After 4+ years on a mountain style hybrid - I'm loving the feel of my new Spec Sirrus. I don't however feel as safe on it. Just cycled to work in the rain, and felt like I needed to be particularly careful - more so than I ever was with my ridgeback. I think it is a combination of going from disc brakes to v brakes, and thick tyres to skinny. I don't think it helps that I fell yesterday - skidded on gravel, bit of a blow as it is only my 3rd time on it. I do really love it, but just not really sure how safe I feel on it in the rain. It's not enough to really trouble me, but just wondered if anyone felt the same.
getting used to more road style bike
- Thread starter joanna
- Start date
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Well I'm glad you're enjoying it. Once a road has a lot of run off water on it and is saturated the handling of race bikes does become a lot more tricky, especially if you're going down hill. In light rain or a drying road it's nowhere near as tricky as that but your braking distances is still longer. I've never used disc brakes, but on my hybrid you can get away with a lot more in the rain, that said once it's raining very hard and the road is saturated with rivers of water about 3-5mm deep it's still a lot trickier on much thicker tyres.
gillelive
Active Member
- Location
- North West
I have recently moved to a Sirrus (comp) after my Crosstrail was stolen and it has taken me about 150 miles to get used to the bike. I am now starting to love it. It makes my work commute just that bit quicker. Not sure how good it will be in the winter, here's hoping I don't need to invest in another bike for the really cold/wet months - I am not planning to at the moment.
barongreenback
Über Member
- Location
- Warwickshire
My Sirrus was fine in the winter (and I have 25mm tyres on it). The v brakes seemed sufficient and I avoided cornering too fast.
HLaB
Marie Attoinette Fan
The 2006 sirrus sport does
aberal
Guru
- Location
- Midlothian
Manufacturers typically save money on things like tyres and often supply low quality tyres as standard. I don't know what the Sirrus uses, but it might be worth replacing the tyres with something a bit grippier.
gaz
Cycle Camera TV
- Location
- South Croydon
With rim brakes it is a good idea to occasionally pull lightly on the brake to remove surface water on the rim.
Thanks for the replies. I was starting to wonder if I'd made a mistake buying this bike - as I like to cycle in all weathers - all through the year. Definitely going to look at getting better tyres come autumn. And I've learnt my lesson the hard way about cornering too tightly!!
Easytigers
Guru
Recently bought a Sirrus Elite and love it! Know what you mean about feeling a bit of trepidation when in the rain etc but have ridden it now for about 700 miles and have slowly become more and more confident so that i take corners at a reasonable speed even in the rain and have never lost it (you just wait...sods law tomorrow will be the day!).
Russ
p.s. My Sirrus makes me smile on my commute...so it's doing its job and I love it (I even give it the occasional wash which never happened with my other bikes!)
Russ
p.s. My Sirrus makes me smile on my commute...so it's doing its job and I love it (I even give it the occasional wash which never happened with my other bikes!)
terry_gardener
Veteran
- Location
- stockton on tees
i was out in todays rain on my new road bike and it felt surprisingly good. my avg speed was about 2mph slower than normal but i didn't have glue where i was going and going slow because of the wet surface of the road.
when i got home however my hi-viz jacket is abit dirty not checked the bike yet.
when i got home however my hi-viz jacket is abit dirty not checked the bike yet.
