I have a retirement and a new recuit to announce!

First of all; happy retirement DiamondBack S10!! Over a thoousand miles and three years of commuting to and from school. Yes, it’ll be sad to see it go. It’s long 19″ frame, its interesting rear suspension, those still good front forks (surprising for cheapy Suntours), creaky steering, rattly gear levers… ah good time on a good bike. It’s heavy, it makes noises as if in protest, it needs adjusting every other day but it’s done well. Over a thousand miles, three years of the school comute; hard hack downhill, heavy on the brakes, rough roads (victoria) sharp corner on Woodshears. Then back up, racing up the alley, coping with the grass perfectl well, accelerating well out of the junction at the top, the long crawl up Clarence, mixing with traffic, blasting up Church Street (locals will know thats a fair hill) then rocketing along the Worcester Road to home. Many, many times. Several back axles, resulting in new wheel, new gears, many brake blocks replaced. Riden in all weather, hard and fast. It has served very well.

Fair Thee Well, DiamondBack S10!

And now for the second part; new bike!!

I looked round a bit, a couple of shps had some interesting options. Looking to spend £200 or less on a decent bike is always a challenge. I considered ordering a Giant through BackOnTrack, Upton had a nice looking ClaudButler. But in the end, it was Halfords in which I ended up once again. So far, the only bike i’ve ever had that wasn’t from Halfords is my XTC. Thats an Excel (legendary) and the DiamondBack both from Halfords. They do have a good range covering just about every price bracket one could hope for. Good range, not always good bikes.

As good as my Giant XTC is, it’s not very roady. Using it to commute on roads just felt wrong. It’s troughbred off-road, and should be used as such. So, i just wanted a new commuting bike to take the DB’s place. I did shop around, but Halfords was dcently local, and had more or less what I was after. I also looked at, and seriously considered, road / touring style bikes. I tried to be interested and look at them, but they just didn’t float boats. Limited gearing, little or no suspension, silly little finger thin tyres. I always kept thinking back to a hybrid or mountain style bike; 21+ speeds, decent suspension, grippy 1.95 / 2.1 tyres. I, like mybike, am also a thouroghbred off-road machine. So those kind of bikes ticked more boxes in my opinion.

So, whithin my budget i had a quite large range of Apollo’s, fullsuspension seemed to bea main theme. So, they’re out. Apart from the older framed Excels, Apollos (being halfords own cheapy range) aren’t very good. And I’m after a hardtail, lighter and still bouncy. So, I marched stright past the Apollos, looking at them only to keep an eye on the steadily rising price. Then at the 199 mark i came across two nicer options. A hard tail DiamondBack, and a blue Carrera Vulcan (the latest Vulcans have red paint jobs). Closer inspection revealed they wre both interesting.

The DB had a chunk frame and red paint on the front at least. 21 speed, good; Zoom forks, hmm; Gripshifts, hmm; front disc; good; rear V, nothing wrong with V’s; Red paint, brilliant. OK, i don’t particularily like the shifts or forks, but otherwise good.

Now on to the Carrera. As i’ve said before Carreras are like Toyota’s Lexus to Apollo. But it shows. This Carrera was labelled the “Vulcan V Spec”, which meant it was your standard Vulcan, but with V brakes rather than discs. 24 speed, very good; SR Suntours, good; Sram 4 shifters, basically flappy paddles so good; Dual V’s, nothing wrong with V’s, in fact these are Trekko which can be very good; blue, yes it’s a nice enough blue, but red’d be better.

After a fair anoumt of hmm-ing and err-ing and noggin stratching overnight. i decided to go for the Vulcan. It had better everything, minus the colour and braking. But good V’s can be just as good as the cheap disc on the DB. Also, the DB had a cheap looking headset, and treaded cloumn – very hard to work with / on / get parts for now-a-days. The Carrera looked sleeker, it had more gears, flappy paddles (of a sort, those Sram 4’s are… different, shall we say), and i’m more used to working with / on V brakes. It ticked boxes nicely, and so thats my new commuter.

So, Welcome Aboard Carrera Vulcan V Spec!!

After riding it to work and back, i’ve been able to get the saddle hieght right, front set adjusted properly, brakes bedded in (sort of), and when I got back I stiffend the incredably soft suspension. The handle bars feel really wide, and i’m going to have to get used to those Sram 4 shifters, . But otherwise it’s a good bike. Those 2.1’s don’t feel too draggy, so i may get some use out of them before I get some 1.95’s. Tomorrow morning i’ll be dissasembling the old DB, raiding it for useable parts and spares. Then it’ll be off the the retirement skip, oh i mean dump, no i mean ‘home’, retirement ‘home’.

Well, thats all the news for the moment,

Untill the next post

Uncle Austin Wozzer