Needs more
Custom etap only Gunnar Roadie. No downtube decal
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FWIW I found the aluminum Marin frames to be extremely uninspiring. The steel stuff definitely punches above its weight.
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what do people think of alu Norco all road bikes?
Please keep this one, it’s nice
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great bicycle
Fwiw of all the bikes I’ve sold Ive kept my Gunnars
How is the paint on your Gunnars? I’ve seen a few scattered complaints about durability/quality but nothing particularly convincing.
It used to be bad, like look at it the wrong way and you would have chips. My crosshairs from 2014 still looks good. The roadie I sold, not so much. I know two people who have newish hyper-x bikes and the paint is great.
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I had the steel Section for awhile and thought it was sweet, but it was stiff enough that I sort of ended up wishing I’d gone for alu to save weight. I think the geo on these is pretty much ideal.
FWIW I called a bunch of Norco shops trying to find one in any frame material after it was stolen and a couple people told me they think Norco is discontinuing that model. Norco wouldn’t confirm or deny but said they only have a handful on order due this winter and they’re sending them to Ohio.
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“sending them to Ohio” sounds like an euphemism, but yeah, before I landed on a Soma Fog Cutter for a long distance, randonneurish bike, I was looking at the Norco Search AR. It had some pretty generous sizing in xxl, and not totally stupic geometry.
edit: I misspelled “stupid”, which is stupid enough that I will leave it as a testament to the human capacity for error
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Can I think out loud here a bit? The Diverge is a cool bike but a big percentage of my mileage is just on the pavement, especially during the week. And it would be nice to not have to consider road road riding with regards to the setup of my Diverge. Really that’s beside the point, the point is I want a pavement bike and the reasons don’t matter.
This is a beach season bike. It’ll be ridden in dry conditions 100% of the time. Fitting 30s would be great but realistically 28s are dandy. Zero need for racks or fenders or whatever. Am I stupid for thinking it would be sort of a good idea to just YOLO a deadender from like 5-6-7 years ago and enjoy a it for a couple years at least before revisiting the issue when I’m ready to dither again (an inevitability)?
I am all on board with thru axles, love hydro discs, etc etc, and I could spend 3-4k on a new bike in the next six months… but I wouldn’t mind spending less. And given new bike availability and the degree to which all the modern standards have actually matriculated into the used bike market, there’s definite appeal to the deadender market. Am I being dumb here? Sucked in by the idea of spending less and not having to search as much?
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Dude I think a nice metal rimbrake frame with some nice parts would keep you happy. mine has gone from the “a bike I would sell” to one that’s going to be the nice fast road bike I plan on keeping around forever. It was super great with mechanical shifting, but it was also a good dither to put etap on it and weight weenie it out. Some day I’ll get some mechanical red 22 for it and it’ll be “done.”
Only downside is your “easy search” criteria might not be a problem or might be an impossibility depending on size and market. I can think of a handful that you search for, a number of which are ridden by tarckers!
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older road bike but with tubeless tires is pretty not bad. I mean you know all of this but anything that’s road specific and more than 5-7 years old is going to have a rough time clearing anything bigger than a plush 25mm tire. Most good tubless tires don’t stretch that much, so you’re less likely to get tire rub.
I am still having a blast on my rimbraked Broakland, it’s eight years old, kinda rusted out, and has had to have the rear triangle cold set back into alignment. It currently has the older GP5k 25mm tubeless on DT460 rims, which feels way better than comprable tubed tires at like 15-20psi higher.
So yeah go for it but don’t get stuck with stupid factory wheelset
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This is a great idea. See Heath’s CAAD10 or similar, or modernish steel. I dithered my brother-in-law into a steel Colossi a few years back that fits 28-30mm tyres with 6800 calipers. My steel road bike is nearly 10 years old and I couldn’t be happier.
ATMO modern bikes with all the fruit are really nice but for road riding most of that stuff is just bells & whistles. Probably the only thing I will eventually do on my bike is move to carbon rims (if only to scratch the dithering itch).
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I love my thru-axle di2 space bike as much as the next guy, but I also really really enjoy riding a 30 year old dead-ender rim brake bike. It’d be nice to have a modern metal disc pavement bike, but there’s really no need beyond “because.” Lucky for me that I can stuff a 30 into the frame. Much like @panda_heavy_metal I’d love to throw some carbon rims on it, but it’d be more for aesthetics and a marginal weight drop than anything else.
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one more hell yeah build a rim brake road bike
mine is from 2014 and clears a 28 and all I bought for it in the past 3 years is chains, brake pads and handlebar tape
like there others its dead simple and fun and the only other way I can spice it up is with some carbon hoops now
rim brake bikes are so cheap rn, but a disc brake is much more likely to give you that 30mm tire clearance you might want. That said, I bet you could fit a 30mm tire into something like a rim brake Cannondale Synapse from six to eight years ago, and if you can get a Hi-Mod model, even better. those rode so, so nicely.
or you can get a Ritchey Road Logic and call it a day.
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Thanks for all the validation. I wouldn’t want to be stuck with 25s, but maxing out at 28 would be completely fine. Not super concerned about that limitation.
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I’m a broken record here, but you do not need 30mm tires for a road bike. you can run 28mm tires at like 40f50r if you really want to. I weigh 210 lbs and run 28mm tires at 55f65r, they feel fine.
which is all the better news for getting a good modern ride feel out of an older road bike
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