The Cycling Thread: Part 4

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My new Freeride bike arrived yesterday. Fitting some Spank upgrades over the weekend. Can't wait to ride this!

Nice :thumbsup:

I've been toying with getting one of those since trying one @ the bike show last year.
 
My new Freeride bike arrived yesterday. Fitting some Spank upgrades over the weekend. Can't wait to ride this!

What are the Lapierre hardtails like? Do you have much experience?
 
No, unfortunately I don't. You can give these guys a call, I found them really helpfull when buying mine.

LAPIERRE - We Love Lapierre

You can use CycleScheme vouchers with them too

Cheers, looks like they are mostly a bit more expensive than I'd like to pay this time around sadly, but always good to know as much as possible.
 
If your emplyer offers CycleScheme vouchers you can always go for something like

Lapierre Pro Race 100 - Hardtail Mountain Bikes - Lapierre Mountain Bikes

Thats their entry range Hardtail bike. You still get alot of bike for your money.

They do, I have and I could :laugh:

Having a browse at Paul's Cycles however, I'm seeing a lot more for my money getting a '12 model in a lot of cases, which is hard to ignore. Some pretty decent bargains, but of course with the availability caveat.

I'm looking fairly sensibly really (at least I think so), as my last bike was fairly basic in the grand scheme of things (was amazeballs for me!).

Jumping up too high in one go, well, I don't think I would benefit or appreciate it as much. Tempting as it is, mind you, because my company allows us to top up the value of the voucher (I took £1000) to get a bike worth more than the face value and still have the option of retaining ownership at the end.
 
I would take the better specced Triban over the Scott.
 
Ok thanks.

Does anyone have any experience with Decathlon? The bike is coming up as unavilable in the sheffield branch, when i go in to get a quote ( i think this is what happens?) do you think they will order the bike in for me?
 
Triban for me too. Carbon forks for abit of comfort and pedals included.

The Scott has a funny gears/cassette setup if you ask me.
 
I had a Triban 3 delivered weds, it's brilliant for the money.
. It was shipped from France, took 8 days from order to arrive. I'm sure they would order you one in at your local branch.
 
Reading up both have good reviews, the reason I'm tempted by the scott is its from my LBS and decathlon is about 40 miles away.

Does a carbon fork make a noticeable difference?
 
Reading up both have good reviews, the reason I'm tempted by the scott is its from my LBS and decathlon is about 40 miles away.

Does a carbon fork make a noticeable difference?

Take the hit and see both to be sure which you feel happier with. Don't buy blind!
 
Take the hit and see both to be sure which you feel happier with. Don't buy blind!

Agreed.

But the Scott has a much lower spec. Carbon fork is a worthy option. The Sora group set is also better
 
Reading up both have good reviews, the reason I'm tempted by the scott is its from my LBS and decathlon is about 40 miles away.

Does a carbon fork make a noticeable difference?

Yes.
Will you know what the difference is? If you've never tried then no.

My first road bike was all aluminium - fine no problem.

I then got a full carbon fibre bike and used this for a couple of years, but used the trainer for winter. I wanted a winter road bike so brought another aluminium bike (cross but put road tyres on) and it felt very harsh, loads a road buzz etc. I have recently swapped to carbon forks with this bike and it is night and day for me it has eliminated loads of the harshness. I also have a carbon stem that will go on this weekend hopefully. It's still not as good as the full carbon but it's far better than it was.

It's a tough one really because knowing what I know now I personally would recommend at least a Tiagra groupset - I don't like the Sora shifters etc, mine have buuged me for the past few years but will be gone in the coming weeks. I am in the process of upgrading my winter trainer from a Sora/Tiagra mix, however in your case it would be so much more convenient just being able to drop into your LBS if you need a few tweaks or set ups if you don't want to do it yourself, and the LBS IMX are more helpful if it's a bike you have sourced from them.
The only other issue is its not just the forks but it says 7 speed and is some lowly Shimano groupset, again you might well be happy with it. I suppose you could get a set of Tiagra STI and rear mech/cassette cheap if you wanted to go 20 speed? So really it's down to convenience v carbon forks and slightly higher spec.
You should also really be sized up properly as well so you know what size to get:)
 
Just got back from a week on a farm in Lancashire. Taking the road bike was a very late call and I had no maps so I picked up a random leaflet from the farm shop and tried to do a ride using the map on that. Very enjoyable it was although I nearly got blown clean into Yorkshire a couple of times the wind was so severe.

Anyways I packed the car today and we decided to drive cross country over to the inlaws house nr Burnley. Where I turned left on my bike ride we turned right and within a couple of miles we were going down what I can only describe as the best cycling road I have ever seen in my life 'The trough of Bowland'. A windy super smooth tiny road that snakes wildly down a fantasically beutiful valley. I was absolutely gutted I missed the chance to ride up it.

To top it off I got back earlier and not only found it was number 75 in the '100 greatest cycling climbs' book but also found out on my ride I rode down 'jubilee Tower' which is number 76. If I had gone round my route the other way I would have gone up the fecker.

So despite staying within touching distance of two top 100 road climbs for a week I missed the chance to go up either and have still yet to ride up even 1 out of the 100 climbs.
 
Each year my employer runs a Cycle2Work scheme, but I haven't bothered because I already have a perfectly good mountain bike.

But this yer I fancy getting something in addition to my MTB for road use.

This would just be recreational and exercise, rather than communiting or sports.

Initial thoughts were a road bike but the thing that is making me revonsider is that every road bike I see these days is being ridden in full lycra ger.

Not interested in that so have started to think about a hybrid.

Want it to be light and road-like as possible otherwise may as well just uset the MTB.

Other restriction is the the scheme only uses Halford, so would be considering the Boardman Team or Pro (most likely the Team).

Any view what these Boardman hybrids are like.

It may all come to nothing because I don't think Halfords allow test rides.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
No reason to have to wear Lycra on a road bike. The boardman's are all good. How about the CX bike?
 
Whilst I agree with you my concern is that I don't see any road bikes being rideen by people not in lycra with racing logos.

Cheers,

Nigel

Well I've just got a road bike but there's no way in hell I'm going out dressed like a condom.
 
Whilst I agree with you my concern is that I don't see any road bikes being rideen by people not in lycra with racing logos.

Cheers,

Nigel

I ride mine in baggy mtb shorts and long sleeve non Lycra tops... but also wear some Lycra but just black and white, no luminous colours or logos.
 
Perhaps it is just the area I live in. There is always road races going on most weekends.

Some of the Olympic Road Races were held just up the road so that has probably boosted interest local too.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Perhaps it is just the area I live in. There is always road races going on most weekends.

Some of the Olympic Road Races were held just up the road so that has probably boosted interest local too.

Cheers,

Nigel

This is often the case; people believe that they simply must wear the gear to do the job. Not completely untrue, but certainly not a requirement. I don't wear a full football strip when I play 5-a-side or 7-a-side with work. Nor do I wear a sweatband to play squash etc (though I probably should ... ).
 
I wear some lycra, it's functional.
 
surrey?
 
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