Looking for relatively light steel road bike with disc brakes, wide tyres & panniers

Simon E wrote:Quote:I’ve

Simon E wrote:

I’ve spent weeks researching this and can’t find what I want without spending a fortune.

Because the spec you want costs a fortune.

Either compromise on your list of requirements or accept the cost and do it. A steel frame, hub gear, discs and panniers all add weight as well as cost.

Rohloff hub is very expensive but appears to attract fewer complaints than Alfine 11 hub. There may be lots of happy Alfine owners with On-One or Genesis Day One bikes (are there? I’ve no idea). Could you later fit a Rohloff to the Day One if it fails to live up to expectations?

The Rohloff is indeed expensive but since the rest of the specs can be found individually on relatively cheap bikes I can’t find any fundamental technical reason, beyond what happens to be in mass production and what doesn’t, why a bike with all of those things and a Rohloff needs to cost more than £2500 as I’m not after something that’s featherweight. Look at the Genesis Day One – if it came with Rohloff instead of Afine that’d change the price from £1700 to ~£2400 and it’d fit my spec perfectly.

Gkam84 wrote:

OH OH OH OH OH OH…….I totally forgot, till I went searching…..

http://road.cc/content/news/75271-video-kinesis-tripster-atr-ti-prototype
That might be EXACTLY what you need, bar fitting a Rohloff yourself….

That looks awesome :D. Bike Radar says it should be out late Feb but I can’t find anything on the manufacturer’s website. The expected £1500 frameset cost is a few hundred more than the Mercury but I can’t find any indication of what the Tripster should weigh to compare?

Thanks for the link to the Afine review too. I’ve only read mixed user reviews so far but negative user comments are always hugely disproportional to positive ones so that’s useful. I don’t know whether I really need the extreme reliability or 3 extra gears provided by the Rohloff. I had set my mind on it but your suggestion of getting the Day One and seeing how I get on with the option of swapping later is an excellent one.

Camcycle1974 wrote:

My LBS does a range of German steel (and Ti) bikes that have Rohloff gears. Top quality and pricy but not 4.5k! The brand is Fahrrad and the shop is Chris’s bikes in Girton, Cambs (he has a website)

I speak German and my girlfriend is German so I’ll look into “Fahrradmanufaktur” (“Fahrrad” is just the German word for bicycle so I had to go to your LBS’s website to get the full brand name before searching on google.de! 😉 lol)

This is still all incredibly confusing though. On the one hand the options are bewildering but on the other hand there aren’t that many that fit my requirements. What doesn’t help is the snazzy but uninformative or confusing websites a lot of frame makers have – only a few list the ALL specs and clearances etc of their frames clearly and concisely, and those that do rarely list their frames in a sensible way that allows me to view & compare their range at a glance. I think I’m going to have to be a bit more organised about this than my usual hap-hazard method of purchase research – I’ll have to sit down and make lists of possible brands & models, positives and negatives, prices, and spend an afternoon phoning all the manufacturers. I generally hate calling companies unless I’ve already made a purchase decision but I think it’s going to be the only way here.

I also need to make sure I’m comparing apples with apples. I just realised that the £4k for a Mercury I mentioned is including all the bells and whistles – a top-end dynamo hub, an LED dynamo light with light/dark sensor, hydraulic brakes, carbon seat post, etc etc etc. The basic bike costs about £2500. I need to calculate how much extra the options the Day One has such as brake discs and the £350 fork needed for discs & wide tyres would add to the cost of the Mercury; at a glance I think it’d bring it close to £3,000, probably making it about £600 more expensive than I’d expect the On One to cost if it came with an OEM Rohloff.

My only reason I haven’t settled for the Mercury is a) I feel £4k is a bit excessive for a bike and I’d feel a bit odd cycling around town on a machine costing quite SO much and b) as I said I can’t help but wonder if I can’t find something a bit lighter for the money.

If you guys think I’m unlikely to find anything of a similar weight & similar spec for less money though, or if I can’t find anything of less weight & similar spec for the same money, then I am also happy to bite the bullet and settle for the Mercury. It is a lovely bike and Thorn’s customer service is absolutely outstanding.

I need to shoot and get to work now but thanks for all your help so far :). I’ll do some more thorough research on your suggestions over lunch and later tonight.