u/puffmoike

You don’t have to delete the originals in Strava to use Gotoes.

You simply need to use the Randomise ID Tag, which I understand offsets the times by a few seconds, so that Strava won’t reject the upload as a duplicate.
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580wh Slash+, which replaced a stolen 360wh Fuel EXE. The extra range is nice to have.

Or drivers who keep creeping forward slowly, so you’re never convinced if they have seen you or not.

In general terms, probably not. At least most cost-efficiently. Better off looking for a newer, lightly used second-hand bike.

Yeah. I should have checked this before posting. I found out 6700-era 53-39 was not compatible with 50-34 when I tried to give away a chainring to a mate.

My bad.

Be aware, as noted above, that a 52-36 crankset possibly/probably has a different BCD than a 50-34. So a smaller chainring simply won’t fit if that is the case.

This is definitely the option to explore. Which backroads to take will depend on exactly where you live, but I’m sure you’ll work out something suitable.

Why did you want to bring the hoods down? What are you actually trying to achieve? If you let us know that you’ll get much better advice, and more experienced riders will be able to explain why they are recommending a particular approach. Without that we are just guessing.

FWIW without any additional context the current placement of the hoods on the bars looks conventional. The bars currently look to be rolled forward too far.

The typical way to get the levers lower would be to:

A) flip the stem (it’s currently ‘upside down’, although either way is fine)
B) remove stem spacers.

The best way to move the levers closer to the bar is to adjust the lever reach. (Especially for people with smaller hands this makes braking much more controlled and comfortable, and thus they are much more confident when riding in the drops).

Unless you are quite unusual these would be the conventional things to do before considering rolling the bars forward like you have done.

This will let you get the levers lower without compromising your hand/wrist position.

TL;DR: yes.

SRAM NX had a horrible reputation. As much as GX and above SRAM is highly regarded, every mountain bike reviewer that I can think of says lower-end Shimano was far better than lower-end SRAM until very recently.

I have the new lowest-end SRAM, Series 70, and I’m absolutely happy with it.

That said, it’s not as nice as the Shimano 105 Di2 on my road bike.

I have absolutely no doubt that my 2025 Giant Defy Advanced 1, with top-end Continental GP5000 32mm tubeless tyres on Reserve carbon rims is much, much nicer to ride than your 1978 Schwinn.

Would you notice the difference if you rode it? Absolutely. Instantly.

Everybody who has ridden my bike – be they only occasional riders, everyday commuters, or Lycra-wearing clip-in riders on decent 10yo bikes much better equipped than your bike – comes away shaking their head at how efficient and comfortable it feels to ride. (Those tyres make more difference to ride quality than frame material in my experience, now that we’re no longer riding 23c tyres at 100psi, but 32mm tyres at 55psi, the tyres are far and away doing more for ride feel than anything else).

Now would you care? Only you can answer that, and from the tone of your other answers maybe not. And that is fine. Within reason any decently maintained bike is a good bike.

My brother is a very, very good skier who takes perverse pleasure in being better than 99% of other skiers despite being on 20yo ex-rental beginner skis. He’s also a brilliant guitarist, and 20-odd years ago bought the most expensive acoustic guitar he had ever played, because he enjoyed it so much more than his already very nice guitar. Humans are inconsistent, and that’s what makes life interesting.

But if you’re genuinely interested, then yes a new bike would be definitively better than what you have now. Go and test ride one. You will notice immediately. Whether you care or not only you can decide.

Agree. As somebody who went from a wall of hooks like the OP’s to a wall of SteadyRack Pros they are excellent: super convenient to load and unload, and in my case excellent for moving bikes from side to side as necessary. (And whilst I don’t think hanging on a hook will do any damage to a carbon wheel if used sensibly, the Steady Rack only touches the tyre.)

If it did surely it had sustained damage another way first. Riding a bike subjects it to forces at least an order of magnitude greater than hanging it like this.

The fastest bike, especially over longer distances, is the one that you’re most comfortable holding an aerodynamic position on. And for most people that’s more likely to be an endurance bike with a higher handlebar. Google ‘aero hoods position’. You want to be able to comfortably hold that position.

(I own a similarly specced Giant Defy Advanced 1)

I really like to get my levers ‘just right’. I have a mate who couldn’t care less as long as they are vaguely in the general vicinity.

If this was my bike I would definitely swap the mounts. I one-finger brake, so would want my brakes a good 5+ cm inboard from where they are now. At the same time I’d probably move my gear lever inboard as well, but only by a cm or two.

1. Buy a different screen protector which is smaller, and make sure when you put it on that it doesn’t touch the QL case.

Presumably because the Mous case overlaps the screen area slightly less than the Quadlock case. Which is completely understandable from a design perspective. The QL case is designed to hold onto the phone under greater force.

So that requires the lip to overlap over the screen by more. It’s probably only tenths of a millimetre difference, but that’s enough to interfere with your existing screen protector.

QL sells their own screen protectors. My strong hunch is that they are fractionally smaller than the one you have. If you want to keep using your QL case maybe buy one of them. .

Ten+ years ago I used to mount my iPhone to my MTB bars. One time I had a proper, but not catastrophic, crash, and the QL bar mount and phone case stayed locked onto the bike. Unfortunately the case did not hold onto the phone. That was reasonable in my eyes. If the case completely wrapped around the screen it wouldn’t have come off, but obviously then you couldn’t use the phone. Like many engineering tasks some objectives are in direct competition, and compromises have to be made.

I still mount my phone to my road bike (on my Peak Designs system, which I prefer over my old QL) but my phone always goes into my pocket, screen towards my body, when I mountain bike.

You don’t have a Quadlock problem, per se. You have a taking different cases on and off a phone with a screen protector problem. I’m not at all surprised the screen protector is bubbling.

The big question is why are you taking cases on and off? Especially two that get marketed as to a similar demographic? I was a longtime Quadlock evangelist (I’m from Melbourne where they were founded) and the Mous ads I’ve seen all look like they are trying to meet the same need.

That said after ~15 years of Quadlocks (starting with an iPhone 4 or 5) I’ve now switched to Peak Design.

The cases are more elegant when off the bike, and it’s so much easier and more positive to attach or remove one-handed when on the bike. Nearly twelve months in I’m very happy. Not cheap though!

"If I’ve understood this right, pedalling in a 50/11 with the 165 cranks at a higher cadence will effectively generate the same output/speed as I would have had with the 172.5 on a 52/11?"

You have, indeed, at least partially misunderstood this ;-)

First things first: the chainring > chain > cassette > wheel > tyre > road surface system doesn't 'know' how long your cranks are. For a given constant bicycle speed in a nominated gear the crankset will need to spin at exactly the same rpm regardless of crank length.

For the sake of your thought experiment let's say when you're riding down the descent in your 52/11 your cadence is 100rpm. If you had shorter cranks you would still need to be able to spin at 100rpm. Maintaining a faster rpm is easier with short cranks, so no problems there. (The suggestion seems to be that each rider has a natural 'foot speed' rather than a natural cadence, per se. On a shorter crank your foot moves in a smaller circle per revolution, so it will comfortably spin a bit faster because it will still only move the same distance in the same time.)

Now for the second thought experiment let's say when you're climbing up the same hill you use your lowest gear, the 36/34, at 34rpm (probably a bit low, but stick with me). Regardless of crank length to maintain the same speed in that gear you need to spin at 34rpm. Now that might be a bit harder with shorter cranks. Because at 34rpm the pertinent question isn't 'Can I spin my legs this quickly?', it's 'Can I apply enough force to keep the cranks turning?' And so this is why you might theoretically want a smaller crankset, like a 50/34. 34/34 is easier to push than 36/34. To go at exactly the same speed with a 34T chainring your legs will spin at… 36rpm. (See what I did there?) Which might be more comfortable, but as per a couple of other replies, we're not talking dramatic differences.

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From what I have read, watched and listened to the few published scientific experiments seem to suggest it's not until cranks are, say, less than 140mm or more than 220mm that participants ability to maintain speeds in a laboratory was dramatically affected. On cranks between those extremes on shorter cranks participants spin faster, on longer cranks they spin slower, but absolute capability evened out to within a few percent over a surprisingly large range of cranks sizes either side of ~170mm. The big difference with shorter cranks lengths is that for most of us it is much more comfortable to ride hour after hour, day after day. If you're more comfortable it is much easier to maintain output over sustained periods of time. And you can hold a more aerodynamic position more easily / for longer.

This certainly corresponds to my own experience.

I'm 53yo and 174cm. When I bought my most recent Giant Defy it came with 172.5mm cranks. It had been a few years since I had a 'good' road bike (I had had two bikes stolen from my garage, and only replaced my commuter initially, in part because I had been suffering piriformis/groin issues for about five years which my physio – who was the world 24 hr record holder at the time – said was definitely bike related.)

My commuter/gravel bike has 170mm cranks. My trail mountain bike had 165mm cranks. So as an experiment I rode my mountain bike for an hour, and then immediately jumped on my new Defy. I instantly knew I had to try the new short crank craze for myself. So I bought some 165mm cranks and loved it. I also jumped on the other craze and went from 420mm bars to 380s. I can comfortably hold the aero hoods position for long stretches of time, and comfortably descend in the drops. Eighteen months later I am doing more road miles than I have in 15 years, and haven't had any reoccurrence of my piriformis/groin issues. Just do it.

I’m pretty sure I’ve read that if Trek do replace it with an HPR60 you will still be limited to 300W. You’d still get the benefits of greater efficiency and it not being throttled for heat management purposes (or at least as much. Mine hasn’t throttled down once yet, but it’s winter in Australia. True test will presumably come in summer)

I went from a Trek Fuel EXE (sadly stolen) to a Slash+.

So HPR50 and 360kW battery and HPR60 and 580kW battery respectively.

I’m 90kg and I’d say the new bike can easily go twice as far as the old bike, and doesn’t drop down from Turbo to Trail five minutes into a climb like the old bike did. Quite surprised at how much more efficient the motor is for something that looks practically identical from the outside (just the cooling fins).

No advice, but a genuine question (which might potentially lead to a solution):

Did the 10 different saddles all result in the same soreness, or were you experiencing something different each time?

I'm quite particular about my lever position, shoes, cleats etc, and tend to tinker quite a lot when I first get a bike, but – once I get it into the roughly the 'right' spot – bizarrely seem to be quite happy with whatever saddle comes with the bike. I've got a road bike, a gravel bike I use as a commuter, and an enduro eMTB, ride all three of them regularly, and have the original saddles that they came with, despite the saddles being quite different.

So whenever I read a 'recommend me a saddle'-type post I always wonder how much the rider actually tuned in to what sensations they were getting from the saddle they were unhappy with, and whether they tried moving the saddle multiple times to try and hone in on a better position.

Naively it seems to me that the differences between different brands/models are probably much less than the differences in height, fore-aft position, and saddle tilt, that can be had whilst still being in approximately the right ballpark. Once you've established the 'home' position where your sit bones should be in space, surely the majority of saddles only differ by a couple of millimetres over their entire surface. Whereas many riders would probably consider their saddle position 'right' if it's close enough, where that window might be close to 20mm up-and-down, 10mm fore-andaft, and +/-2º tilt.

I'd be genuinely interested to know if u/BE1710 has tried any one saddle in ten different positions. (And no shade, I don't think I have ever tried a saddle in ten different positions). A fitter like Phil Burt (ex-Team Sky, British cycling team) doesn't claim to put riders in the 'right' position during a bike fit, just in the 'right window', with the implication being that the rider may wish to further tweak the position in the days and weeks after the bike fit as they 'listen' to their body.

Or to think of it another way I'd be very surprised if the 'right' saddle wouldn't be more uncomfortable if in the wrong place by 5mm here, and 2º there, than most 'uncomfortable ' saddles would be if they were actually in the most optimal position and angle.

No specific knowledge, but is your group ride along a particularly popular route?

If I was designing the algorithm I’d be investigating more complex determinations than simply X% of your ride.

If 60% of your ride shared similar GPS data with the one other person who was riding on a deserted country road around that time that’s far likelier to have been an intentional coupling than if 60% of your ride occurred with many others on the local favourite route where thousands of bikes go through every hour at popular times.

Probably not, beyond potentially tyres. Sounds like it’s a good commuter.

Certainly good enough to join a casual road group and actually see if you enjoy it.

Respectfully, feeling ‘slow’ — with nothing to indicate that you’ve ridden fancier, faster bikes — seems less about the bike itself and more about your lack of experience.

I have an aluminium gravel bike that I use as a commuter, and a carbon fibre road bike with aero wheels. Yes, I am faster on the latter, but not by that much.

I’d suggest joining a casual group and making some friends who are into cycling. There you’ll get a chance to see if you like riding, a chance to look at and talk about other bikes in the group, and probably after a while an offer or two to have a quick ride on their bike.

Armed with a bit more knowledge you’ll then be able to decide what a nicer bike is worth to you. And you’ll have a much better idea of what you want in a bike, as well as what size frame, and how to set it up.

Oh and if you do find somebody with a spanner or Allen key to take your pedals off be aware that the left pedal is reverse threaded (you turn it the opposite way than usual to undo it).

Excellent. Good luck and look up!

In mountain biking I remind people I’m introducing/teaching NOT to look at the tree they’re worried about crashing into, because where you look is where you and the bike will inevitably go.

But if there’s a tree far enough way at the bottom of your hill, look up at the tree and not your front wheel.

Finding your balance will probably seem impossible right up until the point that it will seem almost completely natural and easy. Something just ‘clicks’.

It might happen the first time. It might happen the tenth. I very much doubt it will take until the hundredth. But especially if the hill is right next door be kind to yourself. Try a few times, and if you’re getting frustrated then stop and try again tomorrow.