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I’m a terrible MTBer buuut agree the big wheels roll better and would just say buy complete because of that plus the thing about a fork for 26″, and trickle-down componentry. I’ve had an older 26″ with rigid fork for a while and use it more often than any other bike (as a utility/kid-tower), but I could not believe how much easier and nicer it was to ride a modern 29″ hardtail on the trails. Also… shifters have improved a lot – enough that I upgraded the 26″ to use 10-speed XT.

There does seem to be a reasonable turnover of new MTBs on DC Used Bicycle Marketplace (facebook group) although often seem very high end so waaay out of what I’d spend on a MTB.

I’m fortunate enough to have been able to upgrade my old 26″ MTB (crappy stock fork to rigid, v-brakes to disc, new wheels+drivetrain) and also buy a new 29″ despite rarely MTBing.

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It’s possible (or probable?) that there will be a few days where studs still won’t help a MVT commute (unless perhaps it’s a studded fat bike tire, but then it would definitely be 1hr+).

I think either go with light studs that will help with glaze/black ice/etc. or – just use the widest tires that fit your bike and use transit on icy days. I would go front and rear if you go studs, based on what I read here http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/studdedtires.php although I have occasionally run front-only studded (out of laziness).

Quote:

… If the rear tire slides you can still go down, but not as fast, and the results are usually not so calamitous, since you usually have enough time to get a foot out of the pedal. But with just a front studded tire, you can still crash. You can still not be able to climb a hill with black ice. You can still not be able to get out of an icy rut. You can still spin on a downhill curve. You can still lose control in a busy intersection with lots of traffic. And you can still spin during hard braking. So, for the life of me, I can’t see any reason to use a single studded tire in front, except to save a few dollars.

Studded tires will slow you down but some of the lightly studded ones will only have studs on the edges so they won’t be too bad. Of course it’s a trade-off with grip on ice.

I love my belt drive for salty winter roads (and having a spare stock/cheaper wheelset is great for that too.) Although I need to clean out my EBB and set it back up again, I know your pain Sunyata! And I also have a cheap beater 26″ MTB for really bad days. The drivetrain finally went totally kaputt after 3-5 years? of winter riding, outside storage and zero post-ride maintenance (just chain oil) so this past summer I finally upgraded it to 1×10 (started life as a 3×7, then “morphed” into a 1×7).

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@Judd 151049 wrote:

I love all the family biking achievements even if they involve death marches and freezing cold. The best of my childhood all involves spending time with my dad.

How are the carbon wheels? Do I need some?

Yeah my brother and I did quite a bit of riding as kids with my mum, and quite a few of those involved complaining on steep uphills, as well as McDonald’s as a destination/reward (we never ate out much). I never realized until I got a Garmin that the area I grew up riding in was basically Kill Bill terrain. There were also a couple of rides with friends which by today’s standards were a bit foolish – mostly involving riding cheap MTBs in busy traffic lanes in 100F with no water/food/phone/etc.

Crabon wheels – not really sure, not real miles on them yet. Just always wanted some (more for the aesthetic than anything…) especially since I finally bought a bike with a carbon frame and finally pulled the trigger on a Black Friday deal.

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2016:
-Rode with my family (wife’s first riding in 10 years or so, and my older kid learned to bike – and I promptly took him on 20 mile deathmarch which hasn’t been repeated).
-PRs on various climbs I’ve done before, felt like I was off the pace on those rides but good to know I have actually improved despite less mileage/ageing/beer/etc.
-closer to have better/fuller bike kit wardrobe
-bought first set of crabon wheels. whoooosh!

2017 Goals:
-Buy a crabon crankset and ‘gram it.
-More srsly, just get over various injuries from 2016, and learn to handle bike better/more confidently.

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@Crickey7 150911 wrote:

There are plenty of us who ride year round and never use studded tires. Most winters, there are a tiny handful of days when that’s arguably necessary, though I have generally done fine with careful riding and slightly knobby tires for the very worst of it. As winter riding gear goes, that would be pretty far down there on my list of must-haves.

This is true, but it does depend a bit on where in the DC area you live (the roads around me don’t always get ploughed in a timely fashion) and how much you want to be able to ride in (almost) all conditions. It only took me one wipe out on ice to justify the studded tires. I have two sets now, one that lets me ride more MTB style, and a more general riding pair. They last for ages too.

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@ewilliams0305 150883 wrote:

This sounds like a conspiracy to make sure I suck! While I understand what your trying to do and I understand the spirit isn’t just to go out and ride big miles. I also KNOW what it’s like to literally ride outside in the cold for 20 hours below freezing. Anyone who’s ever done this surely wouldn’t want their points to be diminished. It’s possibly the hardest thing anyone could ever do on a bicycle period.

I’d love some background into why we are even discussing theses changes. We’re people actually unhappy with the current scoring system? In fact the current scoring system has allowed people who don’t ride a ton to be the most valuable team members. In fact the daily 11points has always been what makes or breaks a team. In fact the teams that have always won have been the teams with the most rider daily participation, not miles. In fact isn’t that the point (to get people to participate), so haven’t we already created the perfect scoring system?

jrenaut replied already, but yeah basically the intention was to have an alternative scoring alongside the current scoring system that would keep riders’ and teams’ scores closer, and also to reward just regular riding (especially in bad conditions) more than 8 hr+ rides. This different scoring is meant to encourage regular riding in any conditions, more than just monster mileage and monster hours, which some riders (including veterans) don’t want to commit to. I don’t think the current scoring system was ever going to be replaced.

In any case, I’m not particularly invested in whatever is used (I signed up for slackers). I do find it fun/interesting to play around with the data.

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I also like Steve O’s suggestion – why not just do it off a baseline, say 200 riders/day = 1.0x multiplier

then just skew it as much as we like, say 100 riders/day = 1.5x or 50 riders/day = 2.0x or something. Whatever really. Either linear or some more hyperbolic/trigonometric function. Whatever chosen baseline of 200 riders or whatever doesn’t really matter since every day is scored against the same baseline, and the query will be a lot easier. Scores may change obviously as some rides are logged later on, but ultimately credit is given where it’s due.

This could maybe be combined with diminishing returns for longer rides. Then we don’t need to worry about actual weather data and sampling at the beginning or middle or end of the day.

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@ian74 150374 wrote:

Why don’t you just go buy another Dew? The MSRP of the Dew according to the Kona website is $499. If it works, and you loved it, why not just get another?

BOR-ring

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I’d look at a disc brake flat-bar road bike. Upright position and easy enough to make a little more aggressive with a different stem later. They often come with 28-32mm tires nowadays (so you could clear wider than that, and studded tires, etc.) and they’d fit your price range.

My first dedicated commuter bike was a flat-bar road bike and it amazed me how much faster it was compared to the MTBs I used to invariably ride. I think I paid £300 and it was still a lot faster than my $1500+ MTB.

If you’re tempted to try a drop-bar bike just keep in mind that modern drop-bar shifters, components, etc. are going to add to the cost for a comparable flat-bar bike. So if you find a $700 drop-bar bike and a $500 flat-bar bike and you really like both, I wouldn’t worry about spending the extra $. It does take some time to get used to riding drops but I think it’s worth it.

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I won’t have the time to do it this year, but finally did it last year.

The Rapha climbing challenges gave out ahem… *roundels*, too. I think I have two of those.

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Sorry to hear that, n=0 is terrible.

FWIW ( not that you’ll need reminding now ) I had my first LBS-purchased bike stolen years and years ago and had locked it up with only a cable lock. I still miss it even though it was just a heavy Diamondback. I remember getting a much nicer bike to replace it and still feeling like that! I tend to err on the side of caution nowadays, and will ride my beater bike if I’m worried about locking it in a high-theft area.

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@hozn 149769 wrote:

Good point. My biggest fear is that I’d end up investing a significant amount of money in something that just sits in the corner of our basement.

That’s sort of what happened to mine, although partly because it’s a folding bike and the ride quality/feel is just different. Ironically on the last trip I took (to Taipei) I would’ve liked to have had that bike. Oh well.

@mstone 149776 wrote:

You’ll be putting a bike together in the hotel room, it’s gonna be a focus.

Yep, that’s one reason mine never made many trips. Not enough time/energy on family vacations to schlepp around an extra suitcase and put it together, store it in a hotel room, etc.

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I guess you could always get a tri style seatpost that lets you have forward setback but otherwise I’d agree with the Waltly. I’ve never used S&S couplers before.

A mullet set up with a front mech disc might be easy-ish to travel with. The cable wouldn’t have to be removed, and you could use centerlock for quicker removal/install. Wouldn’t really matter if the lever was squeezed during transit (unlike hydro!) A little goofy looking but perhaps the best of both worlds. Depending on the fork you could fit wider tires too for gravel/etc. (In my experience the rear tire width doesn’t matter as much anyway as long as it’s puncture resistant.) And even with a QR fork you can easily use any existing thru axle wheels with an adapter.

Also just sharing my experience: I bought my folding bike about 5 years ago under the premise I’d fly with it for free (amongst other premises), but I only ever did it once. Every other time I ended up just renting/borrowing a bike at the destination (BYO pedals, shoes, helmet, etc.). Faffing around with an extra suitcase at airport transfers, etc. and then having to dis-/re-assemble parts of the bike while on vacation just never seemed quite worth it. I’d consider sending my full-size bike in advance if possible (BikeFlights or similar) ahead of dealing with actually flying with a travel bike – although that still involves re-assembly, risk of damage, etc.

If I were to pick a travel bike again I’d probably stay with a folding bike but a SS/FG and probably belt drive (greasy chains in suitcases/hotels = yuck), and a front disc brake. (Obviously this wouldn’t work for the Alps or Colorado, etc.)

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@vern 148584 wrote:

I sort of converted my road bike to a 1x. I was installing new cables and housing for brakes and shifters, and as I was getting ready to run the new cable for the front derailleur, I reminded myself that I haven’t used the small ring on the front in months so, I just didn’t replace that cable. I then decided to remove the front derailleur. I still have the 2x cranks which I’ll keep until I replace them, probably after BAFS2017. The bracket for the front derailleur looks like it’s attached to the frame with rivets. I don’t know yet how I’m going to remove that.

I did that with my beater MTB last(?) year. It was a triple but no longer shifted (years of being stored outside and being a snow/salt-road bike) – I just cut the cable. Later on I swapped out the integrated shifter/lever for just a brake lever and took off the rusty FD. This year I spent some $ on converting it from 1×7 to 1×10 although not with a clutched RD or anything and threw on a spare FD as a chain keeper. Works great even with kid towing!

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I have my right lever attached to nothing; definitely prefer it to having no lever on a hood.

I like bullhorns too but agree depends on the bike. Riser bars are okay too – maybe.

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