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Cycling. New single speed bike.

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Chris Hobson

Chris Hobson

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Over the last three years, my indoor winter cycle training has relied on a mid priced spin bike. I bought it cheap because it had been sold, damaged in transit, returned, repaired, and then re-sold at half price. For this winter I decided that I needed something a bit better so I bought a Cycle-Ops turbo trainer and a Charge single speed bike. Although I bought the bike specifically for indoor riding, I decided to take it out on the road to try it out. To my surprise, I found the bike to be absolutely brilliant fun to ride. The lack of gears mean that you have to ride fast in order to keep your cadence up. Living in Holderness means that there are not many opportunities for hill training, the few hills that we do have are rather small. Tackling them on a single speed bike makes even our small hills much more of a challenge. Because all of my bike rides are recorded by my Tomtom multisport GPS watch, I can quickly compare my average speeds for my rides. On the two training rides that I have done on this bike my Average speed has been just under 26 kph, this is better than I did on my Specialised road bike during the Goole triathlon. This suggests that, in the future, the Charge would be ideal for any sprint triathlons that are on fairly flat courses.

The bike is the entry level Charge bike and cost a little over £200. It is called the Charge Plug which makes it sound like one of those battery operated bikes. In fact it is what I would describe as minimalist. It has an old school steel frame which is nevertheless very light. The lightness is helped by the fact that it has no gears, no bottle cages, nothing superfluous at all. I had to upgrade it to quick release wheel spindles in order to fit it to the turbo trainer. I have also fitted a cycle computer which needed a little ingenuity as the pick up had to be fitted to the rear wheel. The computer head is mounted on the crossbar. The brakes are pretty poor and I will probably upgrade them in the spring.

I hadn't ridden a single speed bike since I was about thirteen. I can't believe how much fun this bike is. Keen cyclists are always looking for an excuse to buy yet another bike. Boys and girls, if you don't have a single speed bike, you really need to add one to your stable.
 
N + 1 rule. I have 2 functioning bikes and 2 non functioning.
 
Please don't tempt me. I already have too many bikes (mountain, road, vintage and Brompton)...and need very little excuse to start browsing for a new one. I've been contemplating a turbo-trainer for a few weeks now and would be interested to know how you get on with yours.
 
Marsbartoastie said:
Please don't tempt me. I already have too many bikes (mountain, road, vintage and Brompton)...and need very little excuse to start browsing for a new one. I've been contemplating a turbo-trainer for a few weeks now and would be interested to know how you get on with yours.
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Bromptons are good & faster than you would think. When I had my first go on one I was pleasantly impressed. I road two laps of Nissan test track at Sunderland. Up & down the 4w drive hill as well :D
 
I know the rule is N+1 but as much as I'd want one I'm not sure I'd get away with having another bike. 🙄 I've still got my hybrid which gets the occasional run out and my current road bike. The road bike cost £350 and I've only changed the wheels (bought some Shimano R501's off someone I know second hand for £30) and pedals (Shimano M520's - £15 from Wiggle) plus usual consumables - tyres, chain, cassette etc. Brake pads are still the originals - I don't use them, just go flat out! 😉:D I clean and maintain it as it is used all year round - although I try and avoid bad weather. I've had it 2 years and done over 4500 miles in that time of mainly weekend riding. It's not the best bike with the best groupset and most expensive carbon frame - it's an aluminium frame although still with carbon forks but it has seen me right. There are definitely bargains to be had by shopping around.
 
In London there are some excellent bargains to be had. Loads of people take advantage of company bike buying schemes...then find they can't cope with cycling in rush-hour traffic. The bikes find their way on to Gumtree. The 'city boy' poseurs often go for top-of-the-range kit and then sell it on for peanuts (relatively speaking). My friend Nic recently got a doozy of a bargain from some bloke living in a penthouse flat in Docklands.
 
Yes Austin, strange that. As kids the guy with a Sturmey Archer three speed hub was the coolest. I'm old enough to remember deraileurs that had no indexing so you had to feel them in. I though it was really brilliant when I first fitted indexed gears to my bike. Now I can shift without taking my hands off the bars. Yet here I am singing the praises of a bike that is totally back to basics
 
Update. After much prevarication I have decided to upgrade my road bike to an entry level carbon fibre model. It is from Planet X and was a bit cheaper due to the fact came as a box of bits that needed assembling. Oddly, it comes without outer cables and rim tapes. Otherwise everything is there to build yourself a nice light weight road bike. I took a day off work and by the end of the day I had it all put together. I have been for a very brief ride on it and found that the seat is at the wrong angle. It will take a few test rides and tweaking to get it set up as I want it. I now have to decide whether to sell my Specialised Allez.
 
I like the Planet X pro carbon bikes and decent carbon frames in general seem to be coming down in price all the time. It's going to be a while though before I get the chance to upgrade. 🙄

Keep the Specialized if you've got the space, N+1 and all that. 😉:D
 
15281038_1177021615719946_1059935839_n.jpg Here I am using the Charge single speed bike for the job that I originally bought it for, mounted on the turbo trainer. I find it to be an improvement over the old spin bike, it gives the feeling of actually riding a bike because of the riding position. It is set up in our gym, you can see a cheesy motivational poster and our finishers' medals on the walls. There is treadmill and a dehumidifier in the background. The CD player and DAB radio on a shelf in the corner makes it look as though I have something hi-tech on the handlebars. You can get turbo trainers that measure every aspect of your performance and transmit all the data to your phone or tablet for analysis. Mine is just a simple one with a knob to vary the resistance.
 
Update. I have now fitted bar end brake levers and V brakes to the single speed bike. The standard centre-pull brakes were really quite poor. Went for a ten mile test ride today, the brakes are so keen that you have to feather them to avoid going over the handlebars. I'd call that a result.
 
Anthony Stirrat said:
View attachment 2689

Did someone mention single speed?
Click to expand...

Nice! Anthony I've just looked at Google and I'm not sure about Chris but looking at your achievements on the bike and meant in the nicest possible way, don't ask me to go for a ride. Wow. :D Do you still get to ride much what with work and everything?
 
Matt Cycle said:
Nice! Anthony I've just looked at Google and I'm not sure about Chris but looking at your achievements on the bike and meant in the nicest possible way, don't ask me to go for a ride. Wow. :D Do you still get to ride much what with work and everything?
Click to expand...

I don't get out as much as I would like, and the wife didn't like my suggestion of me going to Majorca for a month to train
 
That is some collection Mr. Stirrat, I hope that your security is good too.

I just popped in to say that my Charge single speeder has now done over 500 miles, mostly while standing still. The end of Feb or beginning of March is usually when I start commuting by bike again. Unfortunately the weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse just now.
 
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