This is the sort of do-it-all bike that any retro commuter/cyclocrosser dreams of as the ultimate single bike solution; low maintenance gears, clean steel lines, on/off road friendly, affordable ?. Having owned one I can say that only its good looks apply.
Gears
They constantly need adjusting; there is a barrel adjuster to do this however you do not want to be tuning your gears up every few rides. I think cable & chain stretch caused it initially, but even after 3 months it was still requiring a tune up all the time because of dodgy gear changes (which simply involves lining up 2 markers in the window of the hub). The range of gears was perfect though, allowing me to commute the steepest north wales hills with a rucksack full of IT junk.
Weight and handling
Not far off the weight of a moped, and it shows when riding it. Once you get it up to speed its ok, but something was not right, I couldn't put my finger on it, but it felt a bit like there was a flywheel attached to the back of the bike. I didn't even bother attempt Moel Famau on it.
Sizing
I had a 54cm. It was perfectly sized for my 32" leg, 5ft10" frame. The pic shows it setup at my seat height.
Mudguards
Standard SKS bluemel trekking 45mm fitted fine, albeit with some bending of 2 arms to get around the disk brake. Tip: don't cut the stays down until they are fitted and bolted up, prevents cutting them too short if you start bending the stays around brakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment