Originally Posted by
rickyk76
So, I'm looking for opinions on which bike you would choose if you had $5,000 for a bike to handle gravel, road and singletrack. I'm looking for a bike that could be toured or taken on some mountain bike trails. Two that are on my list to check out are Salsa Cutthroat and Cannondale Slate. What bikes would be on your list and why?
My Peter Mooney comes close. It was designed to be ridable in the lower 48 states 12 months of the year with whatever wheels and tires were available. (In 1978 when I ordered the bike, it was not obvious what standard was going to reign, 700c or 27" or if 700c would even be available in say backwater Maine. Had to be able to tour, do fast group rides. I set it up with cantilevers and a 53-42-28 x 13-19 5-speed triple. Front stayed roughly the same over the years, rear got two more cogs. Bike has a high bottom bracket to suit the just retired racer who pedaled through a lot of corners on his high BB criterium bike.
September, this bike will be ridden fix gear at Cycle Oregon which will feature 40 miles of gravel. The bike will get 35c tires (which just barely go on the bike without deflating to get into the horizontal dropout. That dropout spec'ed so the bike could be ridden fix gear. 38 years later, it is. (Love that high bottom bracket. What foresight!)
The one place where my bike falls way, way short on your criteria. The price. I still have a thousand or three that needs to get spent. Oh well.
Edit: the drawback to my approach is that the bike that can do anything doesn't do much really well. About 12 years ago, I started getting bikes to do specific things well and the Mooney went to the last spot on the rack. A really high end Farmer's Market bike. Until I saw this year's Cycle Oregon route, for which it is perfect. My Raleigh Competition has the length of the Mooney and tire clearances, feels more secure on downhill corners, (but low BB, not a fix gear bike at all!) My good fix gear has racing geometry, a much simpler system of big hear changes and more flexibility, but cannot handle the tires big enough to make 15 miles of grave a sane choice. My good geared bike: BB is high enough, tires almost big enough but vertical drops, hence no fix gear.
All that said, there is one thing my old Mooney did really well - provide me with the platform to ride whenever and wherever I had to ride to stay sane over the crazy post head injury years. That it has found a new life is just icing on the cake. It paid its way in full a long time ago.
2nd edit: I asked about LowRider mounts when I ordered the bike. Peter said he wouldn't drill fork blades. 4 years later I had crashed the original fork and ordered new ones. Peter said he had considered using generator mounts as those would not require drilling, just a little filing on each rack. Love em. With canti brakes, using old-fashioned racks with a single brake-bolt attachment works well.
Ben