Bike for my Dad, £500

Soldato
Joined
2 Jun 2003
Posts
8,950
Location
Nottingham
Hi,

My Dad currently has an old Ridgeback 503SX which is a flat bar touring bike which uses mtb groupset and ~35mm tyres on 700C wheels. He has rear panniers and full mudguards fitted to the bike. When we weighed it with those bits on it came out at 18.5kg!

He is after something that will be a bit quicker for him to ride but he still wants to be able to do hardpack style paths as well as tarmac. Now a road bike is out as he finds it far too bent over for himself plus he wants to keep a decent enough ride so I can't see 23/25mm tyres giving that!

In short he wants to have a bike he can use for day to day stuff (no proper offroading) that won't require to wear anything specific for cycling to be comfortable. He currently goes out once a week on his bike, often doing 20-30miles at an average speed of 11mph.

So what sort of bikes should I be looking at? One thing I thought was the boardman hybrids but I wasn't sure whether 28mm tyres would be too much to drop down to, I unfortunately don't have any experience of tyres between full mountain bike 2.2" tyres and my 23mm on the road bike. Another bike that caught my eye was the pinnacle lithium series as they are more swayed towards mountain bike, but would he really gain that much from it?

Any bike has to have proper mudguard mounts and pannier mounts as he does use them.
 
Now a road bike is out as he finds it far too bent over for himself plus he wants to keep a decent enough ride so I can't see 23/25mm tyres giving that!

What specifically is out about a road bike? Because a lot of "road bikes" have clearance for 32c+ tyres, and they can have geometries ranging from super relaxed where you would be in more or less the same position as a hybrid to super aggressive where he would probably be "too bent over".
 
As it turns out he doesn't need the offroad ability, mudguards or panniers as I didn't realise he was keeping his old one for those duties! So that opens up more road orientated hybrids?

PermaBanned, Got any examples I can get him to try at all for a drop bar? He has only tried my Triban 5 for drop bars.
 
Well if your Triban 5 is too big for him that could explain it. Most bike manufacturers have at least one racy road bike in their range, and at least one more relaxed geo bike usually labelled as "endurance" or "sportive". But fit is more important than anything, if you could take him along to a decent shop, explain what you're looking for and get him properly fitted to try out a few bikes that would definitely give you a better idea.
 
As it turns out he doesn't need the offroad ability, mudguards or panniers as I didn't realise he was keeping his old one for those duties! So that opens up more road orientated hybrids?

That makes more sense then. I keep my clunky hybrid because it is a handy tool to have. From the sound of what you are after now it isn't so much a hybrid as a flat bar road bike of which there are a growing number.

Starter for ten could be the Giant Rapid range? http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-gb/bikes/model/rapid.4/19205/77302/
 
PermaBanned, Oddly he is taller than me and I also shortened the stem on mine when I broke my back. Will get him to try a sportive geo bike, not sure if it is the usual worry of using drop bars which people tend to have when they are use to flat bars only.

lordrobs, Thanks for a link, it does seem like that is going to be the most likely type of bike he will go with though time will tell there! I don't have to worry about the groupset so much as I have a spare sora triple 3500 groupset sitting around.
 
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