Bike broke (26 inch MTB) - need new one quickly :(

[two sheds]

You need to give your MTB a good going over - you have acres of spoil-heaps to charge around on

I forgot to ask before does it have knobbly tyres ?
I rode on underinflated tyres for 20 years because I thought pumping them as hard as I could with a hand pump was sufficient.

Yes my bike at the moment does have knobbly tyres. Knobbly tyres that actually deflate a bit so I'm sure they're underinflated - I don't even pump them as hard as I can because I come from a tradition where I think that doing that would likely burst the tyre. I don't cycle often enough for that to make a difference I don't think.

And yes true acres of spoil heaps but I'm not actually going out. I could perhaps clear a small cycle path round the garden though.

 

[gentlegreen]

Yes my bike at the moment does have knobbly tyres. Knobbly tyres that actually deflate a bit so I'm sure they're underinflated - I don't even pump them as hard as I can because I come from a tradition where I think that doing that would likely burst the tyre. I don't cycle often enough for that to make a difference I don't think.

Under-inflated knobblies would make a massive difference.
They'll have the max pressure written on the side - very likely at least 4 bar / 60psi.
Running them soft is for serious off-road use. Even the good quality 26x2.5 inch knobblies that came with my new bike are good for that pressure.
My Giant came with really puny knobblies - I put off replacing them far too long because I was poorer then and annoyed that I'd paid for them and was never going to go off-road.

So long as your rim tape is OK, all that's left is having a dodgy wheel rim.

I run Conti road-friendly tyres on mine - 26x1.75 - pumped to 4 bar - lets me ride 50 miles on the roads - very rarely visited by the p****** fairy.
They've dropped the "country-plus" - I used to pay about £17 each - good for well over 2000 miles. I give mine away when the visible tread goes, but there will be plenty of casual miles left in them - and I've spotted a new similar thing for under £10 each ...

 

[two sheds]

Interesting, ta, will take notes for when I ride again.

 

[gentlegreen]

Just how hard are you pumping them up?

"really hard" turns out to be maybe maybe 2 or 3 bar - no wonder I used to spend half my life on the side of the road.
£20 track pump and I've never looked-back. I got one in Aldi a while back for £6 which seems OK.
A good portable pump costs £20. My old one was branded "Blackburn" which I thought was a good brand.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

They'll have the max pressure written on the side - very likely at least 4 bar / 60psi.

Unless you're extremely heavy there really shouldn't be any need to go near the maximum pressure.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Unless you're extremely heavy there really shouldn't be any need to go near the maximum pressure.

Doesn’t it make it less likely to puncture inflated to the max?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Doesn’t it make it less likely to puncture inflated to the max?

Less chance of a pinch flat, but at the expense of both comfort and traction on loose surfaces. And sharp pointy things will go through whatever. This is why mountain bikers now use tubeless...

 

[gentlegreen]

Unless you're extremely heavy there really shouldn't be any need to go near the maximum pressure.

Yet again this is what works for me and it hasn't only stopped me getting punctures and wrecking cheap wheels.

At 100kg I am far heavier than most of the cyclists I encounter and I like to ride 50 miles on the road on an MTB.
And I run 1.75 inch tryes which are far more forgiving than the "O-rings" that pass as pneumatic tyres on skinny road bikes.
I buy tyres with tread - and judging by my tracks in snow, my contact area is relatively small.

My Conti tyres have real Kevlar and it takes very particular sharp things to penetrate.
I like to feel the road surface.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It’s like you want to make things as hard as possible for yourself

 

[gentlegreen]

It’s like you want to make things as hard as possible for yourself

The shit I've been getting on this thread reminds me why I hold little hope of fitting in with any even "casual" cycling club should I ever manage to live in France - and why I may be a member of the CTC but have never turned up at the local clubhouse - even now that the sessions are being done online.

 

[two sheds]

No shit from me, mate. The amount you cycle I bow to your knowledge on it all. Well you and weepiper and downwarddog and the others on this thread who know impossible amounts about bike bits and pieces.

 

[gentlegreen]

No shit from me, mate. The amount you cycle I bow to your knowledge on it all. Well you and weepiper and downwarddog and the others on this thread who know impossible amounts about bike bits and pieces.

I'm not pretending to be an expert - except where it comes to my empirical experience over the past 20 years hauling a sometimes mildly obese body on rough roads around hilly Bristol.
I'm nearly sorted with this new bike for a bit - I'll hopefully take delivery of a dropper seatpost and shock pump next week, a pair of bullet-proof Conti tyres, new front derailleur - then after I've put some miles in, I'll bite the bullet and order what I need to service the suspension and brakes.

 

[mauvais]

Mate, I'm just going to be blunt as fuck now.

You say we're giving you shit but you keep telling us how you've got it wrong or didn't know what you're doing. You say something along the lines of how were riding around a single bike, on a seized fork, with incorrectly inflated tyres for 20 years. This whole thread starts after your last bike suffered structural failure through chronic poor maintenance. You've taken what seems to be a perfectly good replacement bike and foisted your parts bin of grossly outdated stuff on it, sure, adapting it to your needs but also likely making it worse. You've ignored literally all the advice you've been given on this thread. Every single bit of it.

You no doubt know best what your fundamental needs, constraints and habits are, sure, noone else is living your life but you. But if you're wondering why people are taking issue with the stuff on this thread, it's because you have presented us with a whole portfolio of evidence that you don't know what you're doing, and then you insist that you do through having bloody-mindedly suffered thousands of miles of it, and that your historical choices are somehow the thing to persevere with, and you're outraged that we're calling it out. Even if this stuff hadn't ended in various failures, how could any one person know what's best if they've only had one bike and done it one particular way?

You've got a fresh opportunity to do things differently with a decent basis of a bike, and some really good advice, but you're refusing to engage with it. It's likely folly for me to post this but at least try and reflect on it.

 

[gentlegreen]

bye

 

[weepiper]

If advising gentlegreen causes so much frustration, then maybe don't bother. It's ok to leave it for someone else who's feeling more patient. Sometimes I find it frustrating too, but there's no need to be unkind to him. You can just not engage. Everyone piling on to tell him how wrong he is will just end up with him retreating and feeling hurt. I don't see why we have to get personally offended by him doing what he does. At least he's enjoying himself out there on a bike, I don't much care what the bike looks like.

 

[two sheds]

Indeed. It's his bike and him cycling. He knows exactly what he wants. Perhaps too exactly for some but that's not his problem. Customer's always right and all that .

 

[Chilli.s]

I like the way he does things, a refreshing approach.

 

[two sheds]

He came to my place a few years ago and looked at my ... plants ... which I had in an outdoor type plastic greenhousey type thing and I could see him recoil.

but I have to say he was right from a purist type view it's not how you'd grow things if you actually knew what you were doing

 

[gentlegreen]

I bought that bike in a panic when the world was going crazy and I am clearly never going to make it work for me.
I ordered a cheap shock pump but when I came to adjust the fork, I realised mine was a coil spring model.
I see stiffer springs are approx £19 plus post but out of stock ...not sure if I will buy one ...
I will return the pump because it will always remind me of my latest folly.
It was at this point that I could no longer keep the plates spinning and it threw a lot of other things in my life into stark relief.
Clearly the Giant worked for me because the fork was pretty well seized and what I need once things settle down is something more like a Surly disc trucker ... someone locally has a cheap MTB frame though I don't hold out much hope... But who knows something may turn up... perhaps that plus a steel fork would fit the bill for quite a bit... I'm not in s good space right now.
In the meantime I will attempt to get some pleasure out of this bike as it's all I have and once we're past the current insanity, I hold out a modest hope that the shop will buy it back by me taking a sizeable hit...and at least I won't have to be constantly reminded.
I will rationalize it as bike hire..
As always very grateful for advice and support and sorry that some feel the need to be cruel.

 

[weepiper]

(((((gentlegreen)))))

 

[Chilli.s]

I thought it looked a great bike and I'm sure you'll get used to it and it'll out perform the one it replaces.
Glad you're staying off the cyclepath that must be a germ highway of breathed out microparticles.

 

[Sprocket.]

I know exactly where you are coming from gentlegreen, bikes are very personal and should feel like putting a pair of comfy shoes on.
You get so used to riding a favourite bike. When I was capable of riding regularly, I always preferred my 1983 531 framed Clubman to my Giant Defy 4. Funny buggers aren’t we?

 

[gentlegreen]

I know exactly where you are coming from gentlegreen, bikes are very personal and should feel like putting a pair of comfy shoes on.
You get so used to riding a favourite bike. When I was capable of riding regularly, I always preferred my 1983 531 framed Clubman to my Giant Defy 4. Funny buggers aren’t we?

I was thinking earlier that it's possibly just as well that my chainstay broke, because my seized-up, unadjustable Manitou fork might well have ended up failing catastrophically at some point - the Suntour that came with the bike dumped me on the road in 2010 when the steerer rusted through - you don't expect steel to fail with no warning - the bearing was also in a right state... its secondhand replacement showed no sign of corrosion when I removed it the other week .. but when I fitted it, I used lots of grease.

The chap I mentioned upthread with a similar MTB with possibly a 53 tooth chainwheel had a nasty accident with his - I was on a group ride when coincidentally we met up with him just as he dropped off a kerb and had his fork explode and he was carted off in an ambulance.
So both of us were doing 50 mile day rides with totally unsuitable bikes ...

Over on the CTC forums there are plenty of people with low mileage touring bikes with 5 speed cassettes...