saracen rufftrax 1996 - feels kinda bleh

[andiewithanie]

picked one up to do a bmx bar conversion but honestly it feels kinda dead and now i'm not sure it's worth effort. sure it has old tyres, but it feels like it's more than that - it's like a steamroller. fwiw i'm not used to super light springy bikes, my dailies are a guvnor and an ally kona africabike, but i'm wondering with it's the frame/fork that's the issue?

 

[CassidyAce]

It's probably not worth the effort. According to the catalogue, that bike has a chromoly 'main tube'; that probably means that everything else is hi-ten steel, and that does give a 'dead' feel. The other components will almost all be cheap and heavy, which will make it worse. You could improve it by swapping all those component for lighter, higher end parts but, from a financial point of view, you might as well just have bought a better bike in the first place. Unless there's a very particular reason for wanting to ride that bike (e.g., if it had sentimental value), it's not really worth attempting to improve the way it rides. A mid-range bike, at a reasonable price, from the same era, will offer both a better ride and better value in the long run.

 

[andiewithanie]

yeah ive always been sceptical of some of the stuff folk say about frame materials, esp as my aluminium kona rides so much nicer than the cromo one i had, but this does seem to back it up :/.

i'll see if i can find a couple of smooth-ish tyres to put on it and see how it rides, and if it's no better i'll stick it on fb