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Bike buying advice time! I'm a beginner, I've been riding on an old rear end Dawes road bike from who knows what decade, and I'm definitely in the market for a new one. This popped up on Nextdoor and it looks like a pretty good match for what I'm looking for. 2014 Cannondale Synapse Alloy 105 Road Bike in great condition. 58 cm frame (large), disc brakes, 700 x 25 cc tires. Equipped with Shimano SPD pedals - PD A530 (one side for cleats / the other side for street shoes) & a Forte Striker Gel Fit Saddle. Includes K-Edge Sport Mount and Garmin Edge 520 bike computer. She's asking $500 for it, which seems pretty reasonable according to the bike blue book site. She said she's selling it because her husband found one that's a better fit for him, he's 5'-11" and this one is just a tad too big for him. I'm 6'-1", so that's encouraging. I'm going to go take a look at it tomorrow if another buyer doesn't decide to get it. What should I be looking for when I check it out? Is this is a good deal for my first real road bike?
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Aug 29, 2020 16:45
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| # ? May 28, 2024 21:38 |
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That's an awesome deal and it will fit you, it's even a tad on the large size for your height but it will work. Buy it. There's nothing more than the obvious to look for, it's a deal no matter what. The computer and mount alone retail new close to the whole price of the bike.
numberoneposter fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Aug 29, 2020 |
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Aug 29, 2020 16:48
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numberoneposter posted:That's an awesome deal and it will fit you, it's even a tad on the large size for your height but it will work. Buy it. There's nothing more than the obvious to look for, it's a deal no matter what. The computer and mount alone retail new close to the whole price of the bike. Kick rear end, that's what I thought. Let's hope this other guy passes on it tomorrow.
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Aug 29, 2020 16:53
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So I have really gotten the cycling bug this summer. I'm on my GT Karakoram Sport hard tail MTB, bone stock. I'm putting between 10-20 miles on average a day and have been thinking about what to upgrade. I'm doing mostly urban rides with some trails here and there. Would simplifying my drivetrain with a 1x setup be worth it? New bars? The fork sucks and I plan to upgrade that. Brakes are getting a bit squeaky and I could definitely use better tires. Its a nice starter MTB but there's clearly alot of room for improvement.  
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Aug 29, 2020 17:26
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I started assembling my Crust Romanceür today and got thwarted while installing the headset. It's a Stronglight A9 that came from a Colnago Super. I didn't check the thread pitch but I would be amazed if it were not Italian. The Crust threading is English, which should be fine with an Italian threaded headset. The threaded top race did not spin on with no effort, but it didn't require enormous strength, either. When the top of the race was about flush with the top of the steerer, it required more effort and then -- it stuck. And I tried to back it off. Stuck. I put a wheel in the fork for leverage and tried again. Stuck, and now I've munged a couple of the corners of the nut. I can solve the mysteries of the threading when I get the top race off, but I'm at a loss for how to proceed at this point.
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Aug 29, 2020 17:35
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Chinatown posted:So I have really gotten the cycling bug this summer. I'm on my GT Karakoram Sport hard tail MTB, bone stock. I would be hesitant to spend too much and would recommend saving money for the most part for a new bike. You get a lot of bang for your buck on a new bike with OEM pricing. That said, I’d recommend new tires and going tubeless if you haven’t yet, new saddle and grips can be quite nice too, bars too if you’d like to try a different width. Fork, brakes, and drivetrain are probably expensive enough I’d hold out. You might be able to convert to 1x relatively cheap (just changing parts at the crank) but I wouldn’t for example get like a new NX 1x groupset
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Aug 29, 2020 18:35
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Update: the adjustable top race is off. This thing is French as gently caress. 
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Aug 29, 2020 19:09
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Sneeing Emu posted:Bike buying advice time! Dumb question for people who keep track of Cannondale, has being owned by Pacific Cycle made them shittier?
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Aug 29, 2020 19:12
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:Dumb question for people who keep track of Cannondale, has being owned by Pacific Cycle made them shittier? lol
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Aug 29, 2020 19:13
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:Dumb question for people who keep track of Cannondale, has being owned by Pacific Cycle made them shittier? Cannondale make nice bikes
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Aug 29, 2020 19:13
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e.pilot posted:lol I'm seriously curious, I see a lot of Cannondale stuff up for sale here but Pacific Cycle makes garbage for the most part. My local shops are all Jamis or Giant though
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Aug 29, 2020 19:14
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:I'm seriously curious, I see a lot of Cannondale stuff up for sale here but Pacific Cycle makes garbage for the most part. I have a 2016 CAADX which was my first road bike. It's been a good bike so I looked at the Synapse when upgrading recently. I was turned off by the fact that their Carbon Ultegra version uses a 105 cassette and a PF BB. My shop carries Specialized too so I ultimately ended up getting a Roubaix. Talking with the guys at the shop when ordering that bike, they said Cannondale does a lot of weird stuff like that on their bikes now.
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Aug 29, 2020 19:22
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rope kid posted:Update: the adjustable top race is off. This thing is French as gently caress. Leave it to the Italians.
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Aug 29, 2020 19:44
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Trash miles? Or trash miles? 
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Aug 29, 2020 20:39
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Crumps Brother posted:Trash miles? Looks tasty. Both screenshots.
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Aug 29, 2020 20:49
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vikingstrike posted:I would be hesitant to spend too much and would recommend saving money for the most part for a new bike. You get a lot of bang for your buck on a new bike with OEM pricing. That said, I’d recommend new tires and going tubeless if you haven’t yet, new saddle and grips can be quite nice too, bars too if you’d like to try a different width. Fork, brakes, and drivetrain are probably expensive enough I’d hold out. You might be able to convert to 1x relatively cheap (just changing parts at the crank) but I wouldn’t for example get like a new NX 1x groupset Thanks. Any time of year when there are good sales? Its a fine bike but I definitely would like to upgrade to something more *substantial* and high quality feeling.
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Aug 29, 2020 21:01
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Rode my crummy road bike today, had a lot of fun though the fire was pretty close and my throat/lungs really felt like I got a lot of poo poo in em, despite the rain. I will also say, I've never ridden a super steep area before in poor weather on this thing, and I really noticed how much better the disc brakes on my other bikes actually are. Also had flats on as I planned on a little hiking at the top, and hiking boots were legit not the worst bike shoes I've ever used. A+++ would ride a bike with skinny tires again. 
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Aug 29, 2020 21:02
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DeesGrandpa posted:Rode my crummy road bike today, had a lot of fun though the fire was pretty close and my throat/lungs really felt like I got a lot of poo poo in em, despite the rain. I will also say, I've never ridden a super steep area before in poor weather on this thing, and I really noticed how much better the disc brakes on my other bikes actually are. That's a pretty nice bike, what is it?
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Aug 29, 2020 21:10
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:That's a pretty nice bike, what is it? 
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Aug 29, 2020 21:13
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:That's a pretty nice bike, what is it? It's a 2016(?) Giant Contend 3. It's actually the second of these I owned, they were giants budget option when new and this particular one was part of a rental fleet that I bought for a couple hundo when that shop closed down. I pretty much use it to get places when something breaks on my journeyman (too often) or back in the olden times when I'd be doing something in an area with high bike theft where I'd also be getting too drunk to safely drive, like hockey games or baseball games. idgi
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Aug 29, 2020 21:21
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Picked up about 10 new veloviewer squares on my ride today while riding to and from the mountains. Holy gently caress is the turn by turn or course mapping on the Garmin 520+ hot trash. I'd assume that it got a bit better with the 530 or 830 but on multiple occasions today it had me make a turn on the wrong street and then tell me to make a U-turn in a quarter mile, and then would complain that I was off course. Maybe its strava's route builder being bad, the .gpx file it generates being bad, or the way that Garmin reads that .gpx file but at one point it had me make 3 U-turns on the same street and just constantly beep that I was off course. And then it takes several minutes for the course tool to catch up to where you are or attempt to navigate you back onto your path.
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Aug 29, 2020 21:57
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DeesGrandpa posted:idgi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Might_Be_Giants
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Aug 29, 2020 21:58
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Shoot thats good
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Aug 29, 2020 22:07
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:Dumb question for people who keep track of Cannondale, has being owned by Pacific Cycle made them shittier? Cannondale makes good bikes with the occasional idiotic proprietary design choice. So pretty consistent before and after the ownership change.
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Aug 29, 2020 22:13
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Chinatown posted:Thanks. Any time of year when there are good sales? Its a fine bike but I definitely would like to upgrade to something more *substantial* and high quality feeling. Normally when shops are trying to clear out last years models there will be sales. Sadly with how popular cycling has gotten during Covid I’m not sure how common this is at the moment. For example, I asked one shop recently how much they could take off a fairly expensive bike from last year they still had and they just sort of shrugged. You could always think about going used. Although for the same reason, prices are high and inventory low at the moment. I moved a bike in about 12 hours from posting 3 weeks ago.
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Aug 29, 2020 22:17
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Good Dog posted:Picked up about 10 new veloviewer squares on my ride today while riding to and from the mountains. The 530 seems to do fairly well until you have a route that overlaps on itself for a portion, and then you better have that part memorized because it will poo poo the bed entirely.
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Aug 29, 2020 22:23
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:Dumb question for people who keep track of Cannondale, has being owned by Pacific Cycle made them shittier? Cannondale barely manages to stay open with all the usual speccing to a price point. Either Pacific Cycle could decide to shut them down, or they could let them operate as they are. They wouldn't demand Cannondale make a $200 bike or $300 bike. I dunno if using more standardized parts would help -- my understanding is that they own the factories and have some capacity for making their whackass proprietary stuff. So they could save a bit of money using normal parts but have even less distinctive bikes.
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Aug 29, 2020 22:30
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I picked up some new velosq..... ...gently caress.
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Aug 29, 2020 22:38
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Apropos of the thread title, cross posting this from the indoor cycling thread:Nude Hoxha Cameo posted:Not sure what the right thread is for this question (if I should post this in the main bike thread please let me know), but I have a stationary bike that I use 5-6 days a week. The bike itself is perfect for my use case, but the seat is uncomfortable and numbing after about 20 minutes. I typically am in the saddle as opposed to above it (the bike is well made but I’m not sure was designed for extensive use coming out of the saddle) and my position is sometimes aggressive but probably more often upright. I *think* I don’t care as much about padding as the compression / numbing, so I’m guessing this will be more about construction and configuration than whether or not the saddle is firm.
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Aug 29, 2020 22:48
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Cannondale is part of cycling sports group, owned by dorel. Pacific cycle is also owned by dorel. It doesn't appear pacific cycle has anything to do with cannondale other than sharing a parent company?
jamal fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Aug 29, 2020 |
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Aug 29, 2020 22:59
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kimbo305 posted:Leave it to the Italians. Anyway I drove up to Bicycle Stand in Long Beach and rooted around in the owner's headset bin until I found an English-threaded A9 and bought it for $20. Problem solved and now I have a spare French-threaded A9 headset  
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Aug 30, 2020 01:46
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Why not put a record headset on there?
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Aug 30, 2020 03:54
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I wanted a roller bearing headset because I'm silly like that.
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Aug 30, 2020 07:47
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rope kid posted:I wanted a roller bearing headset because I'm silly like that. Was it for shimmy reasons? Have heard the canecreek viscoset is good for that. If not, oh well! I just stan the record headset as the aesthetically best threaded headset, and couldn't miss a chance to remind the forums of this.
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Aug 30, 2020 12:55
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rope kid posted:I'm going to make the bold assertion that the seller is full of poo poo and this did not, in fact, come off of a Colnago Super. That’s my local bike shop! Well it was before I moved to MN last year.  I’ve purchased 2 bikes there. Hope you liked the shop. The staff are super nice too.
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Aug 30, 2020 14:47
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tuyop posted:Oh absolutely not. Ahh. Yea I originally bought the knockoff first without even realizing it was a knockoff... eventually bought the real one through Brainstorm’s “knockoff jersey amnesty program.” I made a big effort post about it in the last megathread, the dude at Brainstorm is a real great guy.
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Aug 30, 2020 16:27
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numberoneposter posted:That's an awesome deal and it will fit you, it's even a tad on the large size for your height but it will work. Buy it. There's nothing more than the obvious to look for, it's a deal no matter what. The computer and mount alone retail new close to the whole price of the bike. Dammit, the other kid bought the bike this morning. The search continues!
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Aug 30, 2020 16:35
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Pittsburgh Fentanyl Cloud posted:Dumb question for people who keep track of Cannondale, has being owned by Pacific Cycle made them shittier? A lot of the time, the giant companies which own the (mostly) dead legacy bike brands have different brands for different price/quality points - Pacific/Dorel/Whoever the hell owns Cannondale right now clearly have Cannondale as their top-of-the-market bike, with GT as their more mid-range brand and the corpses of Mongoose and Schwinn as their budget/department-store-bike line. You sometimes see them move around - whoever owns Raleigh used to use them to sell pretty nice mid-to-high range bikes (including some interesting gravel models) that were generally good deals, but their current lineup is very much more budget/boring. For an actual answer, most of the problems people have with Cannondale (the occasional inexplicable design choices, usually with a disregard to parts standards) existed before they went bankrupt and got bought out. Feels Villeneuve fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Aug 30, 2020 |
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Aug 30, 2020 18:44
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Crack'n'fail is still a good brand if you want distinct high end bikes you're content to upgrade the horrible wheelsets on out of the box and also don't mind long delays for proprietary replacement parts and also loathe the people you pay to do the maintenance on them.
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Aug 30, 2020 23:44
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Agh I got yet another flat on my Gravel Kings, this time only 250 miles in to a replacement rear tire. I had to replace the previous rear, the same model tire, at only 1300 miles after getting a large fatal puncture. It had had several flats already in its short lifespan. It's just my general all-road riding in the PNW, 90% paved 10% gravel. I don't feel like my environment or my riding is unusually hard on tires. Maybe I have just been supremely unlucky but I had far far fewer flats riding around on 700x23 GP4000 pure road tires than these 700x38 GK slicks. I love how these tires ride but their puncture resistance is dogshit. Fatal puncture aside, every time some miniscule shard of glass or wire has worked its way into the rubber, through the casing, and into the tube. Maybe I should try the "plus" model for better puncture resistance, but maybe I should just try a different tire.
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Aug 31, 2020 06:01
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