End to End Nubie help!

Timoth

Hi - I'm Tim, completely new to this forum.

I am a reletivly inexperienced cyclist planning with 4 workmates to take on the Lands End to John O'Groats ride over 14 days in summer on behalf of Barnsley Hospice.

We have been training on MTBs so far (transpennine routes mainly) and are looking to get road bikes that will be suitable for the trip.

Unfortunatly the budget is around sub £500 mark (there are four of us looking to buy). We thankfully won't be carrying much weight as we'll be sleeping in an RV driven by a friend, which will be carrying everything we need.

One shop (Woodrups, Leeds) has recommended the Giant SCR3, which looks good, but I'm not sure if they offered that because it was in stock...

Would anyone please be able to offer any advice/recommendations/help?

Bronzie

Welcome to the forum!

You want something comfortable and if you are not carrying any gear on the bike, something fairly lightweight will do the job nicely. No reason why you can't use your existing MTBs fitted with slick road tyres although they are perhaps a bit heavy, but if you don't plan to set any records, so what?

Can't offer any specific suggestions if you still want to buy a new bike but consider the following:
- Gearing - either a triple or a compact front chainring - depending on the route you take, there are probably few really hard climbs but the accumulation of 14 days riding will make your legs very tired, especially first thing in the morning when you'll crave a nice easy gear to start the day on
- Clearances - 25c tyres will be more comfortable than 23c so check the frame tolerances will allow the bigger tyre sizes. You are likely to get at least 1 or 2 wet days, so if you don't like getting a wet backside, or a faceful of water from the guy in front, you'll want a frame suitable for fitting full mudguards
- Panniers - you won't need full panniers if you have a support van, but you will want to carry a bit of gear (waterproofs, camera, tool kit etc) which can be a pain to fit in rear jersey pockets - would be handy if at least one bike had a rear rack to carry a rack bag to put this stuff in or maybe use a handlebar mounted bag which will double as a map holder - if you go with a rear rack, you may want a frame with the necessary braze-ons although you can improvise with P-clips if need be and not too heavy load on the rack

PS you can read my E2E adventures here: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/bronzie/endtoend.htm

Rich Hcp

I'd look at a Specialized Allez

Factor in clipless pedals too and more punture resistant tyres

Good luck 8)

scak456

Interesting read Bronzie - thanks for posting link.

What sort of training did you do in the 6 months prior?

Cheers
SK

pedlad

Hi Timoth

You'll have great fun, not least planning it and buying all the gear. Feel free to look at/ignore our experiences from a few years ago below.

If you're doing it supported (without carrying the luggage yourselves) then you have a pretty much free choice of bike so you really need to think what sort of cycling do you want to do after - general on road leisure/audax/racing/heavier touring and that will then narrow down your search.

The giant is according to lots of people on here a good 1st road bike (racing variety) but for Lejog you may want to consider mudguards and i don't think that would have the eyelets required for full ones...clip on ones may be a solution.

http://www.letojog.co.uk

schilbach

Also - if there's four of you all buying bikes at the £500 mark - buy them together and get a hefty discount, I imagine!

Bronzie

scak456 wrote:

What sort of training did you do in the 6 months prior?

Nothing specific - as a regular club rider, 120 miles over the weekend is fairly normal for me, so doing 11 days at 90 mile average is not too much of a stretch bearing in mind that you have all day to do them in (especially as we had the tandem with us, we averaged less than 15mph for the whole trip).

The first 3 days were the hardest (partly because Devon is lumpy and partly because the legs need to get used to the day after day efforts). I was dreading Scotland, but in fact the route we used was pretty flat, although not the most cycle-friendly roads. I was feeling better and better each day in fact until I got the squits at Crianlarich and those last 3 days were the hardest rides I've ever done because of this.

lugster77

specialized allez. did it on a 2006 base allez triple, as it came out of the box apart from clipless pedals,a different saddle and a rack on the back with 1 pannier. no major discomfort or anything. personally i did (almost)daily 12 mile steady rides with a couple of hills chucked in plus commuted either to/and/or from work few times a week(34miles each way) and a couple of full day ie. steady 80 mile days out just to get used to being in the saddle all day for the previous 4 months or so. that was starting from a pretty poor level of base fitness if i'm honest! enjoy!!!

scak456

Bronzie wrote:

scak456 wrote:

What sort of training did you do in the 6 months prior?

Nothing specific - as a regular club rider, 120 miles over the weekend is fairly normal for me, so doing 11 days at 90 mile average is not too much of a stretch bearing in mind that you have all day to do them in (especially as we had the tandem with us, we averaged less than 15mph for the whole trip).

The first 3 days were the hardest (partly because Devon is lumpy and partly because the legs need to get used to the day after day efforts). I was dreading Scotland, but in fact the route we used was pretty flat, although not the most cycle-friendly roads. I was feeling better and better each day in fact until I got the squits at Crianlarich and those last 3 days were the hardest rides I've ever done because of this.

Thanks for the response. Thinking about a similar schedule to yours next year. Based on your experience I should be fine. Guess the key as much as anything is pacing and keeping the av mph lower than normal.

Cheers

Bronzie

scak456 wrote:

Guess the key as much as anything is pacing and keeping the av mph lower than normal.

Definitely - we set out in the morning of the longest day (110 miles) with "40 miles until coffee, 30 miles until lunch, 40 miles to the showers" in our heads. That way it's quite manageable.

Timoth

Massive thanks for the information everyone, I'm currently looking at the revolution country traveller from EBC - http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLqrymode.a4p?f%5FProductID=9473&f%5FSupersetQRY=C107&f%5FSortOrderID=1&f%5Fbct=c003155c002912

I reckon that I'll probably use the bike for touring and two path/cycle track use rather than serious road racing. bearing that in mind I imagine that the Allez and the SCR would be far less comfortable option.

Has anyone had eny experiance of this bike?

(What a superb forum! )