cougarkite

So I've posted on here a couple times over the years looking for "the perfect bike" (for me personally of course) and it's been quite the journey. The bike I always come back to is a late 70s Raleigh Record I built up in 08. I love that bike but wanted to update for easier gear shifting, disc brakes, etc. Though finding a new bike has been a struggle. What I liked about my Raleigh was the flat bars and more upright posture, making it feel like a more aggressive style of riding. My gearing was a bit screwy so I was 90% of the time only switching between two gear ratios 51-17 and maybe 51-21? But these two gears seemed fine for the hills, flats, and downhills I came across in my daily commutes. I'm not sure exactly how to describe what I don't like in the bikes I've tried but it's like the geometry feels off. I've tried a couple hybrids, riding a trek fx4 now, and it feels like hills and sometimes flats are just unnecessarily hard to petal up. I'm wondering if I'm just using the bike wrong? Maybe I'm not shifting enough, etc. Because I'm used to only 2 or 3 gears sufficing me. I guess it just feels slower than what I was hoping for. I was curious in the All City road bike with flat bars because I've never gotten into drop bars. I know this post is all over the place, but I was just wondering if anyone could help me figure out what it is I'm looking for or has experienced similar things with hybrid/ city bikes?

Retro Grouch 

What is your objective?

Are you having fun? If your answer is "Yes" then you're doing it right unless you have some other objective for riding a bicycle.

Ross520

"What I liked about my Raleigh was the flat bars and more upright posture, making it feel like a more aggressive style of riding."

Odd. For myself there's nothing more "aggressive"-feeling than a dropbar bike with a good saddle/bar drop. Upright bikes feel very slow in-comparison.

freeranger

Maybe a change of handlebar might help---appears the FX has a decent gear range, suspect it isn't the range of gears which is bothering you. The FX4 has a little longer top tube than the FX3, so maybe it's making you feel too "strectched out"? Perhaps something similar to the Clarence bar would sit you more upright and the sweep put your hands in a position which might be more comfortable: https://www.somafab.com/archives/pro...rence-bar-31-8 Probably just a case of getting the "fit" dialed in.

70sSanO

I understand what you are saying. A road bike has a geometry that is more aggressive than a hybrid. So if you are converting an older drop bar road bike to a flat bar bike, the geometry stays the same. But what I have found is the flat bar, 600+mm, has a lot more leverage than 40mm wide drop bars.

If you set it up close to the same distance, or slightly closer for bar width, you are basically setting up the bike as if you are riding on the tops of a drop bar, but the wider bar takes less effort to maneuver it. So a so-so handling road bike now feels more lively or aggressive.

Now, that doesn’t make it more aggressive than a quick steering road bike with drop bars that lets you dive into corners, but it might make a meh drop bar bike seem more responsive.

John

Pop N Wood

Whew, your post is all over the place. If you can't decide what you want how can anyone else tell you how to achieve it?

According Sheldon Brown the old Rayleigh Records were drop bar bikes. Maybe it had been modified?

As for being too hard to pedal can't believe you haven't received the lecture on cadence yet. Anything can be easy to pedal if you just get a low enough gear and spin faster.

theDirtyLemon

I don't think we can help you. You are asking questions that only you can answer, based on your own experience.
However, here are a couple points that may clarify things.

1. Upright posture is not 'more aggressive,' it's less aggressive.
2. Flat bars are not 'more aggressive.' (Because they put your hands lower than riser bars do, they put you in a slightly more aggressive riding position than riser bars.) Flat bars were developed for mountain bikes: you can grab them in lots of places and cling on easily, while wrestling your bike around/over/through various obstacles. They are simpler than drop bars, and more flexible than townie bars.
3. As far as I can tell from your original post about the old Raleigh, the only thing wrong with it was that it didn't get any maintenance. All bikes do need to get cleaned up, relubed, and have their cables and brake pads and chains replaced every so often. New bikes need maintenance too. Buying a new bike every time your derailleur gets weird is probably not a great strategy. Take your bike to the shop and pay a professional to sort it out.
4. Lots of technical information about bikes--new and old--is available online. You could look up the frame geometry of your old raleigh and compare it to your current bike, or bikes you are thinking about buying.
5. Frame geometry--the literal shape of the frame--determines the rider's posture and how the bike handles.
Posture can be modified by changing seat height, bar height and stem length. More hunched over with your butt in the air=go faster/push harder. More upright, like sitting in a chair=more comfy, and you can see where you're going. Seat tube angle can give you a clue about this (shallower angle=more upright posture), but you can kind of see it by looking at the frame, too.
Handling can't be changed (well, you can screw it up if you try really hard, but don't worry about it). Longer wheelbase=more stable, but wider turns. Steeper headtube angle=more responsive/twitchier handling.
You may find discussion online of a concept called 'trail,' it will make your head explode. Just know this, regarding trail: if you ride a bike with very long curvy forks and a very shallow headtube angle--and I mean, long and shallow compared to other vintage bikes--it will not feel or handle like other bikes.
6. 30 lbs. is kind of the dividing line between heavy bikes and not-that-heavy bikes.
7. REREAD #3 .

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63rickert

Raleigh Record was bottom of the line. But it works for you. My brother, who has had a hundred bikes and a good handful of total grail bikes, finds that his his Raleigh Gran Prix, just one step up from yours, rides as well as any he’s had. Discovering why some work and others don’t is usually impossible.

Your Raleigh is very traditional. Connected to the whole history of the breed. Many/most modern bikes were designed da capo with major input from personal injury attorneys. The attorneys can tell a manufacturer what will get them in trouble but can’t tell anyone what will work. The Burke family, who own and make Trek, know absolutely nothing about bikes. Nothing. They have had many many extraordinary employees who try their best but it remains a leviathan without a head. Trek FX4 is not much.

Try riding as many different bikes as you can. They are all different. If you really like the old Raleigh consider the possibility that what you are responding positively to is small diameter steel tubes. No one makes a bike like that anymore. Even nostalgic Eroica bikes in current production are oversized tubes.

Upgrading a Raleigh Record would make no sense at all. Most bikes, nearly all bikes, are badly assembled and not working anything like as well as they should. It takes a very good mechanic to identify the mistakes quickly.
Buy complete bikes in good condition and just ride them. Buy cheap and unload cheap until you find what you want.