Touring/All rounder type bike

Carpe Diem

I,m looking to purchase an all rounder type bike ie. touring/Audax, slight off road, bridal paths/gravel type roads etc,

I,ve looked at the thorn range and I,ve got a headache with the choice on offer.

I,ve also looked at this, http://bikefix.co.uk/index.php?unique=f ... id=209#a81

Its got everything I,m after, lights/rack/Rohloff/disc brakes.

Has anyone got a experience of this bike or any of the features ie. would you advise Disc brakes (Hydro or cable)?


Any advice greatly appreciated

vernonlevy

Carpe Diem wrote:

I,m looking to purchase an all rounder type bike ie. touring/Audax, slight off road, bridal paths/gravel type roads etc,

I,ve looked at the thorn range and I,ve got a headache with the choice on offer.

I,ve also looked at this, http://bikefix.co.uk/index.php?uniqu...sgl_id=209#a81

Its got everything I,m after, lights/rack/Rohloff/disc brakes.

Has anyone got a experience of this bike or any of the features ie. would you advise Disc brakes (Hydro or cable)?


Any advice greatly appreciated

You are asking a lot there!

Audax/light touring bikes are generally drop handlebarred bikes with 700c wheels and are speedy rides.

A more rugged bike like the one that you have highlighted will cope admirably with the off road stuff and shorter Audaxes i.e. 100km rides.

I'm not sure if it would be an ideal bike for 200+km rides.

Disc brakes work OK and cable discs though having their critics worked well enough to stop 21+ stones of me on steep descents. I personally wouldn't dream of trying to do all of what you want to do with just one bike.

I use a Dawes Galaxy for Audaxing and touring thopugh there's plenty of bikes of that genre available from Trek, Cannondale and even Thorn (their Audax bike). I've used my Galaxy on reclaimed railway track beds gravel paths on the C2C and W2W but would draw the line at the more challenging bridle paths.

You need to identify where you will do the bulk of your riding and by a bike that's more suited to that than trying to buy a Jaclk of all trades. They simply don't exist.

FWIW, I have five bikes:

A Dawes Galaxy Tourer for hilly Audaxing and touring.
A Raleight R100 road bike for flatter Audaxes.
A Trek MTB for the really rough stuff.
A Ridgeback hybrid for mixed surface use and short weekend tours.
A Trevor Jarvis Flying Gate fixed wheeled bike just to make a statement :-)

Carpe Diem

Thanks....5 bikes!!! you must have a very understanding other half

Tourist Tony

[raises stakes]
MTB
hybrid
Galaxy
Sardar
Road bike
Tandem.....

Carpe Diem

Sell me the Sardar and save me alot of money :P

Tourist Tony

No way! Not made any more....

Carpe Diem

Tourist Tony wrote:

No way! Not made any more....

Just got back from Spa cycles........with my brand new Sardar (last of the 631 tubed one's). It takes Disc's if I choose to fit them and I can also retro fit a Rohloff aswell.

The bike was £540 which I thought was not alot for a bike like that, it also leaves plenty in the budget (compared to the silk road bike) to fettle it and pay for a tour 8)

Happy days

Thanks for all the replies

garyspain

Ive just had a group out with focus cyclo cross bikes and we have been riding everything on and off road except the rocky descents. They seem a great all rounder.

Cunobelin

[raises stakes]
MTB
hybrid
Galaxy
Sardar
Road bike
Tandem.....

Raise you a tandem trike....

But back on topic.

My wife rides a Thorn Raven Tour. The SPort is slightly lighter, have you considered Thorn?

Tourist Tony

The Sardar willl do you well, as long as you allow for the greater twitchiness of the 26" wheels. It has a spoke carrier on one chainstay and is set up for discs. Main problem is with the v-brakes. The front one is prone to squealing unless carefully set up.

Carpe Diem

Tourist Tony wrote:

The Sardar willl do you well, as long as you allow for the greater twitchiness of the 26" wheels. It has a spoke carrier on one chainstay and is set up for discs. Main problem is with the v-brakes. The front one is prone to squealing unless carefully set up.

I plan to get the front wheel re-built with a shmidt dyno disc hub and fit an Avid cable disc to the front and leave the back as a v brake, then I dont have any problem putting a strong rack on and I have the best of both worlds with the braking.

I might also fit a mountain bike chainset as the existing one might be a little highly geared for loaded expedition touring, the granny is a 28 with a 34 cassette...........anyones thoughts appreciated on this!

Spare Tyre

I ride a Dawes Sardar and I have found the original gear ratios plenty low enough for loaded touring and steep hills. On a gear of 28 x 34, you could go down to walking pace and still not feel overgeared.

Tourist Tony

The Sardar is well geared for expedition work.

andymiller

Pretty straightforward to lower the gearing, but you'd need to replace all three chainrings. As with all things there's a trade-off to be made: where you make that trade-off depends on where you will be riding, and your personal preferences and riding style. Might be best to see how you get on with the stock setup then change if it doesn't suit you?

Carpe Diem

Thats what I intend to do.....ride it for a while and see how I get on

One thing I will say though..the hubs are shimano Paralux, and when I was setting the bike up on the turbo, the rear hub sounded as rough as a bears ar$e on the over run!

Are these hubs stripable? if not when I get Paul Hewitt to fit the front dyno hub, I might aswell get him to rebuild the rear with a decent hub..at least I know both wheels should be sorted then.

andymiller

I've not heard of Parallax/Paralux hubs, but assuming they are a normal freewheels non-geared hub then I would expect that you should be able to service it. Brief how to here:

http://www.mountainbikerides.co.uk/fett ... no_hub.htm

You can download a pdf of an exploded view from the Shmano website:

http://www.shimanousa.com