The bikes I own(ed)

Later I replaced literally everything one-by-one, except the frame, which I was quite happy with. It was not as light as modern frames, but it took 37mm tyres and racks. It was also repainted and scratched, which made all bike look like a very low theft value -- a good feature for a touring. There is a dedicated page in Russian about the upgrade process and its technical particularities.

This bike ended its life after trip in the Alps (2005). Returned home, I noticed that the seat tube was cracked under the top tube lug (picture).

The thing I liked about it is the adjustable stem, which is a nice way to find your preference in the fitting of the bicycle. I found my own limit of handlebar position (about 5 cm under level of the saddle) and selected non-adjustable stems on my future bikes accordingly.

The frame was repaired in St. Petersburg. Now this bike is in use by my wife, whom it fits her much better.

The rack is just the best one I ever saw. It is really one-piece welded titanium, which makes it much more rigid when fixed on the frame than "one size fits all" racks, connecting to the seatstays via thin sliding pieces.

Most of my kilometers come from the daily 17km (one way) commute to work. For folks in rec.bicycles.tech, "commuting bike" means a roadbike, but in my conditions that is nonsence -- MTB with good suspension beats roadbike in the city in all aspects.

This monster has own page.

I have not became an advocate of Shimano Nexus-7 hub. Generally I liked everything in it, except that it can not downshift under load. So while climbing a hill, you must unload pedals for a moment to reduce the gear ratio, which overweighted advantages like immediate shifting and lower maintenance.

As all of my bicycles took too much space in the bike storage room of our house, I put back original 7-speed equipment plus some upgrades and sold this bike to a friend at a bargain price.

After the frame of my first and only road/touring bike cracked (picture), I started search for a touring-like bicycle with the following properties:

• Drop handlebars
• Shimano brifters other than Sora. There is nothing wrong in Sora. It just has different "interface" than other groups, and I wanted to compare them all; I already was quite happy with Campy and Sora brifters.
• Option to install tyres up to 35mm
• Option to install fenders
• Holes for the rear rack
• Low gears down to 1:1, preferrably even lower.

Unfortunately in 2006 road groups down to 105 became 10-speed, which sounds like a big obstacle to me: there is no 10-speed MTB cassettes. Also the "added value", 16 tooth sprocket, is a nuisance; I can believe pro racers may benefit from it, but for me that's just a redundant click plus more expensive consumables.

There is the classic touring Cannondale T800 satisfying my requirements, although a way overpriced with no visible reason (like all Cannondales are). This was a fallback solution; fortunately after long search I found the pictured "cyclocross" bike, with price half of Cannondale's and higher parts group: last-year 105, still 9 speed! The low-gear condition was not met though, it has lowest standard road 39/26 combination. But the left brifter is triple-compatible, and the upgrade to reasonable crankset, like 26/36/48, could be done at quite modest cost. Long live www.bicycles.de.

The previous frame was definitely on the small side for me; now I again wanted to test the other extreme and ordered 62cm center-to-top frame size... and still had to replace the stock seatpost, which at its 25 cm was just a little bit too short. After the first test the stem was also replaced with much shorter and much higher one, just as I expected. In that setup, I rode quite comfortably 300 km brevet and 800 km ride over central Europe (2006), so I consider the question of fitting as "solved".

I heard many times that the Nexus-8 hub is a major improvement over Nexus-7. Once ciclib.de offered a 26" wheel built on Nexus-8 premium hub for the price less than hub alone in other shops. I could not resist a temptation to buy it, rationalizing that this may serve as an upgrade for our tandem. Before the next tandem season, I got for free a throwaway steel frame with horizontal dropouts from a local small bike repair shop, and installed the hub there in a similar manner as on now sold-out Nexus-7 26" bike.

My straight feeling: I did not found any "major improvement". The hub has the same problem: downshift under load does not happen. Some jumps, notably from 5 to 4, are better than others, in the sense that they shift already under slightly relieved power. Others are just like in Nexus-7, i.e. complete release of pedaling force is necessary.

The bike is still in daily use; this un-shifting is not crucial for commuting. But of course it does not make riding more pleasant. As I did not have any problems other people have with external deraileurs (like freezing in winter or just bad working), I see no benefit in planetar gear hubs for myself.