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Hey all, I face a bike purchasing dilemma, and like all hard decisions in my life, I turn to the pig balls website for help. I currently ride a 2007 Giant OCR A1 105 equipped endurance road bike. I like it a lot, but I've had it since new and I'm starting to get a new bike itch. My justification is that my current bike has toe straps, since I don't have a car, so I ride for errands and such in town all the time. I'd like another bike to be my dedicated pleasure ride bike, so I'll buy clipless pedals and such. I've also started ramping up my riding this year from an estimated ~2000-3000 miles a year to 500-700 miles a month in anticipation of doing some longer bike tours next year. I was thinking of going wireless shifting for my next bike, and I've heard the rumors that 105 di2 is very possible for next year, which would be perfect for me, as I don't really care about the smaller weight savings that come from sets above 105. Realistically, with the way bike prices are going, that will probably mean a $4000-$5000 bike next year. However, I was browsing craigslist and saw this bike. This seems like great deal for a Dura ace carbon bike, and I love how that generation of Synapse rides. I went and rode it and the weight difference is extremely noticeable, the brakes are a night and day difference (I went down a hill and hit them about how hard I normally would on my bike to slow down quickly and felt like I was going to go over the handlebars), and in general it seemed in mostly good shape, though obviously ridden a bunch. He also made it very clear he'd take $3000. I noticed a couple of things wrong with it, and I'm not a good enough bike mechanic to know if I should be worried about them. 1) The right shifter continues to "shift" after it is in the highest gear. It makes the index clicking sound and the lever moves just like it is shifting. It does not seem to move the rear derailleur past its limits though. This wouldn't bother me, except is it a sign of a gear lever needing replacement soon? 2) I think I detected the dreaded Cannondale bottom bracket creaking. I'm not 100% sure because I've heard it described as coming with some clicking, and this was just a creak. The sound didn't annoy me, but again, is this a repairable issue? 3) The paint was a little rougher than the pictures indicate. No chipping, but the head tube in particular had some cracking. So, opinions? Am I wrong to think that, especially in the current bike environment, this bike for $3000 is a pretty good deal? I think a theoretical 105 di2 bike would be a better spec for me than this bike, but if I buy this bike I have a new bike now that I can ride for an extra ~year before a 105 di2 bike would show up, save probably $1000, technically have better components, and if I turn out to hate it, could always turn around and resell it for a good chunk of the price I paid for it. That's the sunny outlook. The cloudy outlook is what if I spend $3000 on a bike that I immediately need to drop money on fairly major repairs, the creaking BB gets worse/can't be fully repaired, and I end up with a bike I don't like and having to sell it for half the price. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 13:33
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Raenir Salazar posted:So I'm looking to revisit getting some kind of security for my quick release seat post so I don't have to carry it with me to class (at work I can bring it into the building). I don't have any personal experience with Pinhead stuff, but my Chicago coworkers swear by their wheel nuts.
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Jun 7, 2022 22:59
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Is there a good roundup of clipless pedals that people like? I've always ridden flats or the toe clip things, because I didn't want to wear shoes I couldn't wear off the bike, but now I have a bike just for pleasure rides, so I'd like to get clipless on that. I kind of like the idea of the mountain bike style cleats, since you can get the recessed cleat, but that seems like such an obvious thing, there must be a reason so many roadies don't wear them (is it just weight?). I do like the bigger size of the Shimano road cleats, just to have a bigger surface to press against, but I know you can get spd platforms as well. Slightly complicating matters is I'd like to keep the cost reasonable on these for now since I could see wanting power meter pedals at some point in the future. Should I just get that $150 REI combo someone posted about earlier? (In case anyone followed my previous posts and cares, after I made that post I ended up riding a bunch of electronic shifting bikes, new and used, SRAM and Shimano, in the $2500-$6000 range and realized I didn't care about electronic shifting nearly as much as I thought I did. I also realized that even the $6000 bike I rode didn't feel nearly as good to ride as the first bike. So I went back and bought that 2019 Cannondale Synapse Hi Mod Dura ace for $3000, and I absolutely love it) Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Jun 10, 2022 |
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Jun 10, 2022 19:57
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El Laucha posted:A few weeks ago I went to the desert to ride a couple of days: Might steal this for my phone background if you're ok with it Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jun 14, 2022 |
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Jun 14, 2022 20:22
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I have a Priority 600 that I originally purchased to be a winter/rain commuter bike... in February 2020. I stopped going into the office a full 2 weeks after it was delivered. Now that my company is fully remote, and as a software person, I may never commute again, it's fair to say I haven't used it to its full potential! My plan b for it is to be my bikepacking bike (or more accurately, gravel/rails-to-trails/backroads touring bike, since I don't plan on doing much single track, or really anything super technical, at least for now). I took it out last weekend and it was great, but the rear WTB Horizon tire (650b 47c, the tan sidewall version from the link) it came with punctured, including small holes in the tire, in 3 places. So, looking for 2 recommendations 1) Should I go tubeless? I never have before, but supposedly these wheels and tires are tubeless ready (though I have seen a YT video saying they need to be re-taped, and another review that mentioned these tires with the tan sidewalls absorb sealant really quickly). The punctures are pretty small, it seems like the perfect application for tubeless from what I understand. 2) Anyone have recommended tires for my application? It felt like these slicks were the right balance, since they were wide enough that the light gravel and compacted limestone of trails around here were no problem, but still rolled well on pavement, which is the majority of what I ride (this last ride was 65/35 paved/unpaved). But if every time I ride a trail I get punctures, it's going to be annoying, especially since I've taken my old road bike on these trails with no trouble -- granted with Gatorskins, but still. Or are these decent tires and I just got unlucky? Lastly, not for this bike, but for the Cannondale I've been posting about a lot, anyone have experience with Powertap P1 powermeter pedals? Seems like used ones go on eBay pretty regularly for ~$250. I wasn't planning on getting a power meter, but I'm in the market for clipless pedals anyway, at that price, as long as they aren't horrible, seems decent. The reviews I've read talk about decreased turning angles and that they're a bit heavy, but I'm not racing, this would be my first power measurement ever, doesn't seem like a huge deal. Sorry for the huge dump of questions, here's a picture of my bike and the tiny 2 site campground where I camped:  EDIT: Looking at WTB's website, they're now suggesting 25-45 PSI. The tirewall says 30-60 and I was running 60. That might have something to do with it I suppose. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Jun 21, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 22:30
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Thanks for all the tire and power meter tips. I'll take a pass on the powertaps, seems they're cheap for a reason. Those Mondials look really good for what I want. Unfortunately their only 650 size is too wide for my bike (I found this tire size chart super useful for converting between French, inch and ETRTO tire specs, hope it'll help someone else too). No Conti travel line available in 650 at all either. Looks like my main choices are either the Schwalbe Marathons or WTB makes a puncture resistant version of the horizons I have. I've fixed my current flat and will probably go tubeless with one of those the next time I flat out.
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Jun 22, 2022 17:18
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yoohoo posted:What’s the thread consensus on stans or orange? For both a road bike and a mountain bike if that matters. I don't know anything, but have lurked the thread long enough to know they love orange
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Jul 8, 2022 22:54
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Yeah, little holes like that can let sand in, and the friction of that rubbing against the tube can cause small leaks. Definitely worth patching.
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Aug 10, 2022 22:37
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I plan a small, roughly week long, group ride with friends and family every year. It's a ton of fun to ride, and I am a planner so I enjoy that part of it too. This year we're doing USBR 30 across Wisconsin. My wife and I also make the food for everyone. I'm looking for suggestions for lunch food that I can carry in a backpack on the ride that will hold up for 4 hours without refrigeration. I've traditionally just done PB&J with snacks, which works great, but I'd like something to mix it up so we don't have that 5+ days in a row. Thoughts?
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Aug 25, 2022 18:39
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bolind posted:I have a Giro Fixture helmet that's a couple of years old. The "forehead" pad has lost its ability to velcro, which is annoying. What's the fix? Fresh set of pads? There is also an eBay seller that fabricates and sells many different helmet pads if you can't find them from the manufacturer
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Sep 20, 2022 12:18
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sweat poteto posted:Doesn't seem excessive. $10/mo seems to be a baseline for a lot of services and RideWithGPS has been at least $80 for ages. Only for Premium. You can get the vast majority of the features for $50
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Jan 8, 2023 01:57
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Crumps Brother posted:RAGBRAI announced the overnight towns over the weekend. I'm pretty excited because although I wasn't able to ride last year I'll actually be around the area this time. Looks like currently I'll bet riding on Wednesday for the Ames to DSM leg. Depending on the route details I wonder if I could swing Thursday as well. Only time will tell, I guess. I'm signed up for the week! Super excited as well
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Jan 31, 2023 01:17
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tarlibone posted:What recommendations does anyone have for a bicycle repair stand? I use the Park Tools PCS-9. I don't do a ton of advanced work or anything, and I didn't exactly heavily research it before I bought it, but it was reasonably priced and does what I need it to do. EDIT: I have those Wahoo sensors. I was going to use them for Zwift, but found them laggy when connected to my laptop. If you wanted them, barely used, I'd happily send them your way for cheap (half price?). PM me if you want them. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 22:50
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My wife and I are also headed to Ragbrai. Her first, and by far longest ride ever, and my 6th. Really looking forward to it, but I question the sanity of anyone saying 99 degrees is great weather for it!
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Jul 21, 2023 17:58
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I cracked the frame of my favorite bike on Ragbrai this year. A Giant OCR A1 endurance road bike. It wasn't my best bike, but I've had it for 17 years since new and I really loved it. I'm pretty bummed about breaking it. However, there are 2 silver linings: 1) Since I was the original owner, even 17 years later, Giant honored the lifetime frame warranty to the tune of a $737 credit, or 20% off a new bike. Pretty good considering I bought it for $1500 and the whole thing was pretty worn out at this point. 2) It gives me a chance to make my bike stable make more sense. Like I said, it was an endurance road bike, and last year with the help of this thread, I purchased another, more expensive Cannondale Synapse.... endurance road bike. So I'm looking for a bike for a specific niche that the old bike filled. It was my around town bike. I live in a small, very bike friendly city, which is laid out in such a way that I don't really have to drive and can bike to wherever I need. My Cannondale has Look Keo pedals, so that's the bike I take when I'm getting all kitted out and riding the countryside for fun. But it doesn't exactly make for a good errands bike. I'd also like to do some longer bike touring, both on roads, and on the many packed limestone rails-to-trails around here, with bikepacking bags, so I'm looking for something with enough heft, and enough braze-ons to handle a load, while still being fairly quick unloaded. Lastly, I also much prefer drop bars to flat bars (flat bars without much sweep tend to hurt my wrists after a while). All that to say I'm thinking a gravel bike. I know that's not hugely different from an endurance road bike, and I said I wanted to diversify, but I think it fits what I'm looking for. Before hearing back from the bike shop on the warranty, I assumed the credit would be only for other Giant bikes (which I would have been fine with, I enjoyed my Giant a lot), but it's just generic store credit that I can use for just about anything. It's a big bike shop and they can get pretty much any brand. So all of that long story is to say: If you had, I dunno, $3-5000 for a gravel/touring bike, what would you look at? I wasn't expecting to be in the market so soon, so I haven't done a ton of research yet. I rented a Trek Checkpoint for a week that I really liked riding. I've never ridden one, but if I wanted something a bit more touring focused, I've heard good things about Salsa Cutthroats, and that's what all the GDMBR racers use. I don't anticipate entering into a bikepacking race or anything, but I could see riding the GDMBR for sure. As long as I'm being clueless: What's the consensus opinion on 1x vs 2x on gravel bikes? I lean towards 2x, but it's really just familiarity I think. Also, I really only know anything abouts road focused groupsets, especially Shimano, and know very little about SRAM or GRX. Any pointers on what to look for there?
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Aug 10, 2023 21:43
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I'm no expert, but I just recently rode a bunch of gravel bikes at various price points. My local bike shop got a deal on some Felt Broam 60s that are usually $1300 down to $999. I was very impressed with it for the price. Even at $1300 it seemed like a very solid bike. I wouldn't recommend getting the 40 or the 30 though, I think they cut a few too many corners on the components (they're fine bikes for the price, but given that $1300 is well within your range, I think it's worth the extra money). \/\/\/ Also a good choice Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Oct 12, 2023 |
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Oct 12, 2023 02:47
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Given that we are on page 530 of this thread, I'm going to advocate for a used eBay 530. I bought mine for $175, and that was before the 540 came out, so I'm sure they're cheaper now. Works great!
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Oct 17, 2023 22:42
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Any particular recommended heart rate monitors/straps?
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Nov 11, 2023 14:53
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Great year people! As a new trainer rider, I wanted to ask the people who put in tons of miles indoor: Do you find the mileage estimates accurate? I started TrainerRoad on a Saris H3 that I bought last month. I seem to average 10-11 miles an hour on cadence and effort that, were I riding outside, would be well over 10 miles. Obviously, this is extremely Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jan 2, 2024 |
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Jan 2, 2024 18:38
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Grumpwagon posted:As a new trainer rider, I wanted to ask the people who put in tons of miles indoor: Do you find the mileage estimates accurate? So, a follow up to this that really demonstrates my lack of indoor experience. The problem: I was putting in more effort/cadence in than I was getting speed out The solution: Shift to a higher gear I just assumed that since the trainer compensated for differing flywheel speeds to make the effort the same, that it would also adjust/calculate/wildly guess what the speed would have been outdoor on the flat. I can now live my dream of going ~20 mph instead of ~10 mph for the same effort and cadence. Big numbers rejoice! My training is obviously better now because bigger number == better.
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Jan 17, 2024 17:50
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wooger posted:What device are you using to run trainerroad? Ok, this makes a lot more sense now. I was mostly just making that post to make fun of myself, so I didn't mention (and set it up after my first post, so forgot I didn't mention it, and that Crumps correctly pointed out the gearing issue then) the hacky workaround I'm actually using instead of the built in sync. I don't use Strava, I use RideWithGPS. TrainerRoad doesn't have syncing support for that, so I can either manually export/import rides (which also reported roughly the same low estimated speed/distance, on top of being a PITA), or connect my garmin to the trainer and use Garmin -> RWGPS sync. So rest assured I'm only messing with my own stats, not Strava's challenges. Per TR's recommendation, I am in erg mode (and yes, I did calibrate), and while I see from the TR setup page they recommend a lower gear, the reason for that is to avoid hitting a wattage floor, which I'm still well above. Also based on perceived effort, this new speed may be slightly overcounting the miles (and in fact have adjusted to a lower gear), I'd estimate an (flat) outdoor ride with this effort/cadence would be averaging 17-18 MPH, so even before the 2nd adjustment, I'm much closer to reality now than I was before. While I have very little indoor cycling experience, I ride outdoors a ton and can assure you there's no way the level of effort I was putting out matched ~10 miles for the sorts of rides I do around here. Anyway, thanks for the help and apologies for leaving out some pretty relevant information. I just set it up a while back and forgot the hackiness of my setup. I'm going to link my (old, disused) Strava account in addition to this and see what sort of speed/distance it thinks I am doing as an additional point of comparison. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jan 17, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 22:02
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wooger posted:Er, why do you care if your trainer rides are synced to ride with GPS? I’d only care for grabbing and editing routes easily, and there aren’t any. A very reasonable question. In addition to the main reason I use it -- mapping routes -- it has Strava-light functionality, so I use it like how normal people use Strava to record rides/mileage so I have some idea how much I ride per month/year/etc. As to why I use it for that instead of just Strava, well, the local bike federation puts their maps out on RWGPS, so I used that first, then started using it to map my own routes, then figured as long as I was mapping I could record rides. I pay for it and don't want to pay for 2 services. If I were starting today I'd probably just use Strava, but here I am.
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Jan 17, 2024 22:20
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wooger posted:Strava is free for basic stuff. I also do all ride editing, importing and perusal in ride with gps or komoot, but everything syncs from garmin up to Strava & everywhere else, I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything. Yeah, but (until now) Strava didn't add anything to my experience that I didn't already get from RWGPS.
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Jan 17, 2024 22:29
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Pretty much any kind of bike can go on rail trails. Depending on how much you want to spend, what body position you're comfortable in, and how much experience you have riding, anything from a basic hybrid bike up to a gravel bike would work great! You could absolutely use a mountain bike or a road bike on rail trails as well, but I would consider them slightly worse than either of the above. Not so much that you'd need a different kind of bike if you had one of those already, but if you know your main riding will be on rail trails, I'd suggest one of the others first. EDIT: If this is your first bike in a while, and you're just looking to cruise, a hybrid is often a good choice, because they're relatively cheap, and very versatile. Once you've been riding for a while, you'll know more about what you like and don't like about that style of bike, so you'll know what you want for next time. VVV this is very true, and I've ridden hundreds of miles of rail trail with a road bike, but if the rail trails near you are a bit sandier or less well taken care of, the thin tires can slide around sometimes. If you're a newer rider that can really sap your confidence. Again though, these are all very small differences. Any bike will be fine. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Apr 19, 2024 |
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Apr 19, 2024 20:32
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