winter training bikes

lock

i know some people only have one bike so you ride that all the time,and i know alot of riders upgrade and keep the old bike for winter,me i have tarmac with some nice bits on race on and of and 18months ago i bought a pearson x bike for x racing and winter training,

i got the pearson out the other day and it felt horrible the cantis have never been great but it just didnt feel good to up right to harsh to sluggish.i do do a fair bit of x and got another bike i can use for that,

not sure weather to have a play around with the set up
strip it down,buy new winter frame
sell bike as whole get new winter bike
sell bike just use my tarmac

i still want my winter bike to feel fast,im just thinking out loud really and want to see what other riders would do or what everyone elses winter bikes are like,or what winter bike would riders recommend

sturmey

It's the end of the summer and you have probably just forgotten how pedestrian the bike feels next to your tarmac. I wouldn't mess about with it or sell it. Keep it, and get another bike. You know you want one.

chrisw12

It's a tough one, 'the winter bike question'

Like you I want something fast to ride on even if it's winter. I use my summer bike but just put a back rain guard on. My thought process is 'are our winters really that bad?' Then again another part of me say's I'm going to crash eventually so I've got the mtb all slicked up ready for the ice days.

yogi

Some years ago when I got my Cannondale, I thought I'd renovate my old Trek 1400 that dates from the late 80's and use that for the winter with mudguards. Blimey did it feel sluggish - I couldn't keep up with our midweek training rides.

Anyway I bought a cheap cyclocross frameset on Ebay for £70 and have never looked back. When I say 'cheap' - it was in fact a Ridley Crossbow. I built the bike up at of mostly stuff floating around the garage from mountain etc and a few buys of Ebay again. Quite good fun putting the whole bike together. By the time I'd finished it weighed 22lbs but it rode faster than it weighed. That original frame is now for sale (Ebay again!) and I'm going to get my monet back plus some.

Since then I've bought another bargain frame off Ebay, a nice Columbus X-Wing with a full carbon fork - so I'm now down to 20lbs and it rides and feels just like my aluminium Cannondale. Now I don't mind which bike I ride. Both bikes are Shimano 9 speed too, so I can swap wheels between them and also use the cassette off my mountain bike too, should I need it - like for the 3 Peaks.

It's the perfect set-up for me but everyone will have different requirements.

hopper1

I just bought a Van Nicholas Yukon for winter rides.
It has full mudguards, to keep me dry and not spray my clubmates.
It's certainly not slow, or heavy...
But, at the end of the day, a 'winter' bike is not your 'best' bike, and it will never be quite as good, or react quite so quickly...

markos1963

Just got a Boardman SC Comp single speed on my C2W sceme for winter use. Its now taken over as my main training bike, the lack of gears making it ideal to just jump on and go whatever the weather and not having to strip and clean it afterwards.

Slimbods

hopper1 wrote:

I just bought a Van Nicholas Yukon for winter rides.
It has full mudguards, to keep me dry and not spray my clubmates.
It's certainly not slow, or heavy...
But, at the end of the day, a 'winter' bike is not your 'best' bike, and it will never be quite as good, or react quite so quickly...

Is it just me? How anyone can afford a 2 grand bike to be 'not their best bike' is beyond me!

We're honored by your presence Lord Hopper

Slow Downcp

Slimbods wrote:

hopper1 wrote:

I just bought a Van Nicholas Yukon for winter rides.
It has full mudguards, to keep me dry and not spray my clubmates.
It's certainly not slow, or heavy...
But, at the end of the day, a 'winter' bike is not your 'best' bike, and it will never be quite as good, or react quite so quickly...

Is it just me? How anyone can afford a 2 grand bike to be 'not their best bike' is beyond me!

We're honored by your presence Lord Hopper

You can't take it with you - I bought an Enigma Etape for winter last year, but put it through cycle to work scheme so only cost me 50% of actual price

lock

this is my problem,i respect every rider ,i watch riders go past me on old bikes and i respect them for just getting on with whatever they have got and i think to myself man and get on with it,but then i think if i can afford another bike why not.
i suppose there is no real answer to my question ,i just enjoy the chat about bikes,and whoes doing what on what

i was looking at the kineses t2 frame,im goner give my pearson a good service and have a think what to do

hopper1

Slimbods wrote:

hopper1 wrote:

I just bought a Van Nicholas Yukon for winter rides.
It has full mudguards, to keep me dry and not spray my clubmates.
It's certainly not slow, or heavy...
But, at the end of the day, a 'winter' bike is not your 'best' bike, and it will never be quite as good, or react quite so quickly...

Is it just me? How anyone can afford a 2 grand bike to be 'not their best bike' is beyond me!
We're honored by your presence Lord Hopper

Simple, mate... When your 'best' bike costs more! :shock:

This is not intended to appear like gloating... When buying a bike, I look for something that suits my needs and is comfortable and long lasting, as I don't wish to shell out every year.

Oh yes... You are honoured...
I'm not a Lord, though, just plain ol' Grass Hopper...

daddylonglegs

When I started riding and racing in the early 'nineties, I quickly saw my need for a 'winter trainer' to save my race bike from the ravages of filthy lanes, rain and road salt. Like me, all of my bike-racing mates either not long out of school or university, barely in work and mostly skint, used cheap steel frames, often second-hand and mostly built up with bits from past bikes for their winter rides.

Then - and I swear it wasn't that long ago - when almost no one rode anything but steel, the choices were a lot easier and no one gave weight any real thought. At that time the thinking was the winter bike should be heavier, to help give a 'training effect', however, looking back, I suspect this probably had more to do with justifying having to spend half the year on rubbish bikes than it had to do with any serious training principle.

Nevertheless, I still don't earn a lot and old habits die hard. Last year I loaded up my new, but budget and already weighty Dolan Winter frame with the usual full mudguards and cheap and therefore heavy seatpost, bars and stem, plus the usual assemblage of old but mostly decent bits.

The problem for me is now, going out on long winter rides with a group can often be purgatory because so many roadies now seem to be happy (and well-off enough) to spend the winter months packing in hi-speed miles on lightweight carbon and titanium machines often costing as much as a decent race bike. I have been known on occasion to find myself trailing miserably in their wake on a bike that may weigh as much as six pounds more than most of theirs. And yes, on those occasions I usually do blame the bike because I know it's not just my age!

Anonymous

Winter/Training Bike -

2009 Litespeed Siena frame
Dura Ace/Ultegra mix
Powertap rear hub / DT Swiss 240 front on Open Pro
Thomson Masterpiece Seatpost
Thomson X2 stem
VO2 bars
Fizik Aliante Carbon Saddle

It's an absolute joy to ride! (Bloody should be too, it's a 2.5 grand frame!)




Best bike -



You can't take it with you...

chrisw12

Sorry mate, you've got that the wrong way round and where's the timetrial bike?

Slimbods

NapoleonD wrote:

Winter/Training Bike -

You can't take it with you...

No, but my missus can!

keith-a

Thread hijack:

Is anyone using Deda Black Rain forks on their winter bike? I was going to get the Kinesis ones to match the frame, but notice the Deda ones are almost half the price, and certainly not much heavier.

Loads of good reviews for the Racelights, but not much on the Deda - although Condor and Epic seem to spec them as standard.

Any users?

vorsprung

I don't have a winter "training" bike

I commute to work all year round, and in the winter I use a steel single speed with drops and a generator hub lighjt

If I want to go out for a long ride at the weekend I would use this bike in the winter, I suppose that is a form of training