Road Cycling Essentials

grudas · 13 Feb 2015 at 10:58

daveski said:
Of course. Some of us were looking at the £225 Halfords special cyclocross bikes to use through winter, throw them away after 6 months and still cheaper than replacing the kit on my summer bike.

I think I'd lose the enjoyment out of cycling rapidly if I cleaned my bike after every ride!

I think cleaning after every ride is a bit over the top ha

I barely clean mine.. only thing I do is make sure that components are not dry as such.

FrenchTart · 13 Feb 2015 at 10:58

DA does make a bit more of a point to be more careful about wear/possible damage as it's far more expensive than Ultegra. It's quite difficult to separate all my different thoughts on the subject though, such as: Why would you want to do the vast majority of your riding on a worse bike/components? Surely if you're spending money it makes more sense to spend it improving the vast majority of your cycling. Also, is DA really worth it over Ultegra? Probably not (that doesn't stop me eyeing up DA spec stuff, of course).

I'm not doing high category racing so I'm possibly coming at it from a different angle to some of you I guess.

edit: As also mentioned, a good portion of my miles are commuting or me extending my commute route.

grudas · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:05

FrenchTart said:
DA does make a bit more of a point to be more careful about wear/possible damage as it's far more expensive than Ultegra. It's quite difficult to separate all my different thoughts on the subject though, such as: Why would you want to do the vast majority of your riding on a worse bike/components? Surely if you're spending money it makes more sense to spend it improving the vast majority of your cycling. Also, is DA really worth it over Ultegra? Probably not (that doesn't stop me eyeing up DA spec stuff, of course).

I'm not doing high category racing so I'm possibly coming at it from a different angle to some of you I guess.

edit: As also mentioned, a good portion of my miles are commuting or me extending my commute route.

same as mine

mine's 95% commuting.. maybe that's why I don't get the view behind the whole "dry bike" I can see how for .e.g my triban with cruds on is better in wet as it covers me better from spray but I've used it twice this winter to commute to work, one was a very wet day and other was after I killed my rear tyre on the main/good bike.

that's why CX bike is so tempting in my case, I want disks and space for mudguards so I Can use the same bike thorough the year.

imo anything over 105 is all about the weight saving and DA is seriously expensive due to that alone, ultegra is just as smooth.

topgun06 · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:06

grudas said:
this -;

http://upload.vstanced.com/images/2015/01/31/10945280_10206096824083287_1518313184728587118_n.md.jpg[img][/url]

holdsworth stelvio, sram rival etc.. :)

had it for like 6ish months now, covered around 3.6k miles[/QUOTE]

Nice, red/black. I like that :)

[quote="tedmaul, post: 27625124"]Depends a lot where abouts you ride. If you ride in london all day, the weather is generally mild, you rarely get snow so there's v little salt on the road, the roads are busy but are reasonably well maintained as it's where all the money gets spent.

Where i ride, the roads are abysmal, often covered in mud, stones and muck from all the local farms, huge potholes open up in the winter. If it's mild we get loads of wind and rain so roads are covered in crap, if it's freezing (which happens pretty regularly in winter) then there's lots of salt and sand everywhere if you can get out at all. That all eats the drivetrain and bearings no matter how often you clean the bike. Winter conditions round here also make it much more likely that you'll have an off.

So it makes a lot of sense to have a bad weather bike that fits decent mudguards and has cheaper components, as you will definitely be replacing things pretty regularly.[/QUOTE]

Got to agree with this. The roads around me can get very mucky. Especially when you head out into the peaks. I remember [URL="https://goo.gl/maps/uSPeL"]this[/URL] road being particularly bad one year, covered with mud and stones etc. Oh and those are called Sheep for any of you urban cyclists :p

Shamrock · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:19

We have sheep in London too. They usually wear headphones and cross the road obliviously without warning.

grudas · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:27

topgun06 said:
Nice, red/black. I like that

thanks, might go orange/black during summer!

Shamrock said:
We have sheep in London too. They usually wear headphones and cross the road obliviously without warning.

LMAO.

topgun06 · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:33

grudas said:
thanks, might go orange/black during summer!

Orange and black is another combination i think works well too.

The Virb have gone up a tenner on Amazon. Looks like it has made PBK the cheapest now. I think I have a 10% discount code for them too.

Jimbeam3678 · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:40

Seems like I've open a can of worms, one good thing has come out of this .. It's motivated me to clean my "wet bike"

FrenchTart · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:42

Jimbeam3678 said:
Seems like I've open a can of worms, one good thing has come out of this .. It's motivated me to clean my "wet bike"

A bit of debate makes the thread more interesting tbh

grudas · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:43

Moses said:
It's not pointless, or a case of not using it which misses the point of buying it in the first place. It's just that it'll last longer... it's not as though someone'll buy a bike and have to replace parts/it after the same amount of time regardless of use - if it's only used in relatively nice weather it'll last for longer, whereas if it's used in all weathers it won't last as long.

Picking completely and utterly arbitrary figures out of the air, you could have a nice weather bike you use 182.5 days of the year, or a bike you use all the time regardless of conditions. If you keep the former for six years, but the latter for three years, you've got the same use out of both.

yeah, I agree with your argument but at the same time, I guess I just don't mind using my bike in what ever the weather throws at it? IMO cassette, chain, brakes, rims, cables etc are all consumables, of course, in this case, bad weather = quicker "consumption" of the component but hey, more time to have fun?

I guess the fact that the bike was only ridden for 30 miles is what made me comment in the first place!

of course, I have no idea how long he has owned the bike etc

topgun06 · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:50

The first ride after I had finished building my summer bike was on a terrible weather day. I was so excited to ride it I went out on it anyway. It got caked in mud/farmer's ****, I felt like a terrible person

I probably spent longer cleaning it than I had done riding it

Saytan · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:52

I use veloce on my winter bike and Athena/centaur on the summer one. I'm not fast enough to need anything better in the summer and I barely notice any difference between the two.

janp · 13 Feb 2015 at 11:55

grudas said:
that's why CX bike is so tempting in my case, I want disks and space for mudguards so I Can use the same bike thorough the year.

Do it! I love my CX bike, and only had it since January. It's going to be bloody hard switching back to the full on road bike. I'll have to take the CX off road during the summer, otherwise I'll miss it

SoliD · 13 Feb 2015 at 12:21

Went for those flashlight shorts in the end, Went for Small and Medium, will see what size fits.

Regarding Winter/Summer, as long as you give it a clean every now and then it's fine, generally in the winter my frame is filthy, but will give my chainset a clean up every couple of weeks and spray down with gt85 just to keep it in relatively good condition, then generally give it a full rebuild once during the winter and once before the summer.

topgun06 · 13 Feb 2015 at 12:32

Everyone seems to have their own personal options, there does not seem to be any general consensus on the matter. Personally Id feel bad leaving my bike for a couple of weeks without giving it a clean down. Especially in winter.

What constitutes a full rebuild?

grudas · 13 Feb 2015 at 12:34

topgun06 said:
Everyone seems to have their own personal options, there does not seem to be any general consensus on the matter. Personally Id feel bad leaving my bike for a couple of weeks without giving it a clean down. Especially in winter.

What constitutes a full rebuild?

weeks worth of crap..

Vonhelmet · 13 Feb 2015 at 12:34

topgun06 said:
Got to agree with this. The roads around me can get very mucky. Especially when you head out into the peaks. I remember this road being particularly bad one year, covered with mud and stones etc. Oh and those are called Sheep for any of you urban cyclists

You should count yourself lucky you've got a fence! Up on top of Belmont sometimes the sheep are just wandering around in the road.

Roady · 13 Feb 2015 at 12:34

Jimbeam3678 said:
Couple of examples I'd use is how do you fit proper mudguards on these bikes? The stick on race blades from my experience are crap. Shiney posh rims getting ground down to nothing with the salt.

FrenchTart said:
The lack of mudguards thing is pretty sucky, agreed. I have always bought bikes with clearance for mudguards, if not eyelets... and the amount of time I've spent faffing to get them fitted with zip-ties and the like is pretty ridiculous. The Raceblade Longs look like a nice compromise though - much better than the regular Raceblades.

I think that's part of it - prior to CX bikes being popular you really had to choose between race/commuter, with CX now there is more of a crossover - like finding road 'race' style CX bikes that have mounts without getting a touring style/offroad ride. With the raceblades, cruds, et al there are mudguard options for close clearance frames/wheels where before choice was very limited.

physichull said:
Why take your flashy expensive bike out into salty/wet conditions when you can take the cheaper more expendable bike out instead?

Part of it might be peoples definition between 'flashy' and 'expensive'

To me, my 'expensive' bike is a newer giant with 105 that cost around £800. The alternative (my previous bike) was a £300 Carrera with Sora/Claris. If I had spent a substantial amount more on DA/Ultegra summer bike my story would be different. I'd probably have spent much more on my day-to-day commuting bike (ie it'd be similar to the Giant with 105). :cool:

Depending where you are along the cycling 'journey' of new/old/commuter/winter bikes and the trickle-down effect of buying newer bikes everyones story will differ - and as such the different opinions!

janp said:
I sold my car two years ago, which was expensive to run, and inefficient. So I feel I can justify many bikes If I had more room, I'd buy a MTB tomorrow.

If we do sell our second car I'll have room in the garage for more bikes/torture chamber...

Shamrock said:
We have sheep in London too. They usually wear headphones and cross the road obliviously without warning.

Have them here, although they're usually jogging and don't look or they have 'bike tangle mechanisms' they have to walk daily (that bark & have no road sense).

topgun06 said:
Orange and black is another combination i think works well too.

The Virb have gone up a tenner on Amazon. Looks like it has made PBK the cheapest now. I think I have a 10% discount code for them too.

Bought mine from IWOOT in the black friday deal, had 10% off for ordering online (new customer only I think, so created new account) and easily found (google search) some discount codes, tried them 1-by-1 until I found one that worked with the 10% and it just so happened it was a 20% off one! 30% discount on top of the black friday price, Result! Took ages for the VIRB to arrive (2-3 weeks) but I didn't mind, a (at the time) RRP £240 action camera for £70...

janp said:
Do it! I love my CX bike, and only had it since January. It's going to be bloody hard switching back to the full on road bike. I'll have to take the CX off road during the summer, otherwise I'll miss it

Think you've pretty much summed it up - I'm probably going to look at a CX bike for next winter, if I can get my friends back into riding (all MTB/downhill-ers). This will then give me the opportunity to run 2 'nice' bikes, one for the mud/rain/guards and then the other can be optimised for summer/sportive riding.

SoliD said:
Went for those flashlight shorts in the end, Went for Small and Medium, will see what size fits.

Regarding Winter/Summer, as long as you give it a clean every now and then it's fine, generally in the winter my frame is filthy, but will give my chainset a clean up every couple of weeks and spray down with gt85 just to keep it in relatively good condition, then generally give it a full rebuild once during the winter and once before the summer.

GT85, just spray it all over chain etc? At the moment I'm just lubing with oil...

And the Flashlight I've done the same, but with L and XL

grudas said:
weeks worth of crap..

Looks clean compared to mine (I'll take a pic this weekend before cleaning... Then again half White/Black glossy frame!

Vonhelmet · 13 Feb 2015 at 12:35

Saytan said:
I use veloce on my winter bike and Athena/centaur on the summer one. I'm not fast enough to need anything better in the summer and I barely notice any difference between the two.

Do you have a load of campag tools (at great expense) or do you rely on the LBS?

Saytan · 13 Feb 2015 at 12:37

Vonhelmet said:
Do you have a load of campag tools (at great expense) or do you rely on the LBS?

Campag cassette tool costs the same as a shimano one

the only other thing that's really that specific is the stuff for UT/PT bottom bracket bearings and I haven't had to do that.... yet