dynaryder

That's the '05 model. '08's are different:
https://bianchiusa.com/08_valle.html


If I were building from scratch,I'd go with a SRAM iMotion over Shimano Nexus/Alfine. You get an extra gear and the cable connector is more user friendly.

mike

Huh? Maybe in Hawaii road salt won't damage a steel frame, but on the mainland and especially in the northern mainland, road salt eats bicycles alive. No amount of cleaning or maintanance is sufficient to prevent the damage that road salt does to steel bicycle frames and parts. It chews right through paint and the best waxs.

If you plan to ride in winter, you really need two bikes - one for winter and another for the other three seasons. The winter bike is your girlfriend. Your summer bike is your wife. Expect to go through a couple of "girlfriends" because they just can't take the winter abuse.

So, get yourself a used clunker mountain bike for winter riding and something lovely to ride on the rest of theyear.

rhm

My suggestion?

https://www.downtube.com/product535.html

Can't beat that price. Folding bikes are great for commuting; you can change your plans, take a bus home, catch a ride with a colleague, and so on. Don't worry about wheel size, I commute on 16" wheels and it's simply not a problem, though they are a little small for rougher off-road purposes.

BCRider

Road salt will eat any bicycle frame regardless of it being steel or alloy. To avoid simple moisture related rust yeah, an aluminium frame will work great. But when salt is added to the mix the aluminium is just as in need of some frame saver treatment as a steel bike is. The aluminium just has a different method of corroding. But it WILL corrode when salt is present.

Flandry, having ridden both steel as well as aluminium bikes back and forth and in various conditions from road to trail with light touring tossed in now and then I finally realized one day that the bikes that make me feel more relaxed and seem to soak up the shocks best are all my steel framed bikes. I would not pass up on the steel options for the wrong reasons. Rust seems like a major issue but with the proper use of a frame saver treatment and perhaps doing the treatment every second year or so there's no reason you can't have your steel frame for years to come. Regular light washings followed by auto waxes will help the paint a lot and semi stripping the bike every second year is a good time to redo the steering head bearings, re-grese the seat post and all those other little things that should be done and we never seem to do.

I also concur with the others about some of the cyclocross frames as being a good core to build around. A lot of them are not so race focused and come with fender and rack mount lugs. The Soma Double Cross frame I recently got even has the mid leg rack mount brazeons in addition to the full rear end brazeon setup.

If you're looking for an option that's a bit more upright and off road/explorer focused then look at the idea of a 29'er mountain bike set up more as a city bike. There's rigid fork options to simplify and hopefully lighten the load as well as they often have disc brake mounts for the ultimate sloppy weather braking option. The rest of the stuff about fenders and tires is easily accomadated. Just be sure the dropouts and seat tubes have the brazeons for the fenders and rack before you leap if this seems like a decent option for you.

Yes it's possible to setup any bike to be as low and forward or back and upright as you want. But the cyclocross frame option is going to tend to pull you down and forward more than the 29'er option assuming a reasonable selection of bars and stems without going all radical. With the right parts you'd even overlap the riding position between the two. But the point is that one is focused more one way than the other. It just depends on what sort of focus and overall look you want.

bkrownd

Salt never did any significant rusting to my cheap cromoly steel frame during 6 years of all-season riding in New England. The bike spent a further 2.5 years stored outside in bike racks and on my deck in Colorado. Still no significant rust. Spent over a year on the deck here in tropical humidity before I rebuilt it, and still no rust. It still has the same paint they applied in 1994, and no frame saver rustproofing goo has ever touched it.

daveF

Dynamo hubs work great. Dynamo headlights very a fair amount as far as the amount of light they put out. I just bought a wheel with a Shimano dynamo hub, and a set of Busch & Muller led lights. The headlight puts out quite a bit of light & with a 50,000 to 100,000 hour bulb life, I just leave it on all the time.

The Bianchi Castro Valley makes a great commuter bike. My fiance's daughter has one. It has been her sole transportation for the last 3 years. The new 08 model is slightly different. I commute on a Bianchi San Jose which is essentially the same frame with track dropouts.

Hot Potato

so, does the dynamo store a charge, like a capacitor, for when you are stopped? Or is it lights out when you stop pedaling or moving?

eAspenwood

I have a surly lht that I bought to be my all-arounder. I outfitted w/ fenders and surly front and rear racks. I set it up so I can easily take off the racks for faster rides without having to remove the fenders. Very happy with it. I also like that you can fit pretty wide tires on it for minor offroad duties if you like. The bar end shifters took some getting used to, but now i really like them cuz u can easily "feel" what gear your in without having to look down.

Guanxi88

I think that, unless geography argues against it, you should go with a single-speed beater bike. Get yourself an old "cruiser" or such, just to test out the principle.

Unless you're hauling yourself a ton of miles, a single-speed (doesn't have to be a "fixie") bike, comfortable, with an upright riding posture should do you just fine. You're not looking to set any speed records, you just want to get where you're going, so relax and enjoy the trip.

Yeah, a single-speed roadster ain't' for everyone; that's why there are three-speed and such out there. But I'd emphasize mechanical simplicity and low-cost for a commuting bike.

The day this country makes and sells a decently-priced, durable and comfortable commuting/utility bike - the type of machine we used to make and that everyone wants and could use - will be the day the bicycle industry in this country is reborn.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox.

bkrownd

"Everyone wants"? I don't think I want what you're talking about. The key thing is that everyone wants something different. The bicycle industry will be "reborn" once THAT is understood.

Flandry

I'm leaning that way again now after repeated setbacks. Hard to justify $1k when $150 will do 90% of the job. Touring might have to wait. Actually, knowing that the Nexus 8 can be stripped down to 126 mm, i might build a new wheel for the Nishiki around one since the old gears are shot. It has 122 mm spacing, and a 4 mm stretch isn't a big deal according to Sheldon. I can always swap the wheel to a new bike when the Nishiki moves on to the great road race in the sky.

I'm still wondering about putting a 126 mm red stripe hub on the 120 mm ss Tricross. That would be the best of all worlds, really, and be within my budget.

BTW, I tried the S-ram 9 gear hub (Swobo Dixon) and definitely noted the higher noise, loaded shifting problems, and churn feel that many reviewers have mentioned. By contrast, most reviews of the Alfine/red stripe have been quite positive. It's too bad the Shimano doesn't come with a better attachment setup, but that's an occasional annoyance compared to the everyday annoyance i think the S-ram coffee grinder would be.

I appreciate the comments on salt corrosion and steel vs. aluminum. I've read a lot about that choice and feel pretty set on Aluminum for weight and increased corrosion resistance reasons, but i still need to go test ride some cyclocross bikes to make sure that's what i want. Who knows -- a steel one might grab me.

Aluminum is definitely more corrosion-resistant than cro-mo, but as was pointed out, i'm sure nothing will survive too many winters here without some kind of renewed barrier after seeing the number this winter did on the Nishiki. It came with enough scratches and worn spots when i got it last year that i didn't seem worth trying to patch it up, but still, the degree of corrosion and seizing of everything from the cables to the seat post is amazing even with a spray off on a regular basis.

ok_commuter

I treat my cyclocross bike like a road bike on the road and like a mountain bike on the trails. With the right tires, a cx bike is the best do-everything bike I can imagine. The riding position is like a touring/road bike, less aggressive than racing, less upright than commuters of MTB. I've never been more comfortable on a bike than riding the hoods of a cx bike. Riding a mountain bike trail in the drops to stay under limbs is awesome. I could go on and on. I do, in fact.

ok_commuter

BTW, you may be looking for the Salsa Casseroll, which you could set up with an IGH. May be a little out of your stated price range, but who cares, right?

Flandry

Interesting folding bike, there. I rode my roomie's folder for a couple months before buying the Nishiki last year and it was fun, but i'd definitely had enough of it by the time i moved on. Anyway, if i buy a new bike, it will be one capable of something more than just commuting.

ok_commuter

I didn't look at which they include, but either the Shimano Nexus or the DH-3N70 are the real deal. I rode the Bianchi Valle, which has the DH-3N71. Maybe on a smooth long pass you'd notice the resistance, but riding around the neighborhood of the LBS I couldn't tell the difference and I was switching the light on and off to see if I could feel it.

The bad thing about the Bianchi I saw was that the light they included was crap, which might make one think that the whole dynamo hub thing is crap. It's not. Check out Peter White Cycles for *all* the information about dynamos and lights.

ok_commuter

They have a "stand light" that comes on when you drop below a certain speed and stays on for a few minutes, or until you get moving again, or something. I don't know if there's a watch battery or something for that, or capacitor, or what... To me, battery usage would break the spell of the purity of human-generated lighting, sort of like cheating, so I hope it's something smarter than that... is that elitist, somehow?

ok_commuter

What is there to "reborn" about the bicycle industry?! All I saw in every LBS I went into -- and in Austin that's a lot of shops -- were awesome bikes, tremendous variety in type, componentry, style... QBP has Surly and Salsa turning out sick products. I have no idea what people are longing for...

Flandry

Found a post by Sheldon Brown here where he confirmsI was thinking the Nexus8 was 135 mm stock and 126 stripped down, but it's 130/123 and that seems like it's good enough for the 120 mm ss Tricross. Now, i just got to find me one to test drive.

Torrilin

A Breezer is not a road bike. It's in between a "typical" American hybrid bike and a Dutch/English/Danish style city bike in terms of riding position. That makes it quite upright compared to a road bike. For me, it's ideal. I'm riding in a city, primarily downtown. I worked out the math once, and the loop of errands I ride most often averages 6 stops per mile. It has the cargo capacity of a Euro city bike, and the stability... with the additional benefit of I can pick it up and carry it on stairs. Add in the weather resistant design, and it's a very good choice for a snowy city.

You're fairly clearly *not* doing the heavy cargo and dense city riding that I am tho, so I doubt it's the right bike for you.

One thing to be aware of is that IGH shifters are too small to fit on road diameter bars. That's why you don't find any road bikes built up with IGH. Sheldon Brown has a lot of good information on how to build a bike around road diameter bars while using an internal gear hub, but at this point it's still very kludgy. My partner's dream bike sounds a great deal like yours, so we've been doing a lot of puzzling over how to get what he wants. (right now, the answer he's coming up with is "wait" and in the meantime ride the hell out of his current bike)

Flandry

Yeah that's a pretty ridiculous situation IMO. Shimano is shutting itself out of markets that would be open with a simple 5-min rework on the shifter to make a model for roadies. Honestly, i haven't played around with enough bikes and components to know how hard it would be to shoehorn a shifter onto the Tricross. I looked at the photos of the "San Jos8" (https://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/b...os8/index.html) customized bike at Harris and the hubub thing is kludgy at best. I was hoping there would be a way to maybe cut the indexed shifter band and affix it around the bars or something but i'll definitely have to go look at some bikes to get a better idea of the challenges involved in this frankenbike plan. My Nishiki has the shifters on the frame, so almost any arrangement would be an improvement after that.

dynaryder

FYI,Sturmy Archer makes hubs with less than 130mm OLD.

https://www.sturmey-archer.com/hubs.php

And there are ways to use barcons to shift IGH's.

https://www.oldspokeshome.com/blog/?p=119#comments

Guanxi88

In indicating "everyone" I did not mean to imply or suggest that 100% of all persons who have used, will use, or might conceivably anticipate using any two-wheeled, human-propelled conveyance would be satisfied with such a machine as I suggested.

I was, rather, suggesting that those who keep writing and posting, asking "Where can I get a good utility bike, what bike for commuting, etc., etc." and who ARE NOT members of the lycra mob might find an answer in a simple, single-speed or three-speed roadster. I further noted, with some dismay, that these machines, at least in an affordable configuration, are not manufactured here in the states. (For the sake of the hobbyists and sportsfolk, I will clarify and specify that an "affordable" configuration means it ought to cost less than, say, $500.00, in its most basic form; for the sake of comparison, about as much as you would consider spending on an entry-level saddle for your plutonium-framed bike.)

The bicycle industry in this country is not in the apple-pie shape that the lycra crowd would have you believe. If it weren't for their production of over-priced toys for those whose athletic ambitions were thwarted in their youth, or those wishing to acquire yet another expensive gadget, I doubt very much that there would be much in the way of a domestic bicycle manufacturing base in this country.

I would continue the clarification by pointing out that there is a very sound reason for the predominance of these machines among bicyclists in nations where sweat-wicking performance undergarments, GPS, and bicycling magazines are not a part of the local scene, and yet where they manage to use bicycles on so regular a basis as to beggar the imagination and exceed the wildest dreams of the wildest Green. In a certain sense, I would say that these folk, or their domestic versions of them, could be aggregated into a sufficiently large population (let's be conservative and say they number only a billion world-wide) to constitute an "everybody" sufficiently large to represent a potential customer base, at least in its domestic version, to attract the interest of one or more domestic manufacturers.

As it is, there are pitifully few domestic manufacturers who meet this need. (And yes, I am excluding that hippy at the LBS who builds bikes out of scrap and dumpster finds; he's not an industry.)

squeakywheel

I have a Specialized Singlecross. It's a really fun bike and a great value. Only thing I can say against it is that the eyelets on the rear are really close to the track fork ends. My Blackburn expedition rack interferes with the axle nuts in some axle positions. I can make it work by careful choice of gearing and chain length. I've decided to forgo the rack and use a Caradice saddle bag. That will help me keep the weight of the bike to a minimum.

I swapped out the 18 tooth freewheel for a 19 tooth one this summer for a 100 mile gravel race (Almanzo 100). Just gear it low enough that you can get up the biggest hills in your neighborhood. Coast down hills. With the 42/19 gearing, I can cruise along flat ground at 12 to 15 mph without too much effort. I quit pedaling when I get to 16 mph. I had it geared 42/17 last summer. When training for the race, I decided that was too high for an all day ride in Mississipi river valley bluff country.

I have thought about building a rear wheel around an IGH for the Singlecross. Sturmey Archer's 8-speed hub is narrower than Shimano or SRAM. It is intended for small wheeled bikes, so the gearing is a little high for touring. My other thought is to use a simple, cheap 3 speed IGH. They are also narrow.

I recommend getting the Singlecross. It is a good do everything bike if you don't live by mountains. Enjoy it as it is for now. Add an IGH at some point in the future if you want. You will be limited in choices of IGH's, but there are some that will work.

The Singlecross comes with a flip-flop hub. You can put a fixed cog on the flip side. It's kind of fun for a weekend ride on flat ground without much traffic. I kind of hate fixed gear on big hills or in traffic.

mike

That is interesting. Maybe you were lucky. I am not sure if Chromoly steel is more rust resistant, but I have seen those rust too.

I dunno, all I can say is that my experience, and the experience of a lot of other winter riders is that road salt eats bikes. My money says the OP will be better off with more than one bike - with winter designated bikes that he understands will suffer severely by road salt.

bkrownd

The quality and thickness of the paint job would be pretty important for resisting corrosion, as well as not scratching the paint up. Sealing around the headset, too. I don't think the cromoly had much to do with it. Otherwise the frame is pretty well sealed up. I never took the seatpost out, so nothing salty went in there.

One thing is that it was always stored indoors in the winter, at work and home, except for the 2.5 years I was in Colorado which is pretty dry even in winter. I didn't leave it outside in the snow, so it got to dry off most of the day/night.