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What do I ride...and why?

My "lighteight road bike"
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The what

Frame - custom made by Paul Hewitt cycles with Columbus Life tubing.

 

Fork - Columbus Minimal, full carbon.

 

Wheels - handbuilt by DCR Wheels with DCR hubs (Bitex), DCR rims and Sapim bladed spokes.  Continental Gatorskin 28mm tyres with tubes.

 

Components - Shimano Ultegra 10 speed, 12-30 cassette.  Chainset is TA Carmina with 44 & 28 chainrings.

 

Pedals - Look Keo Ti.

 

Finishing kit - FSA, Deda, Thomson.

 

Overall complete weight is 8.1kg.

The why

This is clearly a long way from the “lightweight road bikes” all over the internet and magazines.  Some might argue it’s not even that “lightweight”!

SO here is my thinking behind these choices.

 

Purpose

  • Riding for the sheer pleasure of it.  

  • It’s the right compromise for me between comfort and efficiency on longish days in the hills and mountains: light enough to be enjoyable but not so stiff and harsh as to leave me feeling battered at the end of the day.  

  • It is NOT for racing.

 

Steel frame because…

  • Off-the-peg frames usually don’t fit me and steel is the main, cost-effective material of custom builders.

  • A smooth, forgiving ride quality.  This bike descends so much better than stiffer frames I’ve owned.

  • Slight lack of stiffness, relative to carbon, isn’t an issue for me as a sub-60kg spinner.

  • I love the traditional look.

 

Lack of modern features because…

  • It’s a few years old.

  • Rim brakes are easily good enough for fine weather riding and they are lighter.

  • The aero (and aesthetic?) advantages of concealed cables are irrelevant to me and MUCH more of a problem for home mechanics.

  • I already had perfectly functional, decent quality 10 speed components.

  • Square taper bottom bracket is necessary for my chosen 160mm crankset and it doesn’t creak.

Traditional features:

  • External headset

  • External cables

  • Rim brakes

10 speed Ultegra:

Easy to adjust

Low gearing because…

  • I’m getting on a bit and not super powerful.

  • A standard ‘compact’ chainset typically gives a top gear of 50x11; probably close to the ratio elite sprinters were using in the 1980s … I’m no Sean Kelly!  I wonder how many middle-aged recreational cyclists regularly use this gear…

  • The 44T chainring means that, on flatter roads, I spend most of the time towards the middle of the cassette rather than ‘cross-chaining’ from a 50T ring to the largest sprockets at the back.

  • I would prefer an 11 sprocket but don’t want to increase the gaps in the gears.

TA Carmina chainset:

160mm cranks

Takes small chainrings

Lovely finish

And so it’s very much a case of ‘horses for courses’.  

 

This is a lovely bike to ride in the hills on dry, sunny days.  It’s light enough to climb well, comfortable enough to ride all day, well-mannered enough to descend confidently.  It has been perfect for the mountains of France, mainland Spain and Mallorca, and, closer to home, the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales and North Pennines.

 

I’ve got nothing against different frame materials, disc brakes and tubeless tyres but I don’t need them on this bike.  

 

Super-stiff, aerodynamic bikes, likewise, have their place … but not in my garage!

My winter road bike

  • Sonder Colibri aluminium frame and full carbon fork

  • Shimano 105 10 speed gearing

  • TRP Spyre mechanical disc brakes

  • Old TA Zephyr chainset with 44 and 28t rings and 160mm cranks

  • 105 cassette, 12-30t

  • Cheap & cheerful Merlin Cycles own brand wheels

  • Vittoria Zaffiro 32mm tyres with tubes

  • Look pedals

  • Flinger mudguards

Why have a winter bike?

​

  • We ride all year round, on gravel & muck strewn, potholed roads. Often in the Peak District with its steep hills.

  • This bike uses old and/or cheap components which I'm not worried about giving a hard time in winter weather.

  • It has wide, robust tyres for poor winter conditions.

  • Full length mudguards are absolutely essential:

    • I don't want to spend £100+ on a jersey/jacket and then get it covered in crap from the road

    • I don't want to ingest that crap

    • I don't ride alone and so I need to protect my companions from road spray.

​

About the frame

  • The frame is the only off-the-peg frame that I own.

  • Very unusually it is a brilliant fit for me.

  • It is pretty light at 1460g.

  • It rides MUCH better than expected and is FANTASTIC VALUE FOR MONEY.

About the brakes

I think cable disc brakes are the perfect option for a winter road bike...by far!

  • They are more powerful than caliper rim brakes, particularly in wet weather, and, crucially for a winter bike, don't wear through the wheel rims.

  • Although not as powerful as hydraulics, which I prefer for off-road riding, they are plenty powerful enough for road use (and I have really small hands).

  • They will work with any levers.

  • They are much easier to maintain and adjust than hydraulics:

    • You can adjust the clearance between rotor and pads

    • Each pad is individually adjustable so they are always centred

    • Lever pull is adjustable, unlike many hydraulics

    • In my experience regular exposure to gritty and salty conditions can lead hydraulic pistons to stick.

​

I love 'em!

About the mudguards - its a long story!

  • None of the so-called 'full-length' mudguards out there are actually long enough.

  • In order for the rider behind to be properly protected, a decent length mudflap has to be added.

  • We use flaps from Raw Mudflap.

  • I bought these Flinger guards on recommendation from the shop but when I started to fit them I realised they were far too short (but too late to return them).

  • When I attached a mudflap it stuck out at an angle because the end of the guard wasn't vertical.

  • The rather Heath-Robinson solution was to bolt on an extension piece from an old guard and then bolt on the mudflap!

  • BUT there was so much mudguard beyond the bottom stay that it was unstable.

  • Hence the extra stay!

​

This was a real palaver, obviously, but at least I now have a proper length rear mudguard. We can ride as a group and stay clean!

Sadly the front is also too short in that it doesn't extend far enough forward.

​

The moral of the story is

AVOID FLINGER MUDGUARDS IF YOU RIDE WITH OTHER PEOPLE!

My gravel bike

The what

​

Frame: Custom titanium by Jason Burls

Forks: Columbus Futura full carbon

Wheels: Own brand 19mm rims on Bitex hubs, by DCR wheels. I have 2 pairs - one set up tubeless for mixed surface riding and the other with road tyres and fewer spokes.

Gears & brakes: Shimano 105 (R7020) hydraulic, 160mm rotors

Cassette: 11-32t

Chainset: Sugino OX2-901D with 44 & 28t rings, 160mm cranks

Pedals: Shimano spd

Headset: Chris King

Bottom bracket: Hope

Finishing kit: FSA, Deda

The Why

​

Custom made because I'm short with short legs. Burls offers good value for money and was very responsive. He's mainly mail order so you really need to know what you're after and/or have bike fit data. We finally agreed on the 5th drawing he offered; for a more conventionally sized frame/person (my wife, Claire) 1 drawing was enough.

​

Titanium because it is suited to custom building. I feel it's better for a mixed terrain bike than steel: It is similar weight to ultra lightweight steel (Reynolds 853 or Columbus Life) but much tougher. There's also no paint to chip or scratch.​​

Double or single chainset?

You can get a similar spread with both 1X or 2X but there will be MUCH bigger jumps between gears with 1X.​​​​

1X for those who will be less bothered by big jumps in gear ratios:

  • You're particularly powerful and less cadence sensitive

  • You're from an mtb background and used to 1X

  • Nearly all your riding will be off-road where simplicity is best

  • You don't often ride in a group, needing to adjust to their speed.​​

2X for those who need closely spaced gears:

  • You're a 'spinner'

  • You're from a road background

  • You expect to ride on the road a lot 

  • You often ride with others.

Hydraulic disc brakes.

They have disadvantages in terms of their lack of adjustability and difficult servicing BUT their amazing stopping power and light feeling are worth it on an off-road bike.

The frame and forks have clearance for 700x45mm tyres.

I use 40mm tyres because my rides include quite a lot of road and the off-road stuff is pretty tame. I would rather have to slow down a bit on descents than push bigger, heavier tyres around.

I have been really pleased with this bike and there's very little I would change. (I wish I had asked for bottle bosses under the down tube).

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I wanted a bike that I could use happily on road rides and so neither the tyre clearances nor geometry are extreme.

  • It is great for mixed surface day rides in, say, the Peak District, North York Moors, Trossachs etc.

  • It also works well when we go away and want to do a mixture of gravel riding and road riding: we will shortly be heading out to Tuscany with its sections of "strade bianche" and then a week or so in the mountains of Switzerland.

  • It has also worked brilliantly on bikepacking trips such as the Ruta Via de la Plata in Spain.

Bikepacking the Ruta Via de la Plata

Day ride in the Trossachs

Road riding on the Costa Blanca, Spain

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