JHZR2

Wife and I are considering new bikes for family riding. This includes rising with trailers and Tagalongs.





We own MTB and Road bikes. We want bikes that are good for tooling around town and rail trails with kids (two with one on the way). we don’t want to mod existing bikes, particularly MTBs. I could see us selling our road bikes, we’re not that hardcore of riders, though I can see my wife wanting to retain a bike that would let her be reasonably fast/efficient in triathalons if/when she gets back into it.

We do a lot of day and road tripping, so light, compact bikes we can carry with us (trailer hitch bike rack) are desirable.

We have more or less reduced to verve and fx. I’d have considered Janis sequel and coda if I could have found some anywhere.

Both of the seating positions are comfortable, fx fit and felt fine. Verve felt a bit more numb and heavier, fx lighter and more agile. I think the fx would do well with slightly larger tires, the verve with smaller/lighter.

In the end we’re leaning towards verve because we have other bikes and it seems the most oriented towards fun use. That said, I don’t want to be limited if we want to do faster or more fitness oriented riding.

Both are the 3 level.

We’re late 30s/very early 40s, no health or mobility issues.

What would you buy?

SEATrek

Never rode a Verve so am not familiar with that line of bikes. But I'm on my second FX (recently bought an FX5 Sport which replaced my 2012 7.5FX) and I love it. I ride for fitness so no ride is more than an hour or so which suits me fine. I like to ride fast and the FX frame is basically a road frame with upright handlebars. I changed out the stock 700Cx32 tires and installed larger 700Cx35 tires and they are amazing. Very smooth ride and I feel like I can go faster because of it. I also ride on light gravel paths but am not interested in mountain biking at all as 90% of my riding is on tarmac. I'd say if your style of riding is more casual and slow, go with the Verve. If you're more in to fitness and riding faster, go with the FX. That's about all I can think of at the moment.

JHZR2

Thanks! I’m sort of thinking that since the verve is different enough from our road bikes (which haven’t been used much in many years) and MTBs (which get lots of use), that it’s the way to go... for now.


If/when we decide to get into fitness riding, we either sell/mod/keep to collect dust and buy fx type bikes for doing that.

It seems like you really like the wider tires. Did it make your fix feel more stable, soak up more road irregularities, both, something else?

Thanks!

SEATrek

The wider tires offer a lot more comfort for the ride, and also allow me to go faster knowing that any bumps along the way will be absorbed by the wider tires. And I have found in practice this to be true. The old school thinking was if you want to go fast, put on the skinniest tires you can find and pump them all the way up to 115psi (or so). And this is what I used to do. But tires that are rock solid also transmit bumps right in to your hands and wrists as well as your torso via the seat. Not fun and I'd usually slow down on rough roads. Modern data proves that a wider tire inflated to around 60-80psi (depending on preference) can offer more comfort and nearly just as much speed if not the same speed, thus the trend toward wider tires. 700x32C tires were standard on my 2021 Trek FX while 700x28C were standard on my 2012 Trek FX. Before purchasing my new bike I had my old 28C tires upgraded to 35C tires and loved the improvement in ride quality and I had no decreases in my speed, in fact, I found my times for my riding routes around my city went down after the wider tires were installed. Hope this helps.

hokiefyd 

I usually run as wide of a tire as I can reasonably fit on the wheels and in the frame. This is really more of a user preference than anything else. Modern testing has found there to be a much smaller disparity in "speed" between different tire widths than we used to believe there to be. And, in fact, a wider tire may be a more appropriate choice than a narrower tire depending on riding style, riding surface, etc. It seems that the narrow and super high pressure is demonstrated to have its advantages on very smooth and consistent pavement...and wider and softer tires become more optimal as the surface becomes more irregular. And "more optional" isn't just from a comfort perspective. The bicycle "system" loses energy when a tire has to bounce over a small stone or irregularity; the system can lose less energy if a tire can efficiently deform over that obstacle and keep the bike moving forward with less disruption.

All that said, I really do like the wider tires for their comfort. I'm not a competitive cyclist. I'm not out for PRs or KOMs or anything like that. I do it for the enjoyment and the difference between 30 psi and 60 psi makes much more of an impact (pardon the pun) on my comfort (in a positive way) than it takes away in efficiency or watts consumed.

jaxgtr

I test rode a Verve when we were looking for a new bike for my wife. Neither of us liked the almost vertical riding position the Verve had, so she decided she would rather go with the FX.

JHZR2

We ended up with two verve bikes. I figure if we decide we want some fitness bikes, we can figure it out down the line. For now, we have MTBs that will stay MTBs, and we have these two which are comfortable and work great.