6'7 guy needs help looking for a road bike for a 585 Mile 6DayCharity Bike Ride

On Feb 9, 2:23*pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op 9-2-2010 2:26, Paul schreef:



Hey Everybody, I'm definitely a non experienced cyclist and have
signed up to do the AIDS LifeCycle bike ride from San Francisco to Los
Angeles to raise money for HIV/AIDS. I dont really know what I got
myself into. I am 6'7 220 lbs with a 36 inch inseam. I thought I would
be able to borrow a friends bike for the ride but unfortunately the
largest I found is a 20 inch frame. I'm looking to spend as little as
possible (under 500 if possible). I do not plan to continue cycling as
a sport. I just want to find a comfortable bike that fits me for this
6 Day trek. Any recommendations on where I could buy a 24inch/61CM
bike for my price range or better yet find someone who would be
willing to help me help others by lending me a bike?

Again, I am fairly new to this and any info would be greatfully
appreciated!!!

-Paul S.

A hopeless exercise if you ask me and I'm not talking about the bike. If
cycling is no fun for you everyone is better of if you just donate the
money you were planning to spent to the good cause.

Agreed. Add the money that would be spent out of work and consulting
an orthopeadic doc after you **** yourself up by riding a century per
day for a week with a body unconditioned to cycling.

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Paul:
Hey Everybody, I'm definitely a non experienced cyclist and have
signed up to do.... I dont really know what I got
myself into. I am 6'7 220 lbs with a 36 inch inseam.

I can't speak to the technical hardware details, but would opine
that no matter what the hardware you're in for some serious
insults to your body and the commensurate pain and suffering.

Even if you're 18 years old... if you're not used to riding
distances it's gonna hurt.

Others with harder posteriors may disagree, but there is no way in hell
I would plan to ride 585 miles in 6 days on anything but a 'bent with a
seat angle of 40° or less.

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007

landotter wrote:
On Feb 9, 2:23 pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op 9-2-2010 2:26, Paul schreef:



Hey Everybody, I'm definitely a non experienced cyclist and have
signed up to do the AIDS LifeCycle bike ride from San Francisco to Los
Angeles to raise money for HIV/AIDS. I dont really know what I got
myself into. I am 6'7 220 lbs with a 36 inch inseam. I thought I would
be able to borrow a friends bike for the ride but unfortunately the
largest I found is a 20 inch frame. I'm looking to spend as little as
possible (under 500 if possible). I do not plan to continue cycling as
a sport. I just want to find a comfortable bike that fits me for this
6 Day trek. Any recommendations on where I could buy a 24inch/61CM
bike for my price range or better yet find someone who would be
willing to help me help others by lending me a bike?
Again, I am fairly new to this and any info would be greatfully
appreciated!!!
-Paul S.
A hopeless exercise if you ask me and I'm not talking about the bike. If
cycling is no fun for you everyone is better of if you just donate the
money you were planning to spent to the good cause.

Agreed. Add the money that would be spent out of work and consulting
an orthopeadic doc after you **** yourself up by riding a century per
day for a week with a body unconditioned to cycling.

Thirded!

--
Tom Sherman - 42.435731,-83.985007

On Feb 8, 7:26*pm, Paul wrote:

(snipped for brevity)

Just pointing out, this is the most agreement I've seen in a thread
that I can remember in my roughly ten years hanging around here.
--D-y

On Feb 9, 3:22*pm, Tom Sherman °_°
wrote:
landotter wrote:

snip

Agreed. Add the money that would be spent out of work and consulting
an orthopeadic doc after you **** yourself up by riding a century per
day for a week with a body unconditioned to cycling.

Thirded!

I met a lot of esrtwhile non-cyclists riding across the United
States. They made the mileage, although they were miserable for the
first week or so. I had a friend who bought a bike a few weeks before
riding from SF to Canada with me. That is a harder ride than going
south -- Stinson Beach climb right off the bat, Legett and lots of
long climbs in Oregon. Some people can pull it off. Not a lot of
people, but some. It is possible to do 100 m/day if the OP is not
carrying any cargo and takes it easy and has some level of fitness
before leaving. He should definitely have a bail-out plan, though.

By the way, the OP shouldn't expect a ride from SF to LA to be flat.
Assuming he goes down HWY 1, it rolls quite a bit until Pismo Beach.
So his first three days or so will be the most difficult. Some pretty
scenery, but taxing for a non-cyclist. -- Jay Beattie.

Pete Cresswell wrote:

Per Chalo:

I'm 6'8" and I ride a 68cm frame.

Going tangential... what motor vehicles work for you
head-leg-room-wise?

Not many. VW New Beetle is good (but not a good car from what I
hear). 1980s S-class Benzes are pretty good. My '74 Karmann Ghia 2-
seater was great-- lots of room. I wonder now whether it had been
modded by a previous owner to make it more spacious.

I was stunned by how roomy my friend's new Chevy Malibu was when I
rode in it the other day-- but I did not try out the driver's seat. I
can't imagine ever buying a Chevy, regardless.

Chalo

On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 17:26:57 -0800 (PST), Paul
wrote:

Any recommendations . . . ?

Drive sag, man a check point, make sandwiches, help clean up, but
don't ride.

If you start now and devote every minute, waking *and* sleeping to
getting ready for this ride, you are *still* unlikely to finish, and
you might cripple yourself trying.

If the ride were in September, you might manage -- if you started now
and planned every meal and nap and workday from now until then around
the way it affected your training.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net

"Paul" wrote in message
...
Hey Everybody, I'm definitely a non experienced cyclist and have
signed up to do the AIDS LifeCycle bike ride from San Francisco to Los
Angeles to raise money for HIV/AIDS. I dont really know what I got
myself into. I am 6'7 220 lbs with a 36 inch inseam. I thought I would
be able to borrow a friends bike for the ride but unfortunately the
largest I found is a 20 inch frame. I'm looking to spend as little as
possible (under 500 if possible). I do not plan to continue cycling as
a sport. I just want to find a comfortable bike that fits me for this
6 Day trek. Any recommendations on where I could buy a 24inch/61CM
bike for my price range or better yet find someone who would be
willing to help me help others by lending me a bike?

Again, I am fairly new to this and any info would be greatfully
appreciated!!!


-Paul S.

What you've gotten yourself into is something you need to take a bit more
seriously, or get yourself out of.

You've got enough time to get in shape, but you've got to have the right
equipment, specifically a bit that fits you, if you're going to survive the
experience. At 6'7" you need absolutely positively the biggest-possible
production frame you can find, and even that isn't going to be a perfect
fit. Some brands have expanded their upper size range; for example, Trek,
the line we sell, now offers a 64cm size (previously, the biggest was 61cm,
and trust me, a 61cm isn't going to fit someone your size). But you're going
to have to ditch your notion of a bike under $500. The least-expensive Trek
model that comes in a 64cm size is the 1.5, at $999. Well over your budget,
but if you get it from a decent shop, you're going to benefit from their
expertise in getting it to fit you properly, which involves a whole lot more
than just getting the frame size right. You'll also be getting a bike that's
got equipment that is going to hold up well over the long run.

Normally, the best way to avoid paying more than you'd like to would be to
buy something used. Trouble is, there just isn't much out there in the used
market that's big enough. Plus, you wouldn't get the customized fit to get
it really comfortable.

You also need to get away from the idea that this is just a casual, one-time
thing. If you're not willing to consider that you might get hooked on
cycling, that it could become something that you'd actually enjoy doing long
after the ride, you ought to find something else to do. Save the $$$, save
the pain. Find some other way to raise the money. The flip side? That you'll
discover that riding a bike that fits and works well can be a game-changer.
You'll find that the world goes by at just the right speed on a bike, and
you don't have to be on an organized ride for that to happen.

What's the worst that can happen if you buy a new bike for $1000? You decide
that cycling isn't for you and sell it afterward for $500. But I'll bet that
wouldn't happen. You'll get out on the training rides and discover that
cycling is fun, either alone, or in groups. You'll notice that you feel
better and look better after just a couple of weeks of riding. You'll get
hooked. It's habit forming. It's addictive. In all the right ways.

And yeah, standard disclaimer, I make a living creating addicts and
supplying their needs. It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it. So
everything I say can be considered completely-biased and self-serving.

--Mike Jacoubowsky
Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReaction.com
Redwood City & Los Altos, CA USA

In article
,
Chalo wrote:

Pete Cresswell wrote:

Per Chalo:

I'm 6'8" and I ride a 68cm frame.

Going tangential... what motor vehicles work for you
head-leg-room-wise?

Not many. VW New Beetle is good (but not a good car from what I
hear). 1980s S-class Benzes are pretty good. My '74 Karmann Ghia 2-
seater was great-- lots of room. I wonder now whether it had been
modded by a previous owner to make it more spacious.

Regarding the New Beetle, a car which I have owned for several years,
keep in mind it's just a VW Golf under the skin. That has its good and
bad sides, but Consumer Reports can tell you about those.

I have noticed a general sense that with the corners of the car cut off
to make it nice and round, the engineers struggled to tuck everything
back into new places in the body. I haven't had the best of luck with
the car, but when the driver-side door nearly falls off a car you bought
used, it's hard to say whether that was the fault of the previous owner
or the constructor.

The fact that the bolt heads for the door hinge are inside the very
complicated door instead of on the door face, however, that's all VW's
fault. Ask me about changing the fog lamp sometime.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

At 6'7" you need absolutely positively the biggest-possible
production frame you can find, and even that isn't going to be a perfect
fit. Some brands have expanded their upper size range; for example, Trek,
the line we sell, now offers a 64cm size (previously, the biggest was 61cm,
and trust me, a 61cm isn't going to fit someone your size). But you're going
to have to ditch your notion of a bike under $500. The least-expensive Trek
model that comes in a 64cm size is the 1.5, at $999.

The 64cm Trek 1.5 has some laughable features for a tall man's bike,
like 41cm chainstays. With the specified 72 degree seat angle, that
puts the rear edge of the saddle about _one inch_ forward of the rear
hub. You're also suggesting a bike that accepts 28mm tires at the
widest to a guy who weighs 220 pounds (and is probably quite lean at
that weight).

Besides, their "64cm" bike is really 61cm to the top of the seat
collar. That's probably a 59cm bike measured to the top of the top
tube the traditional way. So a tall man will need a long seatpost
extension... and they spec'd a plastic seatpost.

All they did to make it a so-called 64cm frame was put the top of the
head tube high enough that a tall man might not need a Nitto Technomic
stem the way he would with a traditional 59cm frame. In a way, that's
fortunate, because the Trek 1.5 has a plastic fork and can't use a
Technomic or any other similarly high-rise stem.

Trek, like the rest of the toy bike industry, apparently hasn't got a
clue about making bikes for big guys. That, sadly, is why
weatherbeaten old bikes that sold for $200 thirty years ago are still
much better for us.

Well over your budget,
but if you get it from a decent shop, you're going to benefit from their
expertise in getting it to fit you properly, which involves a whole lot more
than just getting the frame size right. You'll also be getting a bike that's
got equipment that is going to hold up well over the long run.

Hold up well over the long run? Low-end brifters? Plastic pedals?
It makes me wonder what you think constitutes holding up well.