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I have a friend who swears that "everyone needs 3 bikes"
with the current weather this kind of rings true. there is no way I will ride my treasured Commencal Meta to work full stop and My Skinny-tyred racer scares me in this kind of weather.
To keep it short. "Which 600 quid hardtail to take to work in winter and to make a change on the trails in the Summer (or with Mrs dancake)" Hardtail with low quality forks? Rigid Hybrid? Belt-drive fancy singlespeed thingy?
Got to be new from Cycle to work scheme.(if my Company gets off it's bum)
I say: singlespeed as it's fun and will feel different to your normal bike, rigid forks for the low maintenance and as above, and hybrids are a bit "shopper" really. Get an MTB and then you can swap parts around with the meta rather than something which needs different bits. Not sure who does a good rigid single speed hardtail for cheap though, sure you'll find one pretty quick. Maybe genesis or something.
I've just ordered my 7th using cycle to work scheme!
"pulls up chair"
Ive just convinced the missus that a 3rd "commuter" bike is a good idea as I seem to be wrecking my specialized Roubaix raod bike on my daily commute, skinny tyres are scary in the snow too.
I was thinking of getting a tourer or dare I say it a cyclo x bike.
edit: and I have a carbon hardtail which I definitely wont be using with this amount of salt and grit on the roads after my experience of delaminating my carbon seat stays on the road bike.
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Genesis Day One looks good, £500 steel framed SS cross bike. Saw one on boxing day, it looked lovely, plus it has a flip flop hub so you can run two sprockets. If I don't get told off for a 3rd C2W bike, I might have one in May 🙂
I've just put cross tyres on a flat bar alu/carbon roadie. It's good fun but a bit rattly, so thinking that steel might be a bit more forgiving.
blimey 3 bikes? I've got about 20...
If it's cycle to work, and you get access to Halfords, get whatever Boardman you like the colour of, or a Fury.
Actually, I see last year's Fury is now £350 in limited sizes, that's a better bike than most £600 machines.