The new ride

[kalniel]

About time I stopped hijacking someone else's thread

My first bike in years has arrived, a Fuji Tread 1.3. Billed as an 'adventure' bike it's kind of a cyclocross with road tyres and perhaps more stable geometry.



Saddle looks a bit lower than is sexy, but I need to drop the headset a bit anyway. Feels nice and quick, though I do wince a bit on front derailleur downshifts as it gives an almighty clunk. Fairly normal for the Sora shifters apparently.

[Tumble]

Nice bike

Remember there's a fair gap between chain ring sizes at the front as well. I have Ultegra on mine and it makes a good slap changing down at the front.

[kalniel]

Nice bike

Remember there's a fair gap between chain ring sizes at the front as well. I have Ultegra on mine and it makes a good slap changing down at the front.

Yeah the most recent bike I rode had a triple rather than a compact and the gap was a bit of a surprise, but having just looked at the ratios there's a huge amount of overlap - almost 2/3rds of the cassette gives practically identical ratios - so hopefully once I get used to it and get some more experience of my capabilities I won't need to change the front all that often.

[Zak33]

the new ride in our house...

Apollo Fade

[kalniel]

He'll love it. First bike with proper gears?

[Zak33]

oh yes.. he's out on it right now... loves it

[TechTorpedo]

Nice bike, looks like it has a solid feel to it, how does it ride?

[sneakerhead]

Nice bike! Would love to buy something like that when I start biking!

[Tumble]

Yeah the most recent bike I rode had a triple rather than a compact and the gap was a bit of a surprise, but having just looked at the ratios there's a huge amount of overlap - almost 2/3rds of the cassette gives practically identical ratios - so hopefully once I get used to it and get some more experience of my capabilities I won't need to change the front all that often.

You'll have to put less power in when you're on the big chainring. something to do with angle of attack on the individual chain links or something. I only ever use the small ring on climbs...

[nomelette]

Beautiful bike, my next n+1 is definitely going to have to be a CX bike, I like the roadiness of this though. Fab!

[EvaSimp]

You bought very cool bike. my congratulations.

[kalniel]

Well I nearly made it two years before the +1.. Still loving the adventure bike, and it can handle surprisingly rough stuff. But when the going gets wild, I've now got...

[scaryjim]

Oooh, shiny! I've been thinking about something new for the rough stuff recently, but I'm not convinced I'd get into the hills enough to justify it. In the meantime my daily driver is currently in the shop having it's birthday service; just in time for me to get back into the commute properly for the summer

[Tumble]

Looking at one of these possibly before Christmas...

[Smudger]

This was something that really bugged me when I was buying a bike - the front cogs on MBs are so small. I was fancying a chunky-looking bike, (even considered a balloon-tyre model) but all the chunky ones were mountain bikes, with a very small front group. As I was going to be more of a casual rider (Sundays out with the boy, the occasional trip to Center Parcs), I thought this would make the gearing too low. So does it?
I've been and bought a Hydrid bike as a compromise, but I've wondered how suitable 'proper' mountain bikes are for casual (mainly road and dirt-track) riding?

I remember (puffs on pipe) when I first saw mountain bikes, back in the day, they were basically 'racers' with flat handle-bars and nobbly tires...

[kalniel]

I'm still getting it dialled in - may have a problem with fork lock-out not working correctly

Front cog is just about OK for casual riding - the big ring is 38 so good for about 40kph at 90 cadence. If you need faster you could go to a 29er (probably better for road and dirt track anyway) or get your local bike shop to swap in a bigger cog quite easily.