Cycling UK Forum

Last night I found myself looking at the Dawes website. In the past few years it became complicated and now I just don't know...
http://dawescycles.com/product-category ... s-touring/

So, to recap, there was the Vantage, frame upgrade to the Horizon, frame upgrade to the 631 Galaxy, component upgrade to the Super Galaxy and then the frame and component upgrade to the 853 Ultra Galaxy. Clear so far. It ran like this for quite some time. The Galaxy came with Deore and retailed for about £1100.

Then the names were all changed to Galaxy. Galaxy Al, Galaxy Cross, Galaxy Classic, Super and Ultra....making the Galaxy the new Vantage and the Classic the old Galaxy. So, there will be some fun and games with ebay purchases in the future

For 2015 the Galaxy Classic as we know it appears to have been dropped. (Making life for the people who have contributed to the "Default Tourer" threat, harder )

There's the 4130 Galaxy with Alivio and 520 Galaxy plus with Alivio, (the difference used to be just the STI levers on the Plus) so when we think of "A galaxy" the spec has been really downgraded - mind you, so has the price. Then the Classic has gone all retro using 531. 631 tubes are no where to be seen because the Super uses 725 whilst the Ultra is now Ti. (I thought Dawes had tried Ti 4/5 years ago and it had flopped). There is a 26" - a good thing - but it is £1799. Oh. For less than that we could make up a nice Thorn or Hewitt from scratch. Consequently, the sequence means that there is a huge jump in Galaxy's from 520 Alivio to 853 XT and so does the price jump - from £999 to £1799. What are they thinking?

AND, the Ti one - the new Ultra is £2800. Goodness. Van Nicholas Amazon's start at about £2100 and they are specialists with Ti.

What ever philosophy is at work here, it seems to be an odd one. Why devalue to the Galaxy and leave a huge pricing hole?
I suppose the discounters will soon fill the gap....

Relax! This is the third time in 8 or 9 years that they have dug this section up and changed the layout, so it will not last...
Next the OCC are having yet another go at the station "roundabout", 300m further down the road. This, again, will be their 3rd attempt in 5 or 6 years... although this is unnecessary because the junction worked very well, for one day, when all the traffic lights stopped working ....

I don't want to convince you. I bought one but it kept on freezing. All the time....
So, I sent it back, got a full refund and bought a Edge 800 instead for £252, with European maps. I then ebayed the cadence bit (£30) and heart rate monitor (£32) so I now have all the bits I actually need for basically the same price as a Touring but it works perfectly ... and doesn't freeze...

I wish Steve well and I hope that he achieves what he has set out to do....but for me it would be terribly boring to do all that cycling. You can have too much of a good thing and I think it would kill off any hope of me wanting to cycle for the rest of my life - and I certainly don't want that.

When I was a lot younger, how many songs did I "kill" by playing them over and over again - even now I can not listen to any of them.

I see that the "longbikeride" chap, who is pro-LHT, has the surname HEWITT

Thank you for all of the replies so far.....my mind is now a rest. Good old forum!

It isn't debatable, I like the STIs on my touring bike ...and wanted 9 speed for durability, so fitted some Tiagra ones. I do not regret this despite now having a problem. The cables sprout perpendicularly from the lever into the "middle space" on the drops - just where a bar bag would go....and I want to attach one (I've already have an Ortlieb one)
Any suggestions for getting around this problem? - Can I just push the cables out of the way, or is there an extender or something else? ....and I'm not changing my STIs!

Thanks in advance.

I live in Belgium and there has been a change in the law. You have to use them. If you do not, car drivers have a lovely habit of letting you know their grievance by driving very close to you and/or papping their horn aggressively as they pass, which always frightens the life out of me. Yes, sometimes the cycle paths are in a terrible state but it's tough, I'm afraid.

For Belgium / Lux, there is a long distance cycle route guide here -

http://www.fietsroute.org/Long-Distanceroutes-LF.php

If you look at a map of Belgium, draw an imaginary line horizontally which runs just under Brussels. To the north, it is boring and flat but to the south it is interesting and good fun (French speaking). Bearing this in mind, and it is a lovely town, Namur is great. it also happens to be 70kms from Brussels, which could be your first day, post Eurostar arrival!

Other towns that are worth seeing in this region are - Liege, Spa and Maastrict - avoid Charleroi.

For Northern France, I recommend Formula1 hotels. Basic, cheap and they let you put your bikes in the rooms. Often there is a supermarket very close by.

For Belgium, you are sorted but note the following -
* If there is a cycle path, you HAVE TO use it. Car drivers will be very unkind to you if you don't. But if you have right of way, they are very nice
* Make sure you have good maps/GPS. The signposts are terrible. The road surfaces aren't great either.
* Other cyclists will blank you. I think this is a club thing and there are loads of cyclists about and you can not spend all day waving

Have a good trip.

I suggest you call them and do not buy on line. I did the latter and it was actually out of stock and they asked me why I hadn't called first..... because the web site said it was....?!
They refunded me within a few days but it was a bit of hassle for their bad stock management.

BTW, at that price, I fully understand why you want would buy one. I would be following you, if I "needed" one

So the SV is for small wheels and the PV is for 700c. Right?

I enjoyed this but can not find a website that explains a 2015 entry to the event....I confess that I am tempted.
I do know that there was quite a bit of interest in this ride but only 30-odd folk turned up so there were rumblings of it not happening again...??

Are these OK to use with 700c wheels? I have read in a few places that they are but noticed today on SJS that they should only be used on wheels up to 20".

Conflicting views so far. Does anyone know the real answer?!

If it is no good, what should I buy instead? I know the SON28 is the best and it is for my best bike but it is DOUBLE the price.....
Suggestions?

Thanks a lot.