Post by alanp on Mar 28, 2014 14:39:26 GMT
Me and Mrs P have been riding with a local cycling group this year and the routes up to now have been mixed terrain, ideal for our tough hybrid bikes. However, some of the upcoming runs are longer and 100% tarmac, for road bikes only. That is fine for me, as I have my T3a, bought last year, but the missus didn't get along with drop bars, so she was road bike-less and in danger of missing out.
So we went to Decathlon yesterday and had a look at the "Fit" range of flat bar road bikes. My wife is 5' 6" so I thought that a size 54 would be right, but there wasn't one to hand, so she grabbed a Fit 5 in size 57, rode it round the shop and thought it was perfect. She then noticed the Fit 3s and tried out a 57 in that. Just as good, she thought. The lower number of gears (i.e 7-speed vs 9-speed) and grip shifters vs trigger shifters wasn't an issue for her, and the weights of the two bikes seemed roughly the same. Plus, at Β£249, the Fit 3 was Β£130 cheaper, which made up her mind.
We went for a test ride today and she loves it, although there are a few minor problems. She finds it a lot harsher ride than a bike with 38mm tyres and suspension forks, but that's only to be expected. The flip side is it's faster! The other thing I noticed was quite a bit of noise from the chain rubbing on the front derailleur. Having taken it for a ride myself, I think this is a matter of getting the grip shifter technique right - often a single click one way or the other is enough to trim the mech and stop the rubbing. In other words, and unless there is something wrong with this one, the SRAM grip shifters don't just have 3 positions, making them a bit of a halfway house between friction shifters and one-click indexed shifters.
Comparing my T3a (size 57), the two frames appear identical (apart from colour of course!). The forks seem to be the same too, as well as the front derailleur (MicroShift) and the BTwin brakes. Actually, the braking is excellent on the Fit 3 compared to my T3a - possibly down to getting a better pull on the flat bar levers.
The front chainset is a no-name 48/38/28 variety. I presume this is a MTB chainset. A nice touch is the fitting of a "dog tooth" contraption to save damage if and when the chain slips off the smallest chainring. At the other end there is a 7-speed freewheel (Shimano MF-TZ21, 14-28T) and a long cage SRAM 3.0 rear derailleur. The lowest gear (28-28) should be enough to get most people up most hills. The highest gear (48-14) should be plenty fast enough for Mrs P, as she has no pretentions to be a racer!
The wheels are stock BTwin and the tyres Hutchinson Equinox, I think size 23mm, although they seem a tad narrower than the BTwin 23s that were supplied with my T3a.
In fact, the only thing Mrs P would upgrade is the saddle - she would prefer something wider and more luxurious!
OK, that's all. I know this hasn't been Triban related as such, but I thought it might be useful to some, as I couldn't find much info on the Fit 3 other than what is on the Decathlon website, here
Cheers,
Alan
So we went to Decathlon yesterday and had a look at the "Fit" range of flat bar road bikes. My wife is 5' 6" so I thought that a size 54 would be right, but there wasn't one to hand, so she grabbed a Fit 5 in size 57, rode it round the shop and thought it was perfect. She then noticed the Fit 3s and tried out a 57 in that. Just as good, she thought. The lower number of gears (i.e 7-speed vs 9-speed) and grip shifters vs trigger shifters wasn't an issue for her, and the weights of the two bikes seemed roughly the same. Plus, at Β£249, the Fit 3 was Β£130 cheaper, which made up her mind.
We went for a test ride today and she loves it, although there are a few minor problems. She finds it a lot harsher ride than a bike with 38mm tyres and suspension forks, but that's only to be expected. The flip side is it's faster! The other thing I noticed was quite a bit of noise from the chain rubbing on the front derailleur. Having taken it for a ride myself, I think this is a matter of getting the grip shifter technique right - often a single click one way or the other is enough to trim the mech and stop the rubbing. In other words, and unless there is something wrong with this one, the SRAM grip shifters don't just have 3 positions, making them a bit of a halfway house between friction shifters and one-click indexed shifters.
Comparing my T3a (size 57), the two frames appear identical (apart from colour of course!). The forks seem to be the same too, as well as the front derailleur (MicroShift) and the BTwin brakes. Actually, the braking is excellent on the Fit 3 compared to my T3a - possibly down to getting a better pull on the flat bar levers.
The front chainset is a no-name 48/38/28 variety. I presume this is a MTB chainset. A nice touch is the fitting of a "dog tooth" contraption to save damage if and when the chain slips off the smallest chainring. At the other end there is a 7-speed freewheel (Shimano MF-TZ21, 14-28T) and a long cage SRAM 3.0 rear derailleur. The lowest gear (28-28) should be enough to get most people up most hills. The highest gear (48-14) should be plenty fast enough for Mrs P, as she has no pretentions to be a racer!
The wheels are stock BTwin and the tyres Hutchinson Equinox, I think size 23mm, although they seem a tad narrower than the BTwin 23s that were supplied with my T3a.
In fact, the only thing Mrs P would upgrade is the saddle - she would prefer something wider and more luxurious!
OK, that's all. I know this hasn't been Triban related as such, but I thought it might be useful to some, as I couldn't find much info on the Fit 3 other than what is on the Decathlon website, here
Cheers,
Alan