Originally Posted by
sjanzeir
Hey, either one of my two 2014 7.6 FX hybrids have a far nicer ride feel than my (admittedly crappy gas-pipe) 1991 Raleigh Flyer road bike, but no! If it's old and it's steel, it'll always rank up higher on the totem pole that's Bike Forums. There's always someone who'll be happy to tell me that I'm an idiot for not recognizing that old, cheap Raleigh's crappy ride as "character" and that those "new-fangled, cookie-cutter" alloy bikes "will always suck" and "kids these days!"
I do find the views on old raleigh, schwinn and other cheap crap bikes to be funny. I worked in a Schwinn shop with a guy that had been building them through college at that same shop, he didn't have much good to say about them and from my experience with the endless numbers that seemed to come through the door neither did I. They are just ridiculously heavy made from the cheapest materials and people will tout them as the best. They might be better then nothing but not by a lot.
Originally Posted by
Retro Grouch
Aluminum is the minivan of bike frame materials. It's not the lightest, not the cheapest, not the must durable, not the most anything. It occupies the functional sweet spot in the middle of everything. It's an excellent choice for anybody who is more interested in riding their bike than in bragging about it.
I don't know, I find I'm happy to brag about my bike and I've seen plenty of others worth bragging about. Although I used to bag on aluminum from an experience testing out a Trek 2300 in 99 or 2000 which went very badly due to the stiffness and then a Schwinn Fastback the first year they were made in which I thought I would die from the bike barely staying on the road at 40+mph on a route I'd hit 55+ on multiple times.
Originally Posted by
sjanzeir
And it was that gaping hole at the BB end of the downtube that sealed the fate of my old 7.3FX, a bike I was already rapidly losing interest in after I got my first 7.6FX. I put it up for sale the same day I noticed that half-open end for the first time (and took a closer look at the 7.6 to see if it had the same hole.)
I was a little adverse to that at first till the first time I pulled a der cable without thinking about it, that was a nice thing and I haven't noticed any adverse issues with it.