On Tue, 26 Apr 2005 13:40:47 GMT, Paul D wrote:
I posted a thread yesterday, entited; "stressed and depressed",

[snip]

Firstly, I find that even spending £350 will only get a "budget" bike, an
attitude I quite frankly find absurd and pretentious

I think that 350 is probably the very top of the budget for an inexpensive
good bike. There may well be some cheaper than that. I have a hybird
which I bought for 260 - which gives good service. I would avoid
the "budget" bikes which are 100 or less.

Secondly, although I want to spend, probably 98% of my time on the road,
I don't want a "road bike", because they refer to drop handlebar bikes
that I would call 'racers' (the sort that are ridden by people who have
special dispensation (not mentioned in the highway code) to ride fast on
pavements and go through traffic lights at red).

That description seems more to fit people on crappy mountain bikes and bmxes
to me. If you don't want drops because you don't get on with 'em then fine.

And it seems that because I might want to go on a tow path occasionally,
I might need a mountain bike.

I use tow-paths and fairly uneven ground on my hybrid. When you were young
you just had a bike with a 3-speed SA hub and you used to ride it everywhere.
I still treat my hybrid like that - some people treat their tourers like
that.

I just want something that is strong, reliable, and has a sufficient range of
gears to handle going up or down hills. Oh, and I'd like to actually have a
chainring set where the gears change EVERY time I move the lever,

OK, I have been having a few problems with gear changes on the chain-ring.
However, they are fairly easy to adjust.


--
Andy Leighton =
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials"
- Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_