After lots of thinking, and talking about it, I finally bought a new bike.
Mermaid was fine in many ways, but suffered from one unalterable deficit.
Mermaid was originally bought for my wife (5'6", 167 cm), while I am a lot taller (6'2", 188cm).
So, really, I needed a bigger frame.
Enter Hoppy, a Hoprider 300 I purchased online from Decathlon, the French sporting goods chain with stores in many European countries (and no doubt beyond).
Hoppy will, of course, evolve, so the picture shown shows how Hoppy started.
Already I have been mucking about with the seat and the handlebars.
Hoppy comes fully equipped, as you can see, sporting a hub dynamo at the front, built-in lights front and rear, mudguards, and a 25kg-rated luggage carrier.
The difference in size shown above is partly the camera angle, and partly that Hoppy is about 3 inches (7.5 cm) longer than Mermaid, even allowing for the 37x622 on Mermaid compared with the 40x622 tyres on Hoppy.
Bigger frame.
To suit a larger rider.
Like me!
Mermaid was fine in many ways, but suffered from one unalterable deficit.
Mermaid was originally bought for my wife (5'6", 167 cm), while I am a lot taller (6'2", 188cm).
So, really, I needed a bigger frame.
Enter Hoppy, a Hoprider 300 I purchased online from Decathlon, the French sporting goods chain with stores in many European countries (and no doubt beyond).
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| Hoppy, my new BTwin Hoprider 300, shown with Mermaid |
Hoppy will, of course, evolve, so the picture shown shows how Hoppy started.
Already I have been mucking about with the seat and the handlebars.
Hoppy comes fully equipped, as you can see, sporting a hub dynamo at the front, built-in lights front and rear, mudguards, and a 25kg-rated luggage carrier.
The difference in size shown above is partly the camera angle, and partly that Hoppy is about 3 inches (7.5 cm) longer than Mermaid, even allowing for the 37x622 on Mermaid compared with the 40x622 tyres on Hoppy.
Bigger frame.
To suit a larger rider.
Like me!
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| A big box arrives ... |
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| Hoppy is an XL, with a 61cm frame size |
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| Pedals come taped under the saddle |
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| Hoppy emerges. Only a few things needed to be done. Bars needed to be straightened, and the pedals needed attaching. The seat comes set for someone at least 6'6"! |
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| Didn't like the saddle. Too much padding in the central area made it uncomfortable straight away. So I fitted this. Could just be an "older man" thing - prostrate and all that. |
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| I'm not a great fan of straight bars either - so a set of curved bars got fitted - with a pair of bar ends acting as aero "horns". Hoppy cane with mounts for two cages, but I had to buy the cages myself! |
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| The new saddle in place. I can handle about 30 miles (50km), but after that my butt starts starts to get a bit stiff. Still better than the supplied saddle, though. |
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| A water bottle on the head yube is just far enough behind the bars to allow proper steering. |
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| Big, 1000ml, bottles for randoneuring. |
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| View of aero horns, and the head tube bottle |
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| Hoppy stripped down for a 100km sportive |
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| hoppy came with a hub dynamo |
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| Hoppy's dynamo rear light. This is just a basic unit from Axa and I will probably replace it with an LED light with a standlight feature. |
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| Hoppy has another reflector on the lower rear fender. Low reflectors show up better in "dip" car headlights than higher ones. |
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| A basic Axa dynamo-powered front light came fitted to Hoppy. Supposed to be 10 lux of halogen (no standlight). I have a 20 lux LED front light (with standlight), in the garage, so I'll be fitting that instead. |
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