Bike advice please?

[White-Noise]

Hi all,

So I decided that this year I would be riding to work to save time and money, Ill save on fuel and I dont need to spend so much time in the gym. I have a 10 year old Jamis Durango which has had a pretty easy life, but I am not sure if I should live with this or get something newer.

I ride 5 miles each way on busy roads, but I am also doing quite a lot of riding at the weekend, along the Thames, through the woods, over to friends (road). I dont know if its worth getting something more modern for the weekends and putting road tyres on my current bike or do I stick with it, or replace it with something else...?

It needs some attention:
Front tyre worn
Pedal bearings gone
Front gear set wont go into top - not too much of a problem as it will see me to 25mph
The brake area gets clogged with mud and the wheels get stuck - would disks help this?

I spoke to a chap at work that has a Hardrock and they do get good reviews, am I right in assuming that the technology would have come on leaps and bounds in the 10 years?

Its doing me fine at the moment but I need to make up my mind and so I would like to call on your advice please!

Cheers Chris

[anonymous-user]

White-Noise said:

Hi all,

So I decided that this year I would be riding to work to save time and money, Ill save on fuel and I dont need to spend so much time in the gym. I have a 10 year old Jamis Durango which has had a pretty easy life, but I am not sure if I should live with this or get something newer.

I ride 5 miles each way on busy roads, but I am also doing quite a lot of riding at the weekend, along the Thames, through the woods, over to friends (road). I dont know if its worth getting something more modern for the weekends and putting road tyres on my current bike or do I stick with it, or replace it with something else...?

It needs some attention:
Front tyre worn
Pedal bearings gone
Front gear set wont go into top - not too much of a problem as it will see me to 25mph
The brake area gets clogged with mud and the wheels get stuck - would disks help this?

I spoke to a chap at work that has a Hardrock and they do get good reviews, am I right in assuming that the technology would have come on leaps and bounds in the 10 years?

Its doing me fine at the moment but I need to make up my mind and so I would like to call on your advice please!

Cheers Chris

the "faults" you list are easily solved, new tyres are cheap enough, new pedals are pretty cheap, the mechs need adjusting and a mud guard fashioned from a plastic tub fixed to the back of the forks will solve the mud issue... discs do work better in mud and wet conditions but only you can decide if the extra cash is commensurate with intended use.

as they are pretty weak faults, it sounds like you want a new bike and if you want a new bike buy one, you could do a lot worse than the hardrock and i dont really think there is a lot of reason to buy something else unless there are some 2010 bargains still around.

technology has come on a fair bit but the only difference at the lower end of the price bracket will be the forks and the frame materials, you are hard pushed to find manufacturers selling steel framed bikes as budget models these days and most are aluminium. i havent really noticed much of a difference in reliability of front or rear mechs between now and ten years ago. things tend to be made with cheaper bearings these days though.