What bike type rather than what particular bike

paulus69

Bit of a strange question, but am looking at getting a new bike in the near future and am totally bamboozeled about what kind to get. I currently have a hard tail mountain bike.

I am looking at using it for my bike commute once or twice a week (which is a mixture of road/canal with the occasional mounting up and down a curb)

Other rides I go out for are typically on canals and cycle tracks.

I do sometimes go offroad, but am intending to keep my mountain bike for that.

I would like a road bike (light and fast) although am unsure how comfortable it will be and whether it will be robust enough for mounting curbs/pot holes.

My budget would be around £500 - £600

BelgianBeerGeek

Most road bikes are fairly tough and can take a hammering (up to a point), although you might not want to do that on something expensive and no, it won't be comfortable.

A cyclo-cross bike might fit the bill, but don't know if you can get them new that cheap.

unixnerd

I'd say a cyclo cross bike or a tourer with 28 or 32mm tyres. If you want a really good tourer on a budget see the Edinburgh Bicycle chain's own brand (they do mail order), got my tourer there years ago and it's been a super bike. They start from around 499 I think.

Nice thing about tourers is proper mudguards, comfortable riding position and panniers to carry waterproofs and sandwiches. But they're not slow, I've done almost 50mph on mine and cruising above 20mph isn't too strenuous. They're slightly heavier than a road bike but that's about the only down side. If you go off-road just lower the tyre pressure a bit for comfort, run it nice and high for the road.

paulus69

Thanks for the advice, I didn't realise cyclocross existed as a category, I'm looking at the specialized tricross 2011 http://www.evanscycles.com/products/spe ... e-ec025019

MichaelW

The options for practical road bikes are:
Low-mid range road bik: max tyre clearance on std brakes (25mm) and rack and mudguard eyelets.
Winter training/light-touring/Audax road bike: more tyre clearance with long drop calipers (28mm) and full set of eyelets.
Std touring bike: cantelever brakes (clearance for ~38mm tyres), full set of eyelets and good handling fully loaded
Cyclo cross: cantelever brakes: only lower end CX bikes have eyelets, high-end race CX bikes have no eyelets.

Modern style CX/utility road bike with disk brakes.


CX is a good all-rounder style for commuting, touring and day rides.

phillipjohnson

As well as the tri cross it's worth considering this one...

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/kon ... e-ec026521

Also factor in a new set of tyres... cyclocross tyres are for racing in muddy fields... they puncture like crazy on road/gravel etc.

Chris`I

I've been commuting on a Tricross Sport (2010) for a couple of months now, doing ~18 miles each way. Only about 1/2 mile of that is hardpack canal path the rest is road/tarmac, but it performs brilliantly. Has the eyelets for rack and guards too. The standard tyres arent too bad either, certainly not knobbly things for offroad. Mine came with 28mm road tyres too as I got it second hand which makes it pretty nippy on the roads.

shouldbeinbed

or you could try Edinburgh Bikes Cross sport

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLq ... 333c018335

or the basic cross if you want to keep bit of cash in the pocket:

http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/ebwPNLq ... 333c018335

I've got a basic cross 10 and its great for exactly what you're doing, well specced for the pricepoint, nippy in and out of traffic and bombproof.

definitely change the tyres on whatever cross you'd get thougfh, they're less puncture proof on the road and generally pretty soft rubber so the knobbles wear much more than MTB ones do. I've got Vittoria Radonneur 32mm puncture resistant on mine and they're as good as the more costly schwalbe marathon +'s I've got on another bike