I want to buy a road bike

[Levin]

That might work. I'm rather out of the game bike fashion wise. What's the difference between a gravel bike and a cyclocross one?

It looks like they have wider tyres, more relaxed geometry, and a stupid sized front ring.

I'm feeling a little glum about it all. It's so much money. I'm too big. Lots of bikes are so very ugly.

[San Bernardhinault]

To be honest, I don't think I'm in the game, either. The last bike I bought was probably 7 or 8 years ago and was probably the wrong bike for me. And I have no idea what the difference between Gravel and Cyclocross bikes is, really.

In my very superficial browsing I like the look of the Canyon Alu Grail (which seems to be 1500-2000 quid in the UK). Looks like it would be a nice ride for some long distance touring after putting narrower tyres on. Of course, it's out of stock at the moment in both the US and UK (and I don't have the money for it, and don't have any long distance touring planned).

[caja-dglh]

That might work. I'm rather out of the game bike fashion wise. What's the difference between a gravel bike and a cyclocross one?

It looks like they have wider tyres, more relaxed geometry, and a stupid sized front ring.

I'm feeling a little glum about it all. It's so much money. I'm too big. Lots of bikes are so very ugly.

Buying by parts - if you are up to it - can be a good move. Places like slow twitch always have bits and bobs for sale and that way you can make most of the bike in ten or fifteen purchases of a few hundred quid. Then buy a frame and - TADA - the bike you want without the sticker shock (but actually the same expensive price).

[Levin]

I've become worryingly bewitched by the Cinelli Nemo TIG or the same but with discs. They're more expensive than I was thinking (it'll take me a while to save for it) but they look gorgeous, the frame is less than double the weight of my old Cannondale, the XXL is pretty much the same size as my last bike and I could pick the colour. For some reason the Blue Sky (disc link second image) calls to me.

[Forest Gump]

I had a Btwin Triban 500 from Decathlon hich had sat in the garage pretty much unused for a couple of years. Halfway through the last lockdown I started to use it pretty regularly, only for the garage to get broken into and the bike nicked.

I've been debating whether to replace it, but in the end I got an old Peugeot Premiere from eBay for peanuts. It needs a little bit of work, but I nabbed one of those ?50 government bike fixing vouchers, so hopefully that will cover the bulk of the work. So if this one gets nicked, I won't be too out of pocket.

Here's what a 'finished' one looks like, and what I'm aiming for:

[Levin]

Are you going to keep the retro shifters? That's something very pretty to aim for

[Forest Gump]

Are you going to keep the retro shifters? That's something very pretty to aim for

Yep, going to keep them for now. I've never owned a bike of that age before, so I imagine the gears will take a bit of getting used to.

[Levin]

Me again. Looking for advice from the great OTF peloton. Sorry for going on so much about this.

I've got pricing on a couple of Nemo TIGs now.

Option 1.
Purchased through a bike shop. Rim brakes, Chorus groupset, Miche wheels.

Option 2.
Purchased direct from Cinelli. Disk brakes, Ultegra groupset, Fulcrum wheels

Option 1 is the more expensive by about ?600 but it is all Italian. What do you think?

Also, I've got to decide on a colour...



I like, eggplant, marc, purple haze, blue sky and orange blossom special.

Green special is a lovely colour but I don't think it's a bike colour. I keep thinking about pink but it's a little lighter than I'd like.

Tending towards blue sky or orange blossom (in the gloss finish).

[Ginger Yellow]

Hooray

Work on creating the long-awaited segregated cycleway through Deptford is to resume on Monday after stopping in March when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

Construction started in Creek Road about a year ago but was paused when the crisis began, and Transport for London switched its resources to rolling out new temporary lanes elsewhere in the capital.

Now work will begin again on Monday on remodelling junctions at Deptford Church Street and Glashier Street, and across Deptford Creek Bridge at Norway Street in Greenwich, as well as created a segregated two-way route for cyclists.

Supposedly the section from Greenwich to the flyover is going to be opened later this month too. Seems like it's going to be a long while before they start on the important (to me) bit, between Deptford and Rotherhithe, though.

[San Bernardhinault]

Just went for a ride: -2C, "Feels like -7C", any time I got above about 15mph it just got too cold. Snow on the ground and grey skies. This might be about the limit of what is reasonable to ride in. I can ride colder, but I think that would more be out of necessity than actual desire. I might be riding inside for most of the rest of the winter....

Meanwhile the Nemo TIG looks lovely. A Cinelli steel bike is going to be a whole lot of fun to ride. I'm glad you're going for fun colours. Way too many bikes these days are in white, grey or black. I like the Euskadi-ish Orange Blossom or the fun Marc.

[caja-dglh]

Levin I think it is very clear that you know the correct answer to your question.


The best matte color is the cherry bomb. I agree on the Eggplant/Marc or Orange Blossom.

I need to call a bloke on Craigslist to buy the fixie he has for sale. I need a daily for riding to the park with kids without clip-in pedals.

[Billy Casper]

Eggplant with disk brakes for me.

I got disk brakes for the first time this March just because it seemed the way of the future. I completely underestimated how much better they actually are.

[San Bernardhinault]

My diskbrakes are early generation mechanical ones and are fine, but not great. And they keep being annoyingly fiddly to adjust. The rotors are slightly off dead-true, which really doesn't help. That was probably my fault when I put them on new cheap wheels rather than had a shop do it. I think once you go to higher end, more modern, and hydraulic, you're golden. Although the thing with the mechanical ones is that I can actually fix them - at a push - on the road, like rim brakes. With hydraulics you're probably fucked if something actually goes wrong.

[Mumpo]

Just went for a ride: -2C, "Feels like -7C", any time I got above about 15mph it just got too cold. Snow on the ground and grey skies. This might be about the limit of what is reasonable to ride in. I can ride colder, but I think that would more be out of necessity than actual desire. I might be riding inside for most of the rest of the winter....

Hard to believe that I cycled to work every (working) day for the previous five winters. Working from home this time, looking out the window at 8:30am and thinking, "No. No, no, no, no. no."

[San Bernardhinault]

Ha! I just came in from today's ride. It was 36F (about 2 or so C) and felt positively benign compared to the last couple of days.

[caja-dglh]

Ha! I just came in from today's ride. It was 36F (about 2 or so C) and felt positively benign compared to the last couple of days.

Are you at the temps where your respiratory system starts to freeze for the first fifteen minutes or so? Those are when you know the fun is about to go down.

[San Bernardhinault]

Not really. But then I'm not riding with any intensity - I don't trust the road surfaces to not be sketchy.

[caja-dglh]

Not really. But then I'm not riding with any intensity - I don't trust the road surfaces to not be sketchy.

That makes a lot of sense. I just recognize all that from running. I had one the other night - because I am on the back of a long injury I am on quite short distances. By the time I got past that stage it was about time to wrap up, which really sucked as it had finally started to be anything but miserable.

[San Bernardhinault]

I do hate that feeling of the freezing air clogging up your windpipe when you're working hard but haven't generated enough body heat yet.

[Levin]

Do you have disc or rim brakes? And if rim, do you have carbon rims?

[San Bernardhinault]

I have mechanical discs and cheap shitty wheels that I bought when I had no money after I broke spokes too often in my even shittier factory wheels.

[San Bernardhinault]

Everyone tells me that carbon wheels are the future, but I've never ridden any so have basically no idea if they're as shit hot as we're told, or whether they offer tiny, marginal gains that are really only relevant if you're racing flat out.

[Gawpus]

Probably more the latter - from what I understand, aerodynamics are by far the biggest factor once you're moving at anything over around 24kph/15mph, so shape matters more than material/weight.

[Levin]

Thanks you. I feel really stupid saying this but I'm going to let aesthetics trump safety and go for rims rather than discs. I can't get over how disc bikes look.

[Billy Casper]

I've no problem with that at all.

The more you like how a bike looks, the more you want to ride it.