My bike gear

davidmiller

Right, I need help cos I'm being indecisive and you lot are just the guys.

I have two problems currently (in cycling)..

(a) I have a lovely Trek 2000 but it has a standard chainring on it and I need somehow to get eaisier gears e.g. for the Lakeland Loop and (b) my 3 yr old £200 winter bike is falling to pieces. Good news is that work are about to restart the ride2work scheme. So, I'm skint but I'm thinking fork out extortionate price for new shimano compact chainring set to put on Trek and use R2W scheme to get a singlespeed spec cyclocross BUT I' am wondering if I should sell the Trek 2000 on ebay as it stands (what would I get), buy a lovely new carbon framed bike with either a triple or a compact and just plod on with the old hack or buy a new one for Xmas.

Or should I just leave the Trek as it is and accept that I might be doing some walking in the Lake district???

As ever, your advice would be gretaly appreciated.

DM

Mister W

I love my winter bike because it make bad weather riding more comfortable (mudguards, good brakes etc). So I would keep the Trek and get a winter bike. Go for singlespeed if you want or a road bike with space for mudguards. Mine is a Planet-X Kaffenback but Kinesis do some good frames and Ribble also do a range of winter frames.

As for the gearing issues, what cassette have you got on the Trek? Can you go bigger? If you decide to go for a compact then shop for it on-line, buy the right tools and fit it yourself. It's not difficult and you'll save some cash.

Or...... specify the winter bike with a compact and ride that round the lakes.

davidmiller

Thanks. Any new winter bike must be able to take mudgaurds as that is one of the major failings of my current winter hack. I had not thought about getting a new winter bike with a compact - good idea - but I'd need to splash out more!. Unfortunately, our ride2work scheme would not allow me to use Planet X or Kinesis, just the usual suspects (except Trek, for some reason).

I have a 12-25 on the back. The guy who does my bike fixing told me that it would make more a difference to change the front. He is usually very good and very cheap.

Interestingly, after making the OP I was playing with the idea of having £1000 R2W money to spend and couple of hundred quid from selling my bike on ebay - what would it buy me?? Well through our supplier it seems I'd need about £1500 to get a carbon fibre framed bike with 105 on it. Worth making ther change - I'm really not sure.

Anybody else got any good ideas??

Cheers,

David