Which Bike Dawes V Raleigh

tinorilla

Hi All,

I am thinking of purchasing a Road/Hybrid bike for commuting, approx 6 miles return journey.

I have two bikes in mind

Dawes Kalahari £377.99

http://dawescycles.com/product/kalahari-gents/

or Raleigh Pioneer 4 £425

http://www.raleigh.co.uk/ProductType/Pr ... 6&pg=10874

Which one out of the two is better or has better components, I ask as I do not anything about parts etc

I look forward to your views.

Thank You

arlowood

Firstly, for a 6 mile commute you don't need to buy a bike with suspension forks. All they do is add weight that you have to overcome with no real benefit.

My suggestion would be to up your budget slightly and consider the Boardman Hybrid Team

http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/h ... -comp-bike

Better in all respects IMHO than the 2 bikes you have linked to for what you want to do.

tinorilla

arlowood wrote:

Firstly, for a 6 mile commute you don't need to buy a bike with suspension forks. All they do is add weight that you have to overcome with no real benefit.

My suggestion would be to up your budget slightly and consider the Boardman Hybrid Team

http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/h ... -comp-bike

Better in all respects IMHO than the 2 bikes you have linked to for what you want to do.

Thanks for your advice, did not mention that I am 45, 18 stone hefty individual, the slim saddle......hernia.... cannot bear imagining.

I want to do essential shopping hence the need for Pannier Racks and mudguards as it is always wet and raining over here in the north. A luxurious saddle is also essential

I thought suspension will be good for pot holes, gutters etc the roads are not getting repaired.

Back to drawing board then. Ps I am trying to loose weight and exercise, bike, walk, run.

arlowood

tinorilla wrote:

Thanks for your advice, did not mention that I am 45, 18 stone hefty individual, the slim saddle......hernia.... cannot bear imagining.

I want to do essential shopping hence the need for Pannier Racks and mudguards as it is always wet and raining over here in the north. A luxurious saddle is also essential

I thought suspension will be good for pot holes, gutters etc the roads are not getting repaired.

Back to drawing board then. Ps I am trying to loose weight and exercise, bike, walk, run.

If you can stretch your budget a bit the this will tick all your boxes and looks a thousand times better than the Dawes or Raleigh.

http://www.rutlandcycling.com/296304/pr ... tAodyRoAMw

Has the rack and mudguard mounts you require and a good spread of gearing.

A word of warning on your preconceptions about saddles. Don't confuse wide and spongy with comfort, particularly if you plan to ride longer than 30 mins to an hour. A narrow and firm saddle may suggest potential torture but some of most widely used and popular are from the Fizik and Specialized ranges (Arione and Toupe for example). Cheaper and generally well received is the Charge Spoon.

tangled_metal

oxoman wrote:

Suspension isn't really worth it and in ideally you shouldn't be going through potholes.

Now that made me laugh. Seriously on my commute you would not get very far trying to avoid potholes. Starting from home at about 1 mile in the narrow A road has that sunken, cracked surface kind of pothole where all the traffic going along have gone (too narrow to give different lines of travel) so you have to ride through them. This is a bit of a road judder and lasts some distance in long runs. Then from memory there are a few large sunken grates that are into the road. Too tight to go inside and if traffic is there you can't go around (cars and trucks passing too close to let you out and around them). That runs pretty much from the end of the first type of potholes.

Then there is the large road building going on which means that they have been digging up the existing road where the new one will pass or join. Concrete runs over which you get shaken badly or to the inside where you are on old and poor surface with bits of the concrete going off to the side that you have to go over.

Then nearer my destination there is a whole mile of atrocious patch jobs following the installation of utilities about 10 years ago. They put them in about 6 months to a year after resurfacing the road which resulted in them ruining the new surface. You can not ride on it without going over potholes.

Seriously I can see the need for suspension, it really depends on the routes the OP is riding on. If like me you need something. I had suspension hybrid and that worked. At least it never shook itself to pieces like my old road bike. That bike had about 20 years with very little going wrong then after 2 months commuting (before I gave up on it) the bike had to have wheels trued or at least the spokes sorted a bit every week. Then every so often there would be a more serious buckling of the wheel which I had to go to a mate who had a real knack to sort it out by eye. Then the quill stem started playing up and a load of other road induced niggles.

After the suspension hybrid (which was a specialized crosstrail sport disc) I got a Planet X London road with 700x37c tyres and carbon forks. That soaks up a lot of road buzz but there are many places on the route that if I can not avoid due to the potholes being extensive or traffic forces me into them. Those places I just have to slow down and ride over them off the saddle with knees and arms bent to soften the bumps.

So IMHO if the routes the OP rides on are bad enough then suspension may be a compromise worth having. Personally I am sold on carbon forks. Perhap steel too although it didn;'t help me trashing my old Reynolds 501 tubed road bike (still can not work out how they got such a tube into a frame sized XL and into a bike that only weighed 9.5kg all in with bottle cages and saddle bullet bag full of emergency tools, money and keys).

tinorilla

arlowood wrote:

tinorilla wrote:

If you can stretch your budget a bit the this will tick all your boxes and looks a thousand times better than the Dawes or Raleigh.

http://www.rutlandcycling.com/296304/pr ... tAodyRoAMw

Now Then, what a beauty of a bike. I'll start doing a bit of research on this Now!

Thank you Arlo, Oxo;

The Boardman Bike is not getting good reviews , issues raised with gears, components, tracking, bearings to name a few.

The Carrera Subway seems to be very popular and from reading the reviews by customer they seem to love it.

TM thanks for your input pal.