I think I have a new bike

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I’ve been look­ing for an entry-lev­el tour­ing bicy­cle for a lit­tle while. My rac­ing bike is total­ly inap­pro­pri­ate for any­thing more than a sin­gle day trip with all sup­plies pur­chased on the road, and real­ly not appro­pri­ate for com­mut­ing either. My hybrid got trashed out at Burn­ing Man and has been retired to the sta­tus of “Playa Bike.”

I’d been think­ing of replac­ing the hybrid with anoth­er hybrid, but I got this oppor­tu­ni­ty to pick up a used rental bike. Yeah, it’s been rid­den by a bunch of peo­ple, but Blaz­ing Sad­dles takes pret­ty good care of their bikes. So I’m get­ting a Marin Verona, very sim­i­lar in some respects to my rac­ing bike, but it has new­er com­po­nents (includ­ing STI), low­er gear­ing, and frame boss­es for racks and pan­niers. I think it’ll fill my needs.

Nice thing is that I can ride it around for a few days before I decide whether I want it or not. If there are any big prob­lems, they should become vis­i­ble in that time.

here are the specs from the Marin Website:

Colum­bus Thron Cro­moly frame • Cus­tom Triple Cro­moly frame Fork • Alloy Thread­ed 1″ Headset

Shi­mano 105 STI Shifters • Shi­mano 105 Front Deraileur • Shi­mano 105 Rear Deraileur • Shi­mano 105 9 speed Cas­sette • Shi­mano 105 Triple 30÷42÷52 Crankset • Dual Piv­ot Brake Calipers • Shi­mano 105 Brake Levers

Selle Italia Tri­mat­ic Sad­dle • Sel­cof 74x Seat Post • Cinel­li Altera Han­dle­bar • Cinel­li Frog Stem • Cinel­li Cork Tape • Ritchey Road Comp Cli­p­less Pedals

Shi­mano 105 32 hole Hubs • Mav­ic CXP-21 32 hole Rims • DT 15 Gauge Stain­less Spokes • Vit­to­ria Action HSD 700x23c Tires

Published by splicer

5 Replies to “I think I have a new bike”

  1. Com­po­nents look nice. 105s
    Com­po­nents look nice. 105s are the low-end of the nice Shi­mano parts, right? That would be good for in the city.

    Chro­moly is under-rat­ed in my opin­ion. If you crash you can always have it bent back into shape — unlike Alu­minum which does­n’t do so well to that sort of re-forming.

    I have an anatom­i­cal­ly cor­rect seat for my road bike that I like quite a lot. It’s by Blowfly I believe. I rec­om­mend it if you plan to spend hours in your saddle.

    And how can you go wrote with Cinel­li anything?

    Have you got the cli­p­less parts for your shoes to go into the cli­p­less ped­als already?

    What about braze-ons for racks and things? 

    rock on.

    1. 105 is the same com­po­nent
      105 is the same com­po­nent group I have on my rac­ing bike. This is just a 10 year new­er ver­sion of the 105 group. It’s an entry-lev­el rac­ing group, so, yeah, it’s the low end of the high end.

      I’m in full agree­ment about Cro­Mo. I ddon’t think I’d get an alu­minum bike. Tita­ni­um, now *that* is tempting… =^)

      This Selle seat seems pret­ty nice, but if I don’t like it I can swap out that nice anatom­i­cal seat I got for the hybrid that time you and I went to REI. I like my Selle Flite too, but it’s not a cushy com­fy sad­dle, you know?

      I don’t have the cli­p­less ped­als on it—I got reg­u­lar ped­als and clips and straps. I’m think­ing of swap­ping these ped­als out with the Shi­mano cli­p­less I have on the hybrid. I real­ly don’t want cli­p­less ped­als on my playa bike any­way. I’ve done that both years I’ve gone to the desert and it’s worked out fine, but I think I’m bet­ter off not hav­ing to bring nice bike-cleat shoes out to Bur­rn­ing Man. On the oth­er hand, I could take the cli­p­less ones, which are nicer than my exist­ing cli­p­less ped­als… I don’t know what I’ll do quite yet. It depends on what I can find in the way of street shoes with cleats.

      And yes, the frame has both front and read braze-ons. I can trick it out with racks.

      So it looks like this can work for a com­mute bike and for a tour­ing bike. The only thing I’m wor­ried about for tour­ing is the gear­ing, but it’s a lot low­er than my rac­ing bike, so even if not ide­al for longer trips I can make some week­end trips with it or what­not, and I need to crawl before I run anyway.

      I want to give the frame a good look­ing-over, because there are some cos­met­ic scuffs on some of the com­po­nents and it’s pos­si­ble that the bike has been crashed at some point.

  2. I rode a tour­ing bike (1986
    I rode a tour­ing bike (1986 Uni­ve­ga Gran Tur­is­mo) for about 15 years, before I final­ly replaced it this spring with a Marin Lark­spur hybrid.

    Tour­ing bikes are very under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed… but I find that I’m too old for drop han­dle­bars nowadays.

  4. and a reg­u­lar road bike
    and
    and a reg­u­lar road bike
    and I used to have a moun­tain bike (but it was stolen)

    I can’t get rid of either the road or tour­ing bike because I love them both. But I want an offroad bike too. I don’t think I could real­ly hang with a hybrid myself — so instead I have to have room for 3 bikes. 

    I guess life could be worse.

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