RoadWearier

I'm probably a glutton for punishment but I thought I'd share my new ride and compare it to the 2008 FX 7.3 Trek I had.

Pros: I know it looks goofy, but apparently the prior rider who is 6'5 had spacers on the stem rather than buy a bigger bike. Between the higher bars and the bar ends that were added on, I love the position! Much easier on the wrists. Probably a little slower but I wasn't fast anyway.anyway. 2) Also the disc brakes are much better than the linear pull brakes on the 7.3. I know people disagree but at least in this instance they are way better....and yes I had the brakes not only adjusted but then replaced by a bike shop with new pads. Still was no better.

Cons...This bike is MUCH heavier. The 7.3 was about 26 pounds. This weighed in at over 32! Pounds. I'm attributing most of that to the discs I guess but it's a hybrid.

Other bonus Con...front derailleur will not shift to the granny gear. Only middle and high. It WAS just shifting to the granny and middle but I backed the barrel adjuster out a good bit and now it's only going to 2 and 3. Indicator is now incorrect...reading "1" when I'm in the middle gear and "2" when in the highest gear. Quite the mystery. I'm probably going to just take it to a shop. I've watched the videos on YouTube on adjusting front derailleur and without a bike stand I'm afraid I'm just going to make things worse.

Anyway just wanted to check in. Any other Trek 7.3 Disc owners?

RoadWearier

Finally went on a 10 mile ride with this bike. After about 15-20 Minutes I found the bar ends weren't as helpful. I also found this bike MUCH harder to keep at 12-14 mph pace. I guess between the added weight and the upright position this is definitely a tougher bike to ride with any kind of pace. I guess between 2008 and 2014 trek decided to lean a little more cruiser-like. Or maybe it's 7.2 vs 7.3 dunno. In any event I think I'm going to go ahead and sell and keep looking. I really felt like this bike wasn't much faster than a mountain bike for me. Also Im not sure these discs added all that much once I got to ride several miles on it.

hokiefyd 

The upright position with the bar riser definitely won't help your average speed. No judgement here -- I like higher bars myself and find it comfortable, but I couldn't tell you what my average speed is -- I don't track it. I have bikes with good rim brakes and with good disc brakes, and I've found that rim brakes are at least as effective as discs in dry weather. If the brake track is wet, then they're far less effective, and this is where a disc brake will shine. But a good rim brake will do VERY well.

(This is the bike I ride the most in my collection, and I had it downtown this weekend at a two-day parade event. Our church sells Chick-fil-A sandwiches as a fundraiser but, because of the parade route, the catering moo-mobile can't get closer than about six blocks. So I use my bike and bike trailer to go get the hot boxes. This is a picture of the bike (a '97 Trek 750 with Tekro Mini-Vs with basic Jagwire pads) pulling two full hotboxes (with 50 sandwiches each), plus a couple of boxes of sauce. I estimate those full hotboxes to weigh about 40 pounds each, and I'm 240 myself. So we were about 320 pounds rolling down the road. The brakes worked great.)