Behold! My new (used) kinesis racelight bike! I was after a commuter bike for winter, something that can take mudguards, is relatively lightweight and not too bling or expensive to make the potential pain of bike theft more bearable. In fact I have been locking this puppy up in the street this week, which I am still a bit nervous about but I’m sure that will pass. I bought it from an ebay auction and paid £155 plus £16 postage, so not bad at all (this is about a fifth of the cost of my ‘good’ road bike).
It’s a bit too small for me so I stuck on an old mountain bike stem with a 10 degree rise, but due to this the cables at the front are very stretched and I can’t turn the handlebars much or use the front brake. I rode to and from work today with it like this - very sketchy!
Going to have a go with redoing the cables and fitting some bar tape in a minute, never done this on a road bike before so I am sure it’s going to end disastrously!
Don’t think it would take a 3 foot drop though.
Comment by Adam — August 19, 2006 @ 11:03 pm
No, I don\’t think it would either, but I have my hardtail for all that stuff!
This evening I was thinking about it economically, say if I do 2000 miles on it a year (thats roughly 120 days commuting, so I\’ll probably do more than that, but a pessimistic guess), it works out pretty cheap.
£155/2000 = £0.075 per mile for the first year of ownership
Get a car with that fuel economy! There will be consumables on top of that though, I tend to own bikes pretty hard so say another £75 of bits. Still not bad though?
Comment by Sandy Thomson — August 21, 2006 @ 11:25 pm
Hello Sandy,
I too just purchased a new Racelight T bike for winter commuting just like yours. Unfortunately, I paid a bit more for mine!
Ah well, lesson learnt - be it an expensive one.
Here’s a link to my bike blog I’ve just started
I’m a novice to biking in general particularly new road bikes (had a couple when I was a teenager). Have been used to riding hybrids.
Anyway, thought I’d say hi!
Take care,
Barry
Comment by Barry Galvin — October 10, 2006 @ 9:04 pm
Sorry, link is here:
http://cyclingon.blogspot.com/
Comment by Barry Galvin — October 10, 2006 @ 9:05 pm