Cycling

[Kilcoutryman]

Can anyone suggest a 3 or 4 day cycle in Scotland or Wales or even England - did Mizen to Malin few years ago with club and looking to plan something similar for next summer

[JimStynes]

I think someone recommended galliber on here one time. Excellent stuff and grt customer service. Lurgan area I think

Myles McCorry from Lurgan but I think he's based out of Carlingford direction now. It's really good gear.

[grounded]

Can anyone suggest a 3 or 4 day cycle in Scotland or Wales or even England - did Mizen to Malin few years ago with club and looking to plan something similar for next summer

A few of fellas from the club did the Scotland North coast 500.
       Now they got great weather for it which made it for them. Just like here you could be lucky/unlucky weather wise.
       They took a van over with the bikes and i think they had a mixture of b&b or hotels.
     
This is a tour version but should give an idea.

https://www.wildernessscotland.com/private-tours/private-groups/nc500-classic/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwtMCKBhDAARIsAG-2Eu_-HzreawoNaMfmU77Jv_O47rqFvvxp6jJs13cZtfF6B1K2A9SKmsoaAjfvEALw_wcB
     

[Kilcoutryman]

Many thanks 🙏

[manfromdelmonte]

any local sportives coming up before end of October?
100km range

[Eamonnca1]

We're looking at getting a cargo bike for carrying the kiddo and groceries around.

So far the frontrunner is the Urban Arrow Family.

We had looked at the Yuba Supermarché but we have our doubts about the build quality and it doesn't seem to be available with electric assist.

We expect to spend over $5,000 on this, so it's a not insignificant decision, but it's still cheaper than getting a second car. (We used to have two cars but decided to cut it down to one to see how it goes since we're heavy users of bikes, buses and trains. So far it hasn't been a problem. There was only once or twice in the last few years when we both needed a car at the same time, and in those cases we just used Lyft.)

It'll be interesting to see the effect of the bucket bike on our car usage, we might be able to cut that down even further if we can get our groceries by bike. We're already taking the little one to and from daycare by bike using a handlebar-mounted baby seat, but she'll outgrow that soon enough, and it's not so easy to use.

Not sure what it is like round your way Eamonn but bike theft outside shops and supermarkets seem to have gone through the roof here in Birmingham. Particularly youngsters getting threatened at knifepoint in parks to hand over their bikes.  Couple of weeks ago a guy took his bike inside the local Tesco express, went to pay for a loaf, and bang it was gone. Security man on door wouldn't let them look at CCTV. Burglary seems to be on the up as well. Not sure if the crime stats will reflect that but just what I am hearing locally.

Update: We ended up going with an E-Cargo Classic Long with Bolted Box from the Amsterdam Bicycle Company.



It came in at under $5,000, including shipping and assembly. They sent it over from Amsterdam, and they arranged for a local qualified mechanic to come out and build it at our home. We've been using it since June and it's been a godsend. I use it for daycare dropoff and pickup just about every day. We usually swing by a park on the way home for an hour. Sometimes I'll do a grocery run and take the wee one with me. She'll either walk around the shop with me or sit in the shopping trolly. But there's plenty of room in there for her and two big bags of groceries, three at a push.

When the baby gets bigger then he'll have room to sit beside her. I use it for all sorts of errands around town. Yesterday I went to the Post Office to drop a parcel off after dropping the wee girl at daycare, and later I went to the county building to get the birth cert for my newborn son. It has a million uses, fantastic for the vast majority of trips I need to do in town, and we always get the best parking everywhere we go.

Cargo bikes like this are still rare in San Jose, I know of two others similar ones around here. Transporting kids and groceries by bike is so unusual here that those of us who do it wave at each other, but in Holland this would be commonplace. I expect it to become a lot more common, I get so many comments and compliments about it every time. People wave you through at junctions, they smile and wave at the kid, and they ask all sorts of questions about it when I'm stopped. Sometimes at the park there'll be a crowd gathered around, fascinated by it.

As for crime and theft, well this one is somewhat unique and it'd be easy to spot. But I stay away from the seedier parts of town on it. There's a great discount grocery supermarket near us but I wouldn't park the bike outside there - too many shady characters about. But in a reasonably nice part of town it's quite safe. Even the post office is beside a park that's been overrun by homeless, but I've never had any trouble there.

It comes with the standard wheel lock that most Dutch bikes have, plus I chain it to the nearest rack or post for good measure. The child seat doubles as a lockable box, so you can safely leave small items in there. The battery locks in place, you need the key to get it out.

It's pedal assist, so the motor kicks in when you start pedalling. The battery has a range of 35 to 75 miles depending on which setting you use. I use the maximum setting almost all the time for maximum power, you need a bit of oomph to get moving and get stabilised. I charge the battery up once or twice a week depending on how many errands I do.  We're quite lucky here in that we live in the middle of town, everything's fairly flat, and there's plenty of good bike lanes that take us where we need to go.

It lets us get by with  just one car, which we now seldom use. It'll probably extend the life of our car by another ten years at this rate. One of the best value purchases we've ever made. And of course the kid loves it.

Life changing. Fantastic. Cannot recommend it enough.

[Rudi]

Jaysus I could bring the turf home in that next year

[manfromdelmonte]

Cheers for the Galibier suggestion - some lovely stuff
Invested in a nice second hand carbon bike for next year
Now have to kit it out with pedals, matching cages and few other bits

[laoislad]

Lads would a bike with Tiagra be plenty for someone who has no interest in becoming a MAMIL 😜but would like to build up to 2 or 3 hour rides?
Very little in stock at the moment anywhere but I did find a Trek Domane AL4 in a shop nearby.
My current bike is a cheap budget job from Halfords that is about 15 years old and it's a heap of shite and about 2 sizes to big for me,so anything really would be an upgrade.
Don't plan on getting mad into cycling like you boys but I'm finding it great for cross training with the running I do. The Grand Canal is literally beside where I live and there are works ongoing to have a towpath all the way to the Shannon and the Royal Canal is a couple of miles away and that stretches all the way from Maynooth to Longford, I'd imagine that's where I'd be 99% of the time and maybe doing a few laps of the Phoenix Park also. Wouldn't see myself going out on main roads or in group rides or anything.Other than that I'd have it attached to a Kickr Core on Zwift.
With that in mind is Tiagra plenty for my needs?
Also found a Giant Contend AR1 that has 105 and is about €300 more.

[JoG2]

Lads would a bike with Tiagra be plenty for someone who has no interest in becoming a MAMIL 😜but would like to build up to 2 or 3 hour rides?
Very little in stock at the moment anywhere but I did find a Trek Domane AL4 in a shop nearby.
My current bike is a cheap budget job from Halfords that is about 15 years old and it's a heap of shite and about 2 sizes to big for me,so anything really would be an upgrade.
Don't plan on getting mad into cycling like you boys but I'm finding it great for cross training with the running I do. The Grand Canal is literally beside where I live and there are works ongoing to have a towpath all the way to the Shannon and the Royal Canal is a couple of miles away and that stretches all the way from Maynooth to Longford, I'd imagine that's where I'd be 99% of the time and maybe doing a few laps of the Phoenix Park also. Wouldn't see myself going out on main roads or in group rides or anything.Other than that I'd have it attached to a Kickr Core on Zwift.
With that in mind is Tiagra plenty for my needs?
Also found a Giant Contend AR1 that has 105 and is about €300 more.

A few of us bought hybrids a few years back, 700x30 so the tyres are thin enough. All under £500. We'd do anything from 40 to 70k once or twice a week depending on the weather. Not a piece of lycra touches our skin  plenty of Mamils pass us but we're content

[bennydorano]

Lads would a bike with Tiagra be plenty for someone who has no interest in becoming a MAMIL 😜but would like to build up to 2 or 3 hour rides?
Very little in stock at the moment anywhere but I did find a Trek Domane AL4 in a shop nearby.
My current bike is a cheap budget job from Halfords that is about 15 years old and it's a heap of shite and about 2 sizes to big for me,so anything really would be an upgrade.
Don't plan on getting mad into cycling like you boys but I'm finding it great for cross training with the running I do. The Grand Canal is literally beside where I live and there are works ongoing to have a towpath all the way to the Shannon and the Royal Canal is a couple of miles away and that stretches all the way from Maynooth to Longford, I'd imagine that's where I'd be 99% of the time and maybe doing a few laps of the Phoenix Park also. Wouldn't see myself going out on main roads or in group rides or anything.Other than that I'd have it attached to a Kickr Core on Zwift.
With that in mind is Tiagra plenty for my needs?
Also found a Giant Contend AR1 that has 105 and is about €300 more.

It's been a few years since I had a Tiagra groupset but it always worked perfectly well for me, stepping up in groupsets is as much about weight saving as functionality so for your needs I'd  say Tiagra is 100%, it's 10 speed (but so what) the Giant has 105 (11 speed) - as it's a slight step up it likely has better wheels for your €300 as well. If you're swopping bikes for your Kickr you need to watch the 10/11 speed differences (nothing more than changing your cassette).

[grounded]

Lads would a bike with Tiagra be plenty for someone who has no interest in becoming a MAMIL 😜but would like to build up to 2 or 3 hour rides?
Very little in stock at the moment anywhere but I did find a Trek Domane AL4 in a shop nearby.
My current bike is a cheap budget job from Halfords that is about 15 years old and it's a heap of shite and about 2 sizes to big for me,so anything really would be an upgrade.
Don't plan on getting mad into cycling like you boys but I'm finding it great for cross training with the running I do. The Grand Canal is literally beside where I live and there are works ongoing to have a towpath all the way to the Shannon and the Royal Canal is a couple of miles away and that stretches all the way from Maynooth to Longford, I'd imagine that's where I'd be 99% of the time and maybe doing a few laps of the Phoenix Park also. Wouldn't see myself going out on main roads or in group rides or anything.Other than that I'd have it attached to a Kickr Core on Zwift.
With that in mind is Tiagra plenty for my needs?
Also found a Giant Contend AR1 that has 105 and is about €300 more.

New tiagra is actually really good. 105 better. Both of those bikes really nice, good clearance for wider tyres. I'd probably go for the Giant as it has the 105 and a carbon front fork as opposed to the all aluminium trek.
 

[maddog]

Lads would a bike with Tiagra be plenty for someone who has no interest in becoming a MAMIL 😜but would like to build up to 2 or 3 hour rides?
Very little in stock at the moment anywhere but I did find a Trek Domane AL4 in a shop nearby.
My current bike is a cheap budget job from Halfords that is about 15 years old and it's a heap of shite and about 2 sizes to big for me,so anything really would be an upgrade.
Don't plan on getting mad into cycling like you boys but I'm finding it great for cross training with the running I do. The Grand Canal is literally beside where I live and there are works ongoing to have a towpath all the way to the Shannon and the Royal Canal is a couple of miles away and that stretches all the way from Maynooth to Longford, I'd imagine that's where I'd be 99% of the time and maybe doing a few laps of the Phoenix Park also. Wouldn't see myself going out on main roads or in group rides or anything.Other than that I'd have it attached to a Kickr Core on Zwift.
With that in mind is Tiagra plenty for my needs?
Also found a Giant Contend AR1 that has 105 and is about €300 more.

New tiagra is actually really good. 105 better. Both of those bikes really nice, good clearance for wider tyres. I'd probably go for the Giant as it has the 105 and a carbon front fork as opposed to the all aluminium trek.

Does the Trek Domane not have a carbon fork as well ?

Rather than the tiny difference between groupsets i would be more worried about the quality of wheels as i think this is what makes a big difference to a bike.
However most new bikes come with stock wheels that tend to be budget end. Probably fine for the most part.

[maddog]

Struggling with a bike decision myself.
I've a Trek Madone 5.2 (older bike), really like it but its a 56cm and i have the seatpost near as high as it will go. Probably need a size or 2 up.  The cassette is 11-28 and i have an event coming up that involves lots of uphill so would like to go for a 32 or a 34 on the back. That means swapping out the rear mech to a long cage which in turn probably means upgrading from 10 speed to 11 speed which means new shifters.
Yep think answered my own question.
New bike.

[grounded]

Lads would a bike with Tiagra be plenty for someone who has no interest in becoming a MAMIL 😜but would like to build up to 2 or 3 hour rides?
Very little in stock at the moment anywhere but I did find a Trek Domane AL4 in a shop nearby.
My current bike is a cheap budget job from Halfords that is about 15 years old and it's a heap of shite and about 2 sizes to big for me,so anything really would be an upgrade.
Don't plan on getting mad into cycling like you boys but I'm finding it great for cross training with the running I do. The Grand Canal is literally beside where I live and there are works ongoing to have a towpath all the way to the Shannon and the Royal Canal is a couple of miles away and that stretches all the way from Maynooth to Longford, I'd imagine that's where I'd be 99% of the time and maybe doing a few laps of the Phoenix Park also. Wouldn't see myself going out on main roads or in group rides or anything.Other than that I'd have it attached to a Kickr Core on Zwift.
With that in mind is Tiagra plenty for my needs?
Also found a Giant Contend AR1 that has 105 and is about €300 more.

New tiagra is actually really good. 105 better. Both of those bikes really nice, good clearance for wider tyres. I'd probably go for the Giant as it has the 105 and a carbon front fork as opposed to the all aluminium trek.

Does the Trek Domane not have a carbon fork as well ?

Rather than the tiny difference between groupsets i would be more worried about the quality of wheels as i think this is what makes a big difference to a bike.
However most new bikes come with stock wheels that tend to be budget end. Probably fine for the most part.

'Up front there's a fork with carbon fibre blades, but the rest of its construction, including the tapered steerer, is aluminium'

Tbh not a deal breaker and there is very little between the bikes.