RoadWearier

Only had to drive 200 miles to get it and spend the whole day in my car but worth it! I had very little knowledge about this bike. One red flag is that they seemed to have been sold on Amazon once. But this seems like a pretty solid ride. Aluminum frame with Carbon Forks. Shimano Alivio group which I guess I'll see how that goes. It's seems heavier than my Trek FX3 which I miss. But definitely livelier than the FX1.
I wonder if that's the 40 width tires?

​​​​​​I plan to take it on a 20 mile ride tomorrow. Interesting to see what the average pace on it is. Although that's not why I bought it.

Here is a pic.


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hokiefyd 

We bought our oldest daughter a Raleigh Alysa 1 back in 2015...back when Raleigh were sold in bike shops. The Alysa is the "women's specific design" version of the Cadent. The '1' is the base model bike, but it's really a joy to ride. The alloy frame and steel fork together give it a pretty decent ride and...it's just a fun little bike to enjoy a nice day on. I hope your new Cadent serves you well for years to come!

shelbyfv

Yes a few years ago they were selling decent bikes via their own website. I had a Tamland back in early "gravel" days and it was nice. For some reason they soon abandoned that sales model and returned to box store bikes. When I decided to sell I could hardly give it away. Maybe this will be a keeper.

travbikeman

So, tomorrow happens to be today!

How did it ride? Did this solve your neck problems?

Looks like a nice bike!

shelbyfv

Yep, how was it?

RoadWearier

It's a nice bike. With pedals and a seat bag full of tools, tube, patch kit, and a kickstand it still only weighed 26 lbs. On my 16 mile ride I averaged 15.7 mph which for me on an upright hybrid, I was happy with. I averaged 13.7 on the Kona. Maybe some of that is the rising I've been doing, but still. I think Carbon forks seem to help on the wooden plank and off road part of my ride. I feel like I was going slower but I guess I wasn't. Definitely helps my neck to not be hunched over. I also moved the seat up and forward so I'm curious to see how the next ride goes with those adjustments. Thanks for asking

Lockback

Very nice looking bike!

Korina

@RoadWearier, did you get the fit dialed in? Do you still like it?

bald1der

Interesting frame shape. Looks good.

RoadWearier

Yes I moved the seat forward and rotated the grips "forward" (if sitting on the bike. It's perfect. I'd like to be able to sit up a bit more to rest my neck but I really like it! It's an odd model. I'm not sure where it came from but it was $165 well spent. Even a Wal-Mart bike would be 25% more.

Korina

Yeah, the joys of threadless. I'm glad you like it! Enjoy your ride.

RoadWearier

Just curious as to why you'd think a quill stem would help? Could I not get at sharper angle stem? Or an adjustable? Although people seem to really dislike them on here

Korina

When I want to raise or lower my quill stem, I loosen a bolt; if it's not enough buy a longer or shorter stem for not that much. From what I understand, once you've maxed out the height of your threadless stem you have to buy a new fork. For me, once I get the right length of stem I'm more likely to play with the height especially as I get older. YMMV, of course; like tubes vs. tubeless, one is not better than the other, you just get a different set of problems.

hokiefyd 

You can get threadless stem extenders. Some like them, some think they're unsafe. I have one that I've used on and off road and it seems fine to me.

To be sure, there are both pros and cons to threaded/quill stems and threadless stems. I like how easy quill stems are to adjust, and how they tend to add some compliance to the front of the bike ("flex"). I've had several bikes with quill stems where the headset adjustment just doesn't like to take a set, and it requires continual adjustment or tweaking. While I don't think this is necessarily common, I've seen it discussed elsewhere as well so it seems to be something that happens every now and again. That's one of the nice things about threadless -- headset adjustment is usually pretty easy to set. But that's good, because it requires resetting it whenever you replace a stem. The other thing I appreciate about threadless is how solid the front of the bike feels. It doesn't have the flex of the quill system. How can that flex be a pro and a con? I think it works differently for different bikes. I have some older steel bikes with "narrow" tires (35mm) where the flex in the stem system feels nice and feels natural for the bike. For my mountain bikes with large (50-60mm) tires and suspension forks, I like the threadless design because it takes all the flex away from the stem and handlebar area and forces the suspension and the tires to do that work.

t2p

the availabilty / selection of quality lightweight 1 1/8 / 31.8 threadless stems is greater … much greater … including riser stems