I love my carbon frame bicycle!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

More than my women even!

I used to be an avid bicycle rider, back in my teenage years, back in the 70’s.

I used to ride the Chicago lakefront, from Hyde Park up to Evanston and back, often several circuits on the weekends. You may have tried to pass me, back then, but you failed.

Well, now I am a lot older and many people can pass me easily, though I hope to remedy that situation to some degree.

I was just getting up to the point that I could do twenty miles a day, and I broke my own rule (never ride around cars) and was riding in the street, and I pitched over the handlebars to avoid a motorist, and fractured the crap out of my left wrist.

I am almost glad that I didn’t mess up my bike! LA County/USC is fixing up my wrist, at taxpayer expense. I doubt they would have paid for my bike, if I had crashed it, and I can’t afford to fix it, at this point in my life.

I just took my first post-crash ride, and I love the bike so much! My wrist will heal, but the bike is still in great shape.

I got the bike from Bikes Direct, it is the Centruy Compmodel. I have had few nice bikes over the years, Raleigh Super Course, Gran Sport, Dawes, etc, but this is by far the nicest.

It is the carbon frame that makes the difference. Light, rigid, and something about the way it absorbs the road shock, really makes it a nice ride. If you tap the frame it sounds like plastic, but it is totally rigid.

I notice a lot of folks hate BikesDirect, but you get a heckuva deal there, and I have had no problems with my bike. Great components, and a carbon frame at a price that you cannot touch with some of the name brands. Happy happy happy! :wink:

2

Not bad, there doesn’t seem to be any skimping on the components either, though I suppose the groupset could be higher spec than Tiagra level (if I’m right in thinking Tiagra is below XT, XTR etc? Might be different on Roadies…)

I ride MTB so I don’t think a carbon frame is ever going to be my thing, I just wouldn’t be able to trust something that can snap rather than bend if I take a serious hit! But that bike
does look pretty sweet.
Think I’m going to

3

I just started a thread a few days ago asking about Bikesdirect. What do you think of your experience overall?

4

The most recent issue of Bicycling gave the Motobecane Le Champion a pretty decent review. I was surprised, because I thought Motobecane had gone the way of the dodo. Glad you like your bike! I have an 2009 Orbea Onix TDF with carbon frame, and I, too, love it.

5

Bah! real bikes are made of steel as God intended :wink:
(seriously - steel makes sense for the type of bike I have - a loaded tourer)

Congrats on the new wheels!

Brian

6

Well, you have to do the final assembly and adjustment yourself, but it’s not too hard. Quality seems fine. It is very nice to ride. I have read that they sometimes aren’t too helpful if you have problems, but so far, I haven’t had any.

It has. The BikesDirect guy bought the rights to the name along with a few others like Windsor and Dawes.

He is basically putting decent components on Taiwan frames and painting them with fallen flag logos. But I couldn’t touch a carbon frame bike with those kind of components for anywhere near the price, so I am a happy camper so far.

7

Oh, and don’t expect to get any respect from the bike snobs with a BD bike. But that is not what I care about, I wanted a good bang for my buck, and that’s what I got.

8

Yup. On roadies its Dura-ace, Ultregra, 105 and Tiagra. Dura-ace being what the pros use. This bike is 105 at the rear, Tiagra at the front.

9

I get really crisp shifting with this setup. No problems at all. Anything you get today is so far beyond what I was riding with in the 70’s and 80’s it is pretty amazing!

10

To be honest, so long as you’re not using bottom level ‘unbranded’ stuff (like you’d get on a store brand bike - don’t know what the equivalent is in the US, but ASDA’s cheapo ‘instore brand’ British Eagle fits the mark over here) then shifting is generally crisp. The main benefit from upgrading is weight saving, I’d assume especially so for road bikes.

11

I wonder who has my old (1970’s) Eddy Meryxx chrome track bike,
a few couriers use track bikes, who’s gonna nick a track bike?