Tough simple robust practical bike for £800 ?

Danny1962

Hi,

I am new to this forum but am not new to cycle commuting. What are your opinions about a tough, durable, reliable, easy to maintain, practical bike for about £800 ? Buy ready made -- what make/model? There's so much choice it's confusing! Or do I get it built for me?

I’m a big chap, 16 stone and 6’1”. I often ride in quite hilly terrain.

My use is almost always on roads / tracks / paths. I can’t remember when I last went properly off-road. I do daily commuting, shopping, leisure, and it’s in all weathers. I never race but sometimes I ride hard uphill with a load.

Do I need front suspension? It’s just one more thing to go wrong. I like an upright riding position. I always carry tools – is there any need for Quick Release wheels?

Wheel size – is a 700c better than a 26” , given that I’m not into speed? I’ve just buckled a 700c rear wheel on my £300 Claud Butler Wayfarer and I suspect I might be too heavy and powerful for it.

As for the gears – can someone convince me that the hub gears found on continental style bikes won’t “slip” on me if I ride uphill “standing up”? And what about any loss of efficiency, and what about ease of wheel removal/replacement with hub gears? They are still quite rare compared to derailleurs, so would the average LBS mechanic know what to do with them if they needed attention? I’d want a full or partial chain guard, too.

What about the brakes? Why do I need anything more than simple rim brakes? I don’t ride down mountains or race – I just want something that works!

I’ll definitely want a rack as an accessory, and a decent stand (ie one that can hold the bike upright even if the “leaning-side” pannier has heavy stuff in it).

So I’m prepared to spend money, but my priorities are durability and quality rather than image or fancy features. How do I get one without the other? And here’s a paradox -- having spent this money, I want a bike that doesn’t actually look expensive and isn’t particularly attractive to thieves.

I’ve looked online at bikes like the Specialized Globe Haul 1, Helkama Oiva, Helkama Jaakari, Batavus Blockbuster, Gazelle Allure, Pilen Arrow Superlyx etc… what else is obtainable and worth having? Or am I looking at totally the wrong sort of stuff?

I would prefer to buy from a local Kent based shop. I’ve found The Bike Warehouse in Gillingham very helpful in the past and though I've moved away from Medway I still go out of my way to get repairs and supplies from them. Cultivating a good relationship with a LBS is important to me – loyalty now gets me favours later.

Or, since I’m after something quite simple … rather than buy one ready made, is it worth giving a mechanic my spec and getting him to build one for me?

warpcow

Danny1962 wrote:

am I looking at totally the wrong sort of stuff?

Not sure. How long is your commute? I use a similar kind of bike as the ones you listed for going to the shops/into town. It's great for loading up with shopping bags, etc and pootling around in summer. They are very heavy though, and the position will drain your will to live with the slightest headwind. I wouldn't want to ride one more than 10-miles or so.

On the other hand they do tend to be as robust as you suggest. The hub gears do give a good range even if you only opt for the 3-spd version. The lowest gear is too spinny for me up most hills. I've never had one slip on me. In terms of efficiency, you can feel some loss in them, but unless you're aiming for speed then it's really not much.

desweller

1. You're right, you don't need front suspension. Except for proper mountain bikes, it's a gimmick to make a bike more saleable. In reality, it's heavy and saps power while riding due to oscillating with every pedal stroke.

2. There's not much in it between 26" and 700c wheels. It's easier to find road tyres for 700c wheels - there's more choice as this is the de facto wheel size for road bikes. Since most touring and tandem wheels (i.e. high loads) are 700c you can rest easy that the format (combined with your weight and power) is not responsible for you damaging your Claud Butler wheel - crappy craftsmanship is responsible for that.

3. I believe that hub geared wheels are more difficult to remove compared to derailleur wheels, but I have no experience with a modern hub gear - just the old 3-speed Sturmey Archers.

4. The advantage of disc brakes over rim brakes is that you don't wear out your rims by braking - you only need to replace the disc when it wears out, which is easier and cheaper than rebuilding/replacing the wheel. That's not to say there's a critical flaw with rim brakes though.

For £800 you should definitely be able to find something that matches your criteria. E.g. Dawes Geneva.

Nulli

Try the Trek 7.5 FX with disc brakes?

t4tomo

Hub gears don't inhibit wheel removal, just need to unscrew / reconnect the cable which is no more hassle than unwrapping a rear sprocket in and out of the rear mech / chain tensioner. They are normally a duel nut affair so reconnecting at same tension is a cinch.

Hub gears are way more durable / less tempremental / lower maintenance in my experience having got bikes with both formats.

MichaelW

Shimano Alfine are well proven and never slip out of gear. Wheel removal is easy enough and you dont need to re-adjust the cable.
Annual service is best done with an oil dip. Few bike shops do this but its easy enough to DIY. Like most people, I use auto gearbox fluid rather than expensive Shimano oil.

The only failure I've had with Alfine is a sticky gear change in very cold (-5C) conditions. It stays in one gear but may free up along the ride. The oil dip may have solved that.

With any hub gear, pick your chain tensioning system with care. I dont approve of spring-loaded tensioners except as a retro-fit to derailleur bikes.

Danny1962

Thanks for your replies, people.

I am pleased to see that it probably wasn’t "me" who bust the rear wheel. I noticed that the interior of the replacement wheel has slight v-shape ridge all around along the line of the spokes, which would give it some extra strength. The original was flatter. They are Quando wheels – what’s their reputation like?

My commute is 2 miles each way, downhill all the way into work and uphill all the way back. For leisure rides I might well do around 20 miles or so and not in much of a rush. I can live with the extra weight of a solidly built bike.

Seems like it's hub gears 3, derailleurs 0 -- interesting. Makes me wonder why I don’t see more bikes with them here in the UK, or is that just the companies selling us what they think we want? In Maidstone you are never far from a hill -- does that even the score at all?.

That Dawes Geneva does look like a nice bike – I see it comes with a Shimano Nexus not an Alfine. Is the bottom gear on these hub types roughly comparable to 2.235m Gear Development (28 Gear Inches) ? This is the lowest gear I have now (with 28 teeth at front and rear). I do need that kind of gear ratio for some of the hills around here.

I’d wondered about getting something solid, tough and simple built to my own spec using good quality parts and without many of the usual “extras” like suspension, discs etc. But if a ready made one can cut it for the same money, is there any point?

desweller

Quando = budget, i.e. crap.

Building a bike from non-OEM parts is almost always more expensive than buying a complete bike (unless you're prepared to mooch around in the classified ads for a few months waiting for bargains to appear).

As for the hub gearing...well, I don't know. Shimano don't seem to list ratios on their website. However, you can tweak the gearing to an extent by changing the chainring or sprocket, so you're by no means stuck with whatever you start with.

On the Dawes website (other bicycle manufacturers are available) there are also examples of derailleur equipped bikes that would also fit your criteria.

EDIT: Sheldon Brown has the gear ratios in this article.

Danny1962

This is interesting, thanks DesWeller.

I've looked at the Sheldon Brown site and also found a CTC page on Internal Gear Ratios. I'm not sure Sheldon's calculator works 100% yet, for example it doesn't change the result when I change wheel/tyre sizes so I'm going to do the numbers manually (well, in Excel cos I'm lazy that way )

I'm doing the maths intuitively here so might be wrong but here goes.... if I take the Geneva as a realistic example with its 38 tooth chainring and I then take gear 4 as the direct 1:1 gear, then multiply by the wheel size in inches (let's say it's 27.24" ie [700mm + 35mm + 35mm] / 25.4 ) after rounding that's going to give me 27 Gear Inches in 4th Gear.

Then, let's multiply this by the ratio figures of 0.63; 0.74; 0.84; 0.99; 1.15; 1.34; 1.55 , which gives me:

1st Gear = 17 GI
2nd Gear = 20 GI
3rd Gear = 23 GI
4th Gear = 27 GI
5th Gear = 31 GI
6th Gear = 37 GI
7th Gear = 42 GI

... which all looks a bit low to be an accurate reflection.

My current derailleur set is 28 38 48 at the front, and 14 - 28 at the rear in 7 steps. The lowest GI I have now is 28, going up to 95. Which means the 4 low gears on the hub set up are all lower than the lowest gear on my derailleur set ; and all but the lowest gears on my middle chainring aren't replicated at all on the hub set up.

Mind you, if this is correct I'd have no trouble getting up even the steepest hills!

Does anyone's personal experience tell them that my results simply don't add up?

Hub gears are looking ever more attractive, btw, it's really just a case of me taking a while to trust what I've not used before.

desweller

The lowest gear on the Geneva has a highest ratio of 3.34 and a lowest of 1.36.

Don't forget that you can change the sprocket on the wheel to give a generally higher or lower set of ratios (or indeed the chainring), so you're by no means stuck with the stock ratios. For instance, going to a 20T rear sprocket will give you a lowest ratio of 1.23 (roughly equivalent to 28/23) and a highest of 3.0 (48/16).

Obviously, the lowest ratio on your existing derailleur setup is 1.0 (28/28).

Danny1962

Ahaaaaa... something just came to me and I've realised why those calculations in my last post were wrong. I needed to include the figure for the rear wheel teeth (18 in this case).

So new calcualtion is DWD * (FCT / RST) * IR
where DWD is drive wheel diameter (27.25)
FCT is front chainset teeth (38 )
RST is rear sprocket teeth (18 )
and IR is internal ratio (as stated)

and it gives a much more believable set of figures

1st Gear 36 GI (equivalent to derrailleur setting 1FC 3RS on my current bike)
2nd Gear 43 GI (equivalent to derrailleur setting 2FC 1.5+RS on my current bike)
3rd Gear 48 GI (equivalent to derrailleur setting 2FC 3RS on my current bike)
4th Gear 57 GI (equivalent to derrailleur setting 2FC 4.5RS on my current bike)
5th Gear 66 GI (equivalent to derrailleur setting 2FC 6RS on my current bike)
6th Gear 77 GI (equivalent to derrailleur setting 2FC 7.5RS on my current bike)
7th Gear 89 GI (equivalent to derrailleur setting 3FC 6.5RS on my current bike)

where RS settings of 0.5 represent "fictional" ratios.

...and I can now very easily work out for myself if the 7 speed gives me an adequate choice of ratios by taking myself out for a ride on my own bike and only using those combinations. We'll see what happens when I tackle some of the steeper hills.

And if it doesn't work for me, swopping to a 30 tooth front chainset will give the low end grunt I might sometimes need, but at the expense of only having 70 GI max in 7th (which would be a bit like having no 3rd set, 48 teeth, on my front ring).

cloggsy

What about a Giant Seek 0 (Zero)

Only £719 a Wiggle?

desweller

cloggsy wrote:

What about a Giant Seek 0 (Zero)

Only £719 a Wiggle?

No rack
No mudguards
No kickstand

So factor in another £50 or £60 for those items.

Against the Geneva, which also has and adjustable stem, a dynamo front hub and comes with lights, it doesn't look like great value IMO.

shouldbeinbed

another vote for hubs

you describe my kind of riding and bike, I have a cannondale street ultra, obsolete now cos it wasn't popular for its price point as it didn't really fit any stereotype. too road for MTB' ers, not road enough for roadies, overlooked by commuters and too costly for occasional use, but it has everything on it you'll ever need and is nippy enough for me to commute comfortably and safely. hub gears and lights, disc brakes, schwalbe marthons as standard and no p** issues tough rack and points for front carriers if needs. IF you can find one in a dusty corner anywhere go for it you will not be disapointed but I seriously doubt you would. more's the shame.

This is the alternatice version that is IIR still in production. & hits your budget with cash to spart. I test rode it and enjoyed it , but it was a bit too Miss Marple for me and I copped lucky with a c2w scheme meaning I could afford to splash out for the better looking and Alifne over Nexus hub. albeit at quite an extra cost, that I'm not sure the differences merit but hey, its my bike and I love it and will ride it for donkeys years.

http://www.leisurelakesbikes.com/produc ... x?&id=9628

if that is too old maid for you then others I've ridden and really liked are the Merida brand (used to be the frame suppliers to the really big brands like Giant etc before coming out with their own bikes) a bit more sporty but adaptable to racks, guards etc and utility/commuting.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/reviews ... esso-i8-d/

I've shown hub ones as you asked about the robustness: I'm 6' tall 14 stone, live on the side of the Pennines and have absolutely no problems with stamping hard onto my Alfine up and down the hills and round the middle of Manchester, its solid reliable has run fine through the last 2 winters, hasn't given me any problems whatsoever and is still going strong.

these are just off the top of my head. Cannondale are worth a look but £ could be the stumbling block, they do have a much underrated and nearly secret urban / street range that gets no publicity vs their MTB and Road bikes

ndru

It seems to me that you need Workcycles Fr8.

unixnerd

Edinburgh Country tourer. I've had one for almost ten years and it's bullet proof. Done 7000+ miles with just new tyres, chain and cassette. You can now get them with disc or rim brakes, I'd go disc for wet weather use. Their own brand panniers are great and with two on the back it'll take a big load. It can also take front panniers.

Gearing is fine for big hills but I've also done 47mph on mine :-) The saddle is just superb. Weighs about 12kg which is heavy for a road bike but not for a tourer, it's a fast bike to ride. The quill stem means is easy to adjust for a high or low riding position and I think the current one has good secondary brake levers (I have some on one of my bikes and can recommend them).

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLq ... 155c018343
The Explorer is the version I'd get.

Danny1962

Thanks, shouldbeinbed... that Cannondale Street Sport Nexus looks just the ticket. It seems quite similar to that Dawes Geneva that DesWeller pointed out which I also liked. These are exactly the types of bike I'm going to be looking for so if there are any other comparable bikes, do name them. I hadn't realised these types were so easily obtainable in the UK -- they have a much more continental feel to them. This time I plan to buy under C2W, which wasn't an option when I bought my Claud Butler 2 years ago ('cos I quite demonstrably didn't C2W! The train took the strain.).

You've all persuaded me to look at hub gears, and thanks for your reassurances.

cloggsy

DesWeller wrote:

cloggsy wrote:

What about a Giant Seek 0 (Zero)

Only £719 a Wiggle?

No rack
No mudguards
No kickstand

So factor in another £50 or £60 for those items.

Against the Geneva, which also has and adjustable stem, a dynamo front hub and comes with lights, it doesn't look like great value IMO.

What about a Carrera Subway 8 then (at half the price?)

desweller

cloggsy wrote:

DesWeller wrote:

cloggsy wrote:

What about a Giant Seek 0 (Zero)

Only £719 a Wiggle?

No rack
No mudguards
No kickstand

So factor in another £50 or £60 for those items.

Against the Geneva, which also has and adjustable stem, a dynamo front hub and comes with lights, it doesn't look like great value IMO.

What about a Carrera Subway 8 then (at half the price?)

Definitely worth a look, there are some great deals at Halfords at the moment, although I'd treat it like a 2nd hand purchase - I'd want to be confident in my own maintenance skills as they're a bit of a mixed bag in that department. Worth popping in to your local store and having a look-see.

godders1

People speak highly of the One one pompetamine. British made, steel frame, hub gears etc.

http://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOOPOMPALF ... ine-alfine

£750 so you should just about be able to stay within budget after adding guards, rack and a stand.

BelgianBeerGeek

Pompetamine is now on my "next bike" shortlist. If you check out their site you can alter the spec before you buy, so you can alter the crankset from the standard 40-tooth (Shimano Alfine standard) to a 48 tooth which I think looks much nicer. Spent hours doing the gear-ratio maths... :oops: (think the 40 is better for more hills, but 48 gives a more "normal" road bike type range)

Danny1962

This has been a really useful thread for me, thanks everybody.

What it’s helped me to do is to identify the genre of bike I think I want to get next (what Wikipedia calls a European City Bike). It’s also reassured me that it doesn’t imply there’s any problems just because these types of bike are not commonly sold here.

I’m much more confident about going for internal hub gears and about how I can optimise the bike for hilly terrain by having it geared down 20% or so.

What’s really struck me is how difficult it is to find these sorts of bike over here – they are obviously thought of as special niche products rather than common everyday machines. Most manufacturers don’t even have one in their range, and even if they do the bikes aren’t identified in any consistent way.

Having done some research I came across this shop which looks to be worth a visit…(on one of the days when they are actually open) http://www.popiel.co.uk/en/page/about-us Crystal Palace is slightly off my manor but not that difficult for me to get to. And I’ll talk to my LBS and see what they can come up with as well.

Then when it’s all done I’ll put the old bike on eBay.

Danny1962

Well this story has taken an interesting turn…

I didn’t spend £800, or anything near that amount -- and I bought two bikes not one!

I saw one on eBay, a hardly used 3 year old Puch Brilliant with an 8 speed Nexus hub. The previous owner had imported it from Holland but then began to suffer serious health problems and became unable to ride anymore. Sadly, he died, and a friend was selling it on behalf of his widow.

Wow, this bike is comfortable – the large 61cm frame and high handlebar position make you feel like King of the Road. It’s very smooth. There are V Brakes on the front and in due course (probably at the first service) I’ll get those swopped for Roller Brakes. For some reason it was set up with the rear brake lever operated by the right hand and the front with the left – I thought the convention in EU countries, UK included, was to do it the other way round. I’ll try and get that swopped over too.

Puch are not a well known firm over here but they have a long and distinguished heritage in making two-wheelers. I picked the bike up for £230 (plus the £57 cost of a cheap day return train ticket from Maidstone to Nottingham, where the seller lived). I would imagine it had cost around £700 new.

And also, I got hold of a 3 speed Batavus Barcelona. It’s older, and it’s a lovely solid bike. Feels like it will go on forever. It’s in my LBS right now, they are gearing it down for me by changing the rear sprocket from a 19 tooth to a 22 / 23 / 24 tooth – basically the biggest one they can fit in without fouling the chainguard. The front cog is 44 tooth so the gearing was on the high side – fine if you are loping along on level ground all the time but it’s not so good for slopes. That one will be my “classic” bike.

I’m going to sell my Claud Butler derailleur bike, I’ve popped an ad in the local newsagent’s window and I’ll put it on the classifieds here too. There’s nothing wrong with it – I’ve just moved on from those types of bike and it basically only uses average quality parts with all the implications that has for durability, maintenance etc.

Here are some pics of them all…
https://picasaweb.google.com/1100556695 ... D71sLN8gE#

One of the posters to this thread mentioned a Cannondale Street Sport Nexus which looked interesting but hard to find. I did notice a used one has just been put onto eBay if anyone is interested.

shouldbeinbed

Nice finds. one of my first bikes as a kid was a Puch, A purple touring style with gears when I was about 10, from Cedar Cycles near Cambridge. Its the first bike I vivdly remember owning and it took me everywhere. Pan flat countryside, quiet roads and paedophiles hadn't been invented so I could just roam to my hearts content all day, and I always thought the green and white harlequin badge was super cool, like a BMW (important distinctions to a growing boy)