Forum Replies Created
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I tend to progress from
I tend to progress from Excuse Me through Oi to Look Out to Ouch. But equally I tend to ride at a speed I can stop easily at if I’m sharing some crappy shared-use path with pedestrians. It’s the headless ones stepping in to the road I’m most wary of. Definitely not moving my hands from my brakes to ring a bell. I might use it when I’m a few seconds away just to see if they’re paying attention but that’s more on rural roads round here that don’t have pavements.
Well it’s heavier than the
Well it’s heavier than the Ultegra or even 105 chainring.
You might see a slight benefit in terms of shifting performance but if you want to improve that I’d upgrade the FD first – the new low profile 105/Ultegra/DA FDs are a noticeable improvement over their long arm predecessors.
There is of course the psychological improvement of fitting new parts. Most of my local Strava PBs were set on the first ride of a tatty old bike I upgraded to Di2 a few years back. I’ve got faster/lighter bikes now but still don’t get near those times 🙂
People “on the internet” say that the weak points of Tiagra 4700 are the chainrings and brakes but a chainring is a chainring and a 100-ish gram saving isn’t going to be noticeable in the real world, unless you’re racing or have enough power to flex it.
Yes you’ll need to change the
Yes you’ll need to change the shifters.
Personally I’d have stuck with 10-speed if its a winter bike and gone with the 12-30 cassette option for 6700 if you need the range for the hills. It’s a lot of faff for an extra cog.
You don’t see many people training on their tri-bikes so a road bike is the way to go.Women-specific bikes may come with narrower bars and a different saddle but that will be the only difference
Sorry but you’re wrong, women spcific bikes have a different geometry in the same sizes to take into account what most women’s bodies are like, that being longer legs for their height and shorter torso.
That’s not to say that women cannot ride male specific bikes or vice versa or indeed that all women fit that prfile but Giant, Trek and most other big companies use the research so that they can get a better fit for women.
So there are significant differences other than simply a saddle and narrow bars as you’ve stated.
I wouldn’t even advise a newbie rider to have narrow bars in any case and I certainly wouldn’t advise buying something new either. Find something second hand for cheap money, there are thousands of decent bikes about that have had light use that are 30% and less of their original price.
Trek lexa/allez WSD, Giant Liv/Avail, Merida juliet, Scott Contessa, specialized Dolce, there’s loads of women specific bikes about second user. Then when you get more experience and have a better idea of what you want, what your targets are and indeed what works/fits better then move on and buy a new bike.
You’ll still get most of your money back on your second hand bike as the depreciation was taken by the first owner, you could indeed use that as a training bike and get a new bike to use for triathlons only and have them set up similarly. But buying a second user bike is the way to go IMHO, less outlay upfront and if you don’t like the whole triathlon thing or even cycling as a whole then you’re not left with a bike that cost you 3-4 times as much and a lot more ‘lost’ money.
Noted – and completely agree re the secondhand market. I guess the challenge for the OP is more that she’s never had a road bike before, which makes it tricky to buy secondhand.
You don’t see many people
You don’t see many people training on their tri-bikes so a road bike is the way to go.
Women-specific bikes may come with narrower bars and a different saddle but that will be the only difference and at 5’6″ you may have a wider choice. That tends to be a small to medium men’s size but there’s a lot of variation. A lot depends on whether your height is in your legs or your torso.
A lot also depends on how low/flat you can tolerate position-wise. This is something you’ll adapt to as you get used to road riding so it’s tricky.
I’d strongly recommend either finding a friendly local bike shop or going to Evans if there is one near you. Evans offer a 30-day ride and return option, even under C2W. The other option is to join a club and see if anyone will let you try out a bike you’re interested in.
The thing with buying a bike is that they’re all more or less the same, particularly if you’ve never ridden a road bike. This means it comes down to practical things like “Am I comfortable?”, “Do I have the right gearing?” and emotional things like “It’s red, so it’s immediately faster, right?”
Don’t get too tied up in specs and brands and materials – find a way to be able to chuck your leg over a few bikes and go from there. If you’re doing 50-milers and Tris then more than anything the most important thing is that you’re comfortable, and you’ll only be able to find that out with a test ride of 10-20 miles.
At a £1000 there is a ton of choice out there. Personally I’d go with a race-geometry rim-braked aluminium bike. Specialized, Cannondale, Merida, and Giant all have very capable bikes that will come in under the C2W budget. Stay away from discs because of your budget.
Don’t rule out the likes of Decathlon, Planet-X, and Ribble – something like this for example https://www.decathlon.co.uk/ultra-900-af-road-bike-105-id_8377261.html
Not sure it’s intolerance but
Not sure it’s intolerance but there seems around here to be an increasing inability to navigate right turns. Road signs, walls, grass verges, kerbs, all showing damage from where drivers have failed to make the corner (i.e. turned in too fast). A lot of it may well be confirmation bias but on one stretch of road (A338 from Ringwood to Fordingbridge) three of the junctions have damaged infrastructure.
I commuted on 700c wheels
I commuted on 700c wheels with a Shutter Precision dynohub for a couple of years. Usually around 15-30 miles per day depending on route/weather. I ran 32mm GravelKing SKs because part of the route had the option for hard-packed gravel and the whole setup was efficient and fast. Can’t remember what pressures but those largely depend on your weight. Certainly will feel luxurious compared to most 25mm tyres. The SKs compared side-by-side with Conti GP 4 seasons were something like 1% slower over a 10 mile stop-free part of my route so negligible difference in the real world. They don’t feel draggy on the road.
Lovely bike the Bokeh – might I also suggest the Shand Stoater, Condor Fratello Disc, or Fairlight Strael? Those three companies are great to deal with, as are Mason. Plenty of choice out there.
Are they cable-operated? And
Are they cable-operated? And do you have QRs or thru-axles?
QRs on the front can be a challenge to get everything centred, and with cable-operated calipers you tend to have to run the pads quite close to the rotor to get decent response.
My approach is to place the wheel in the dropouts, get the QR done almost all the way up, clamp on the front brake with the lever, and then finish clamping down the QR.
Rear tends to be easier because the transmission and absence of lawyer lips tends to centre everything, at least in my experience.
When you’ve got the wheels out don’t touch the brake levers, you risk pushing the pads too far out if they’re self-centring.
I have had a garmin 500 for about 6 years. It works just fine all the time. It has buttons, not a touch screen and is small and simple. It has limited use as a navigation aid, but as a training aid (HR, Power, Altitiude etc) it is really excellent. The altimeter (barometer run) is ridiculously accurate. I have no idea how they do it.I’ve yet to find anyone who has had issues with their 500, and I think it’s where they coming from with the 130 – clear screen, physical buttons, compact size. Just seems to work…
As to tyres I can recommend
As to tyres I can recommend GravelKing SKs – plenty good enough to deal with dry off-road paths and still very fast on the road. Did RideLondon on mine and they never felt draggy or slow, and grip was plenty good enough. They’ll handle light mud too – I just wouldn’t chuck them at anything too flinty or very loose as they don’t have the puncture protection of something like a Gatorskin.
You probably won’t get the indexing absolutely perfect for big/small and vice versa, even with the trims set right so I wouldn’t go chasing that.
The chainring spacing thing is only something like 0.5mm wider on the latest 105/Ultegra/Dura-Ace groups so it might be overstated. Those groups also have a improved front mech geometry which makes front shifting much lighter and easier (less lever swing and force required). Does take a bit of getting used to compared to trigger shifters.
The good thing with Claris is being 8-speed the range of acceptable indexing adjustments is much wider, simply because there are wider spaces between the rear cogs.
This sort of thing is why I
This sort of thing is why I steered clear of touchscreens and went with the physical buttons on the Edge 130. They’re responsive and easy to access, even with gloves on (obvs not tried full winter gloves yet). It does most of what the bigger Garmins do so seemed to be the sweet spot.
Undoubted upgrade in usability and reliability over the RFLKT+ and I get decent enough battery life for my use case.
I was all set to get one of the ELEMNTs and wary of the Garmin but the 25 I got for my son convinced me to go with Garmin this time. Hopefully a long-term user of the 130 as it does all I need and am ever likely to need.
Also, you may not get Claris
Also, you may not get Claris perfect in the extreme combinations on a bike with disc rear spacing. Shimano higher end groups have just started to receive revised front mechs and chainring spacing to address this but I don’t know if its trickled down to Claris yet.I found the best resource for setting Shimano shifting, particularly trims, is the Shimano Dealer Manual (freely available online)
Have a look at hybrid
Have a look at hybrid calipers if you want to improve braking performance – either TRP Hy-Rd or Juin-Tech. Not as good as full hydros, but a definite improvement. As we head to autumn also look at sintered pads – less squeal and more bite at the expense of greater wear.
The Spesh is a great frame and a good platform for upgrades if you get the road bike bug.I’m a long term Wahoo user –
I’m a long term Wahoo user – original bike case plus sensors and lately a RFLKT + – neither were particularly reliable on Android and recently I just ended up with constant dropped rides.
I’ve now got an Edge 25 & Edge 130 – zero issues over the last two months. Even Garmin Connect plays nice on both ios and Android. There’s a review of the Edge 130 coming soon I believe – personally it’s the most reliable easy to use device I’ve ever owned. Pairing is very quick, as is GPS connection.If you’re used to decent
If you’re used to decent hydros mechanical discs will be an eye-opener.
Claris should shift reasonably well and you usually need to adjust gear cables after a couple of weeks, but only with a cable adjuster. Sounds like it wasn’t set up correctly by the shop. Chainring easy enough to swap but you’ll need a new chain – £50 job thereabouts
