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Bike choice £1000 Coast to coast ride in the UK.

Been riding a Ridgeback Voyage but too heavy.

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    Questions seeking product/service/learning material recommendations or item valuations are off-topic because they tend to become obsolete quickly.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Apr 14, 2021 at 22:34
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    The only suitable bike to buy is the one you personally find comfortable, and one that you can actually purchase in these days of weird C19-affected supply lines. Everything else is irrelevant.
    – Criggie ♦
    Apr 14, 2021 at 22:39
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    What I can find about the Ridgeback Voyage suggests that it would be ideal for this kind of ride, unless you're trying to set some sort of speed record.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Apr 15, 2021 at 0:45
  • @DanielRHicks's right. My road bike is a similar tourer (Genesis Tour de Fer), and assuming you mean this route or one like It, it would be well suited, especially if you had to carry overnight gear. Unladen I'd do it it in a day on mine but it's a bit much climbing with even my lightweight camping setup for one day; you don't give any idea of your intended timescale or load.
    – Chris H
    Apr 15, 2021 at 9:29
  • The bike does look heavy even from its look. Throw away the fenders and the rack. Get pickepacking bags.
    – Vladimir F Героям слава
    Apr 15, 2021 at 18:22

1 Answer 1

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I am not from the UK, but the acronym appears to refer to the Coast to Coast walk or ride event. (NB: please do be more specific on acronyms, as not everyone may be familiar with them, and you aren't guaranteed that someone is going to be willing and able to Google them.) One version of the ride appears to cover 137 miles, or 220.5 km, in 3 days.

Another thing to note about this forum is that we aren't a traditional free-form discussion forum. For one, as the FAQ says, questions seeking specific product recommendations are considered off topic for the reasons Daniel stated in a comment.

I feel that it is possible to answer the question in very general terms without naming specific products. I would normally suggest not a mountain bike, if possible. You could certainly complete the ride, but the knobby tires and suspension would consume some energy you don't need to spend - you could ameliorate this by changing to slicks and locking out the suspension if able.

The answer is complicated by the fact that you already appear to have a touring bicycle. If Google is a good guide, you have a steel touring bike whose MSRP was about £1k. This is the type of bike I would have recommended if you were starting from scratch and you wanted to do a lot of this type of riding. The current model year appears to have triple chainrings and provisions for rack mounts. You indicated that this is too heavy. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that you aren't likely to do much better for the price range you indicated. I don't know how much elevation gain you face, but for the most part, changing to a lighter bike doesn't make much of a difference in performance, unless you're going up an extended and steep climb and/or you drop 5 lbs or more from the bike. Also, a lighter road frame will severely limit your ability to carry luggage.

Without meaning to gaslight you about the bike feeling too heavy, do be aware that you can use that smallest ring to get up steep hills. If you can't shift because the derailer is out of adjustment, a bike store will be able to help you get it in adjustment, and they can refresh you on how to change gears.

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    Concur - a tuneup and some fresh tyres would be a good basic plan. Possibly replace the bartape for that new-bike feel as well.
    – Criggie ♦
    Apr 15, 2021 at 0:25
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    There are lots of variations of coast-to-coast rides in the UK. You can go across Devon, across the Pennines in several different ways, across Scotland. OP needs to be more specific.
    – thosphor
    Apr 15, 2021 at 11:00
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    You can book a package holiday through Skeddadle for C2C and hire a bike cheaper than buying a bike and then having the hassle of transporting a bike up there.
    – Dan K
    Apr 15, 2021 at 11:07
  • I reckon you could actually save that more than 5lb off that within the price range - something like the Trek Domane AL3 at £995 is about 10.5kg to the Voyager's 13.7kg. That's nearly 7lb difference. I still wouldn't do it though. The climb on one version of C2C is about 3800m in 220km, so reasonably hilly. The longest climb is around 500m in 15km, but even that isn't continuous. An unbroken 1300m in 30km was very slow indeed on a comparable bike, but doable
    – Chris H
    Apr 15, 2021 at 21:23

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