Is it too early to be talking about a winter bike? MTB

[tjdixon911]

I have a pile of spares in my Garage and need to start thinking about bringing them together and build myself a winter bike.

I have a couple of options on frames, either a Boardman Pro or Giant XTC aluminium (when my warranty replacement finally arrives!), I have wheels giving me options of most gearing (SRAM 1x11, Shimano, or Single Speed) I don't have 11speed groupset stuff spare but do have 10speed and single speed available so that wipes out the SRAM Setup.

I have a set of Brakes, Forks (Rebas), etc available.

As I want it to be a bit of a Training Bike, do I put weight aside and build something a little on the lardy side so that I get an advantage when I get back on the other bikes? is this actually going to help and am I better off adding sacrificial weight (ie a water bottle full of sand, heavy backpack etc).

The bike will get a lot of outings in evenings (dark and wet) and the last thing I'll want to do is clean it before putting it away, so need to have a bit of thought on maintenance (I will/may just clean around the drive-train to try and avoid that seizing)

So really the questions are Heavy or Light? Single Speed or Geared? Suspension or None?

My other thought is to sell all my parts and buy an off the shelf 27.5+ bike with the proceeds.

[vwsurfbum]

in my opinion, wasting money on buying a winter bike is pointless if your just going to trash it through the winter.

If you can get away with single speed then i would say do it, it will make you quicker and fitter but i found that through the winter i needed the extra gearing to get up hills?

[snotrag]

Not S/Sbut built it rigid and as light/simple as possible, with narrow mud tyres on. Perfect for blasting canal paths and your local woods when its really boggy.

Or entering a CX race or two...

[Jimbo.]

Weight? Meh. It's a winter bike: throw together whatever you have that works, minimise expense and to hell with weight, looks etc. It'll soon be caked in filth, so who cares? You're out riding when the majority of cafe stop bling slingers are indoors, getting fat and posting ste on Internet forums about their next summer bike.

[gazza285]

Mudguards, that is all.

[anonymous-user]

tjdixon911 said:

So really the questions are Heavy or Light? Single Speed or Geared? Suspension or None?

For winter, alloy frame, no suspension, the cheapest groupset and keep on top of the cassette and chain maintenance.