The Felt V100 is one of three bikes awaiting review for Adventure Cyclist. At $849, it’s a cheap grocery-getter, even more so than a Honda Fit Sport.
One nice thing about having all these bloody bicycles lying about the place — besides the obvious, which is that it’s nice to have a bunch of bloody bicycles lying about the place — is that when one is down to a single motor vehicle, one has options.
I used this Felt V100, an Old Man Mountain rack and a pair of Jandd Economy Panniers to fetch about $80 worth of groceries home from the Whole Paycheck yesterday. The ride home took 40 minutes, it being all uphill and into a headwind, so everything was nicely solar-cooked by the time I got back to El Rancho Pendejo. Bonus! Mmm, E. coli in botulism sauce.
And looks like I’d better get used to it. Herself and I popped round to the Honda dealer yesterday and she wouldn’t even test-drive anything. And why should she? She has my Subaru Forester, a low-mileage creampuff previously owned by a little old man who only drove it to the Whole Paycheck.
My colleague Matt Wiebe, the tech editor at Bicycle Retailer, says he knows where I can get a deal on a second-hand Harley. But I think I’ll have the Vespa shipped down from Bibleburg instead.
Meanwhile, thanks to one and all for the auto recommendations. You are all hereby penalized two minutes for your assistance.
• Editor’s note: This is my 1,500th post on this blog. ‘Ray for me.
Tags: Felt V100, Honda, Jandd, Old Man Mountain, Subaru Forester, Whole Paycheck
Mad Blog Media 
May 19, 2015 at 3:49 pm |
Fifteen hundred posts? Watch out, or herself will have you looking for a day job. I suggest news announcer or DJ at the local NPR station. Maybe you can break even on the Subaru you gave them.
I thinking those Old Man Mountain racks, with the skewer adapters, are a bad idea with disc brakes. Take that skewers weren’t meant for that kind of load in the first place, then add the extra load that a disc brake applies to a skewer, and I think you are asking for drop out erosion problems. Plus what a pain in the ass fixing flats. What do you think?
Porte’s bus will be a buzzin tonight. Just one mate helping out another. Like to be a fly on the wall in that rig tonight.
May 19, 2015 at 4:05 pm |
The OMM rack was my only option in this instance, Pat, and because of the disc brakes.
The Felt’s rear disc caliper mounts on the rear of the seat stay, rather than inside the “V” of the seat/chainstay combo, and the sumbitch protrudes the better part of quite some into where a Tubus rack would mount.
Also, with no brake bosses to attach to topside, I had to use hose clamps. Not an ideal situation.
But it was a light load, just 16.5 pounds. The Felt is a review bike, and thus I owed it to Science to give ‘er a whirl.
My man Wayne at The Touring Store carries an adapter that may work for me. I have a couple older Tubus racks on bikes — the disc Soma Saga and my own Saga — that the adapter could extend rearward past the caliper.
Lots of chatter about the Porte penalty on the Innertubes. Should be plenty jawboning at Consigliere Pelkey’s place tomorrow.
May 19, 2015 at 7:36 pm |
I think all touring, commuter, and cross bikes I’ve seen put the disc caliper mount on the chain stay. Makes the rear end stiffer under braking with the torque pulling the wheel up into the drop out. I wonder why more mountain bikes don’t put them on the chain stay? I agree with Khal about eyelets on this style of bike.
By the way, excuse my crack about day jobs. Let’s see, you already have 3 or 4 days jobs as it is, right?
May 19, 2015 at 5:38 pm |
Seems the disk frame market has yet to get around to the idea of synergy with racks, fenders, and such. My Salsa La Cruz requires a kludge of a fender kit (Planet Bike SpeedEZ) that is a nuisance to mount and never fits quite straight. But at least the rear rack goes on nicely.
Seems to me these under-a-grand bikes would be more versatile if they were designed with eyelets for racks and fenders, rather than as “gravel bikes”. For that price range, a lot of folks could really use an all-around, affordable bike like that which would be good for all weather commuting/utility riding as well as a weekend rip down the road, dirt, or cross race. Wish these had been around when I was young and poor back in graduate school.
The LaCruz fits that model pretty well, in spite of my taking The Lord’s Name in vain whenever I hang fenders on it. I’ve got one set of hoops with an 11-34 on it, which with the compact crank, gives me a 1:1 low gear. I think the system would handle a 12-36 too.
May 19, 2015 at 5:42 pm |
p.s. congrats on #1500, and be careful to wash the blood off that Harley and check under the seat for a hand cannon.
May 19, 2015 at 8:15 pm |
This bike actually has eyelets for fenders and a rear rack … it’s just that the damn caliper gets in the way. I may pull a Tubus off one of the other bikes and see if I can get it to work. Science!
May 19, 2015 at 8:41 pm |
Exactly. Stuff is incompatible with design.
May 19, 2015 at 7:13 pm |
PO’G: ABQ and the Vespa may be a match made in heaven. Especially with summer comin’ on and m-o-n-t-h-s of great weather ahead.
Congrats also on your 1500th blog! Much more discipline than I certainly have…..and infinitely more wit and wisdom by far!!
Ride on…..here’s to at least another 1500!
May 19, 2015 at 8:21 pm |
Thanks, JD. I’ve actually been at it longer than 1,500 posts … I’ve had a bunch of websites over the years, starting with some rudimentary deal on AOL to a few rudimentary HTML jobbers to Blogger/TypePadWordPress freebies to self-hosted WordPress and, finally, back to free WP. My stank is all over the Innertubes. No place is safe. My witless whizdumb flows like cheap lager at a tailgate party.
May 19, 2015 at 8:42 pm |
Having followed O’G since my daze in Honolulu (recall that “when are you going to make a jersey out of the fat guy?”), I can attest to his sordid influence on the Internet.
May 19, 2015 at 11:54 pm |
Congrats on the 1.5K posts. Any thoughts on a Gates with Rohloff? Seems to be a good commuter option.
May 20, 2015 at 7:28 pm |
I have one, a Co-Motion Divide Rohloff with the Gates drive, and like it a lot. It’s the bike to ride when you don’t like to think about the bike you’re riding.
You ever look at the exploded diagrams of that hub? Judas Priest. Looks like the workings of the Universe in there.
Makes interesting noises, too. Whizz zz zz zz shh shh shh fzz fzz fzz depending upon which gear you’re in. You have to sort of ease off on the pedal pressure when you shift, but otherwise it’s smooth like butter.
I need to put some more miles on that thing, see if I can get something to fail. So far, it’s as reliable as sunrise.
May 20, 2015 at 4:22 am |
I’d ship that Vespa down in a heartbeat and consider one of those single-track trailer gizmos before adding another car to our stable, especially in a place with (not-so-much) weather like where you live.
Sky’s gone from marginal gains to marginal brains it seems? They have all kinds of Rupert Murdoch loot to spend on fancy motorhomes, helicopters and gawd-knows-what else, but none of these knuckleheads can read a rule book? Back-in-the-day Banesto had BigMig’s bro Prudencio always on the team with Mig..riding the exact same sized bike, just-in-case. If this is the best SKY can do, Porte oughta find another team, they don’t deserve to win the Giro.
May 20, 2015 at 5:52 am |
Congratulations on 1500 posts O’G. I’m pretty sure I’ve read most of them, My wife & I moved to 1 vehicle last year, in preparation of downsizing heading into retirement. I bought a cheap bike with fenders for the around town stuff, and any time we have conflicting schedules far off we rent a compact. So far, so good.
May 20, 2015 at 9:22 am |
Larry, I was thinking exactly the same thing. How long has that rule been in place ferchrisakes – gotta be able to both turn the pedals and think, sometimes at the same moment. Your example of Prudencio and Indurain is a good one. And, if I’m not mistaken, Prudencio gave up that bike on more than one occasion – before the Ventoux climb one year if memory serves.
May 20, 2015 at 1:36 pm |
Yeah, interesting note on that – I was told years later by a Michelin/Wolber rep in France that BigMig NEVER had a rear wheel change. When he had a rear flat, he got a bike, either from the car or from under his brother. The reason? They told me BigMig’s power simply tore up rear wheels (like the Merckx days when his were supposedly all 36 cross 4) so they built his up using the old Euclid MTB hub with the 130 (or was it 135?) spacing. A standard road rear wheel didn’t fit well in his specially-made bikes with the wider spacing so bike changes were the norm vs rear wheel swaps. Of course back-in-the-day teams were larger so a guy like Prudencio could more easily be justified..but with SKY’s budget I find it tough to understand why they don’t have a guy very close in size to Porte (Froome, etc.) who sticks on him like glue to avoid issues like these? Kind of a “Bike Racing 101” thing it would seem? Especially at the Grand Tour level?
May 20, 2015 at 5:30 pm |
Anyone know how Padraig is doing? Just wandered over to the RKP for the first time in months and found his Kaena Pt. article.
http://redkiteprayer.com/2015/03/kaena-point/
May 20, 2015 at 7:24 pm |
Must be doin’ OK. He’s moving to Sonoma County and is bringing more people aboard the good ship RKP.
May 21, 2015 at 2:03 pm |
Need us to make a road trip with vespa in tow?
May 21, 2015 at 2:35 pm |
I think you should drive it down. Nyiinnn nyyyynnnnn nnnyyyyynnnn ringa dinga dinga dinga dinga. …