I managed 18.6mph on that, 42mph on the top of the pennines was awesome :D, traffic lights are a killer, they just make the journey harder.

You can get some nice road bikes for around 500 quid, could even build a decent one for around 600, ribble do a Winter Audax frame + free carbon forks for around 120 quid but someone I was talking to managed to get one for 100 quid at some point! amazing value.
 
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willhub said:
I see, on my road bike I nearly always average about 18mph, sometimes up to 20mph. I could do 100miles, but I'd not be able to do it even in 2 days as for me it takes me a couple of days to get my legs to recover and all the energy to come back, wish I was like you and could recover fast.
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Ive never actaully done it , but thats what im aiming for. I got 6 months to train so ill have to see how i get one.
 
cableguy2003 said:
Ive never actaully done it , but thats what im aiming for. I got 6 months to train so ill have to see how i get one.
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You should definitely be able to do it then, I started cycling properly in april and I progressed so fast, within 2 months I lost 2 stone and was doing a 100-140 mile ride every week

Do you have any cycling clubs round you? If so see if they do any social rides and join and do them weekly, then in the week do rides on your own like 20-60 miles, you should progress pretty good.

I was doing 100miles nearly every week on Saturday or Sunday between may and september, then in the weekdays when I was at college cycling 20 miles a day commuting which helped me. I could not do what I could do then atm as winter and moving to manchester for college/uni has killed my performance but I'm improving again, 98 miles last week, 80 miles this week the other day.
 
Nexus said:
The best compromise really would be a fast hardtail mountain bike, which has a fork that can be locked off. Then get a set of extra wheels with road tyres on them, so you can switch them out for proper road riding and commuting.
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+1
 
My training up till now has been on the stupid heavy full susser so the speed on a road bike would probably rapidly increase , for my short 10 mile round trip commute though thats good as it helps strengthen the legs.

Cheers for the advice people :)
 
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