hybrid advice please??

crom7

Hi,
I'm contemplating a hybrid bike and have seen the :

Cannondale Bad Boy Fatty SLX £999
and the
Cannondale Quick 2 £799

both of which are available on my cycle scheme provider http://www.cyclesolutions.co.uk/Catalog ... MakeID=515

Could anyone give me some advice and suggestions as to the best? I want it for road use and general fitness (20-30 mile rides and maybe occasionally slightly longer). Would like to go for a full on road bike but the low posture doesn't suit me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

topdude

Out of those two the Quick must be better for road use and fitness, the Bad Boy looks like a bit of a monster (have you seen the size of the forks) ?
Also have you considered a more road type bike with flat bars like the Spesh Sirrus or Giant Rapid ?

night_porter

The Quick is a flat barred road bike just like the Sirrus or the Rapid.

Even the components on it are Tiagra which is part of Shimano's road bike gearing.

A word of warning though, when I started to commute regularly I too bought a flat barred roadie for the same reasons as you. My commute was about 6 miles each way and although I struggled for the 1st month or so I soon became accustomed to the exercise.

I did find that using flat bars on a such regular basis my wrists started to ache continuously so I looked for ways to alleviate this. First I tried ergo grips with short stubby bar ends, helped a bit but still problems. Then I tried Butterfly bars mainly because I could use the same brakes and shifters and it would give me more hand positions. Again helped a bit but didn't solve the problem.

Finally I bought a 2nd hand set of bars and levers from someone who had converted a road bike to flat bars. These came with all of the cables and were already taped. Much to my amazement turning my hands through 90 degrees to ride on the hoods solved my aching wrist problems. Of course at first I put this down to the many hand postions offered by drop bars but after a few months I found that I rarely moved my hands because they are comfortable. In fact the only time I move my hands is to get out of headwinds by going onto the drops!

I enjoy this type of bike so much now that my commuting route has doubled in both directions (rain or shine) and I ride much more at weekends. I now ride between 600-700 miles per month.

The moral of the story is that I could have saved myself a lot of discomfort and money by choosing drop bars in the first place. Trust me they are much better than they look and with some nice gel tape you won't look back.

Ben6899

Quick.

The Bad Boy appears to have a tiny crank - not so good for putting in road miles.

But night_porter has a point: tourers ride drops for a reason.

crom7

thanks, some good advice there.