Originally Posted by
jwitt
hello all - new to both this forum and biking after several years. I am a casual rider (3-10 miles) per week looking to enhance to upwards of 20-40 miles per week. Currently riding a 15 year old Raleigh Comfort bike but I am upgrading in the next couple of weeks.
- Felt Verza Speed 50 - Rode nice, smooth, fast after minor tweaks to the bike. pedals will take getting used to or swap out, gearing is 3x7
- Trek FX2 - smooth ride, fast, liked the gearing 3x8. body position was too upright even after some adjustments.
- Giant Escape 2 - did not test ride as it was not in stock, did try the Escape 1 and it was a beauty, just too small and out of my price range.
Any assistance would be appreciated. If the remaining riding season goes well and I continue to ride into the next season, I will be looking up upgrade again. The thought is if I show consistency on a low end bike, that will justify the upgrade in 1.5 years.
Again, any assistance would be appreciated.
I'm an FX guy, but if you don't like a position, everything else is somewhat irrelevant--you'll never enjoy the bike. Pedals are easy to swap out. If you're looking for platforms, the Raceface Chesters are a terrific bargain, really high quality for the price.
I actually rode a couple of solo centuries on a 15 year old Raleigh comfort bike. It's doable, but I wouldn't recommend it! If you feel like it's holding you back, then go ahead and replace it. A year and a half sounds like a reasonable timeline to me because you really don't know how well you're going to take to increased riding, you might be doing a lot more or less than you expect in a year. I was totally surprised how easy getting back into it was just over a year ago, and now I'm doing 200k plus rides, but some people have the opposite experience.