An interesting day, on and off the bike.
Yesterday I suffered a mechanical out on the open roads, and so was expecting to be missing today’s ride.
Thankfully, however, I managed to get hold of a really good local mobile bike mechanic who came around this morning and got me back up and running.
I knew I had a variety of problems on my bike. Here’s a non-exhaustive list:
- The snapped gear cable, obvs.
- Rusty(?) front steering – not sure, it grinds when I turn and feels weird.
- Shark toothed cassette.
- Worn chain.
- Manky bar tape – never changed in three years, bluerghh.
- Lots of rusty bolts.
And I was thinking there are probably a few hidden things I don’t know about.
Well, once the repair was complete I was chatting with the bike mechanic and asked about getting that list sorted. He suggested a full service as well, to get all the cables replaced and had noticed the wheels were not tracking correctly either.
Oh, and the brakes were shot.
So basically, the bike is a wreck 😀
However, I asked for the price to do the lot and it came to around £220.
I then asked for a price on upgrading to Shimano 105, along with all the other necessary fixes and that came to £500ish with labour.
Still going to be rim brakes, and mechanical. I’m not able to stump up for new wheels right now.
So I’ve gone for that.
It’s a bit odd, in that I could probably have got a replacement bike for between £500 and £1000, but it would have been pretty much more of the same. Shimano Tiagra is the low end stuff that I think I would have ‘upgraded’ too, from my Shimano Claris group set. But to get up to 105 with Specialized looks to be around the £2500 mark.
There’s no way I can justify a new bike right now, so this felt like a decent middle ground. And maybe I could look to upgrade the bike in a couple more years time when I’m a little more financially sorted. Right now I need to pay for a new bathroom and kitchen, so spunking big money on a bike is off the table. This felt like a decent half way house.
I’m sure it could have been done for cheaper had I the time or skill to do it myself. But as my last bike mechanic seems to have gone out of business (for what I think was surely him undercharging), I’m actually alright with the mark up if it allows him to keep going and help me again in the future.
Pictures to follow, once the work is done. I’ll grab some “befores” also.
I think I’ll do today’s race write up as a separate post.
Same bar tape! Holy smokes! Headset will be the grinding steering, I had the same thing on my Canyon after about 8 months!
Going from Sora to 105 will be a huge improvement. I reckon the Allez is a great bike, I loved mine.
Some lightweight Hunt alloy wheels would make another huge difference. I wouldn’t recommend carbon rim brake wheels. I’ve got them on my SL5, fine in the dry, but go out in the rain and it’s “where did my brakes go?”.
Arghh… I just typed out a massive reply and lost it.
Yeah the bar tape situation is grim. I’m ashamed.
It is the headset bearings yes, that’s on the list of things he’s quoted for. That’s only a £20 replacement, two different bearings apparently at ~£10 each.
I’m glad you’ve given some reassurance on the 105 upgrade. When I agreed to it I later looked on Sigma Sports and saw I could get a 2021 Allez for £599 and freaked out a bit. It’s just more of the same though, perhaps without the rust. The Specialized range only seem to go on 105 at around the £2500 marker, although that does seem to be disc brakes and possibly electric shifting. I didn’t dig into it too much.
I was thinking I could do the wheels and seat in a few months time. Wheels are pricey – I had no idea. Something to worry about in the future though, for now I’ve broken the bank. And yeah, I need wet weather stuff over here. It’s freakishly hot this week, but usually it’s at least a bit damp out there.
Yeah no real difference unless you’re switching to the latest model Allez, which is a worthwhile upgrade, but obviously more expensive.
The latest has got discs and can take up to 35c tyres, fender mounts with up to 30c tyres.
There should definitely be no regrets with the 105 upgrade. Even when the time times to get the next bike, I’d hang onto the Allez if space permits. Keep the Allez on the trainer and new bike ready to go. Something happens with the new bike, the Allez is still there, ready and waiting. N+1.
I reckon below upgrades would give you the new bike feel in addition to the 105.
https://www.huntbikewheels.com/products/hunt-race-season-aero-wide-road-wheelset-1480g-31deep-24wide
If the Hunts are a bit above budget, these Prime wheels from Wiggle are pretty good value, still way lighter than the stock Allez wheels. I ran these on my Allez and I was really happy with them.
https://www.wiggle.com/p/prime-baroudeur-alloy-wheelset
S-Works 30.7mm seatpost
S-Works shallow bend or aerofly or Rapide handlebars
S-Works Power saddle (would need seatpost carbon rails adapter also)
The S-Works stuff you can source from Facebook market place fairly cheap.
I got the first two items (well, shallow bend bars, would expect more for the Rapide bars) on my SL5 for $100 NZD each and same for the Power saddle on the SL7. Basically halve NZD for £.
The stock Allez is a pretty heavy beast and those upgrades would probably drop a good kg in weight and carbon seatpost and bars help with the road buzz.
Just need patience to look around on FB market place, or eBay for the deals to come up.
Ahh, didn’t know the new allez was exclusively disc. I do feel like I’m rocking the oldschool tech at this point with rim brakes, but tbh I’ve only ever had one very memorable instance where I wished I’d had better brakes, and that was going too fast down the descent at the top of the Trough of Bowland, which has a very steep drop down with no barrier, and I skidded alarmingly close to going over the edge.
I’m somewhat thinking about doing the bike upgrade kinda like I do my PC upgrades. As in, buy the parts. So wheels / seat next. And then longer term, a complete frameset, rather than the full bike. No idea if that makes sense honestly. In my mind it makes sense, but maybe I just end up with a frankenbike.
On a separate issue, did you see Wiggle are £95m in the red?
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/wiggle-chain-reaction-cycles-records-pound97m-loss-as-brexit-and-pandemic-fallout-hits
How long they stick around is an unknown. I reckon I couldn’t suffer a £97m loss in a single year. I’d be gutted if I lost £97 quid tbh.
I’ve been thinking about going for a bike fit regarding bar width, just to see if that helps my shoulder any, so am expecting to swap them out in the near term also. Same with the saddle, I’d love to actually try some different ones before splurging at random.
I think it’s generally cheaper to buy the full bike than frameset and build up. Bikes on sale are the best, I got my full SL7 Rival eTap for the equivalent of £2720 brand new.
Bike fit is the way, I’ll get one as I’m lusting after the Roval Rapide cockpit. I need to be bang on with stem length and bar width there.
I didn’t realise that Wiggle were not doing well. Interestingly, me and the guys I know who ride, all used to do maybe 3-4 orders each per year from Wiggle. But pre covid, you could get free shipping if you spent over £50. Then it started creeping up to well over double that now. Then it was 2 weeks to make its way to the bottom of the earth.
I’ve switched my kit purchases to MAAP, Attaquer or Rapha. Free shipping at old Wiggle prices and way faster shipping.
Wow, £2700 is a steal for that. I had it down as like £5k+, I just figured New Zealand paid the big bucks.
Do you find the independent bike fitters are the way to go, or is that a service your local bike shop would provide?
On the kit front, what I do now is buy at the end of each season. End of summer? Buy next years summer stuff at sale prices. Same for winter. Want some long bib tights? Get them in the winter sale. I got a bunch of kit needing replacing now due to wear (and more accurately, multiple tears), though I’ve found all my rapha kit fits fine on the body but comes up super short on the arms. My favourite jersey by far is the Assos Mille GT in ‘halo white’, which is sadly still ‘road crud grey’ from when I fell off – https://cyclingindoors.co.uk/fall-off-boy/
MAAP always seems super expensive. My wife moans about how many jerseys I have. I have to refrain myself.
Yeah buying right before the SL8 came out did me well. The Zipps were around £750 and got those from Pro Bike Kit last year and was running them on the Canyon.
The only fitting I’ve had so far is when I bought my SL5 nearly 6 years ago, it was on shop and what you would call a basic fitting. My next fitting I’ll go with a guy who specialises in fitting. Looking at a guy who uses VeloLogic 3D, he does a “special” for getting fit on 2 bikes.
I generally buy on sale kit as well or use discount codes if I can get hold of one. Saving for Black Friday!
sorry I’ve just found this in the ‘bin’ folder – I think my akismet spam thing is going bananas because the comments contain links and I’ve got it set to delete spam without me seeing it. So sorry this didn’t show up – glad I checked the bin though :/