Will a Mercury make a noticeable difference?

[Huernie]

Ok, I give up. I confess; I don't ride a Thorn. 4 years ago I bought a Koga Signature. It's basically the spec that Mark Beaumont rode on his Americas trip (Rohloff, SON dynamo, hydraulic discs, tubus racks etc) and I think it's a great bike. I ride about 5500 miles a year and consider myself reasonably fit. I use it for my commute, weekend riding, credit card short tours and for a 6 week '4 pannier cycle camping' trip each summer. I feel the bike fits really well but it weighs between 17 and 18kg depending on which tyres etc. I am running. I weigh approx. 10 stone. Here's my problem - I find that I am really slow on the bike. On a good day, over a 50 mile 'average up and down' unloaded ride I might average 10mph. Loaded this drops to about an 8mph average. It's very taxing in a headwind where I really do struggle. I am not looking to race and am happy to relax and enjoy the scenery, but when old ladies with shopping baskets pass me by I always ask myself, is it time for a change?

My question is this - would a fairly light build of a Mercury make a significant difference to my speed to justify the cost? Something along the lines of Mega Brochure 'recipe B3 or D3'.

Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. I did buy my wife a Sherpa to make up for me buying a Koga!

Cheers

Andy

[julk]

Andy,
definitely a good idea - as splashing out on a Mercury will certainly lighten your wallet!

But first it might be worth trying lighter wheels/tyres on your current bike to see if that speeds thing up enough.

I find that 2” wide flexible light tyres run at a lowish pressure have the best result for my riding.
Julian.

[jags]

Hi Andy.lighter wheels and tyres will transform your koga .(slicks)
 nothing like getting a new bike tho, but  what's the story u only averaging 10mph your doing something wrong thats for certain .
10 stone man what i wouldn't give to be that weight again ,when i was all those years ago i could average 19mph but yeah those days are well gone, im 62 now but still i can on a good day average 13.5 to 15mph ,this morning spin with the leisure group over some hard hills  we averaged 13.5mph  650 mt of climbing .
so yes i'de say it's not the bike but the pilot,now don't take that the wrong way seriously thing you need to  eat and train more.
the koga your on is a class bike  just change the wheels and tyres ..

jags.

[rualexander]

Changing the tyres would be the first thing to try, depending what tyres you have on at the moment?
On my Sherpa which weighs around 17kg, unloaded, I probably only average 10-11 mph, but there are quite a few hills around here, I have 2 inch Marathon Supreme tyres, which are good.
Loaded touring, I probably average around 10mph as well, after a few days getting used to the extra weight.

[mickeg]

Tires, as everybody else suggested.

I am not familiar with the bike you have, I do not know if it is 700c or 26 inch.  If 26 inch, maybe look for some fairly supple 40mm wide tires, something like the Vittoria Randonea Pro.  If 700c, there are a huge number of good tires, so I won't bother suggesting a brand or model.  Width, could pretty much be up to you and you might consider for loaded touring a wider set and for around home riding with minimal load a narrower set of tires.

The thing you are looking for is a tire that is very supple, the tire carcass and fabric will feel very flexible.  The bead does not matter, so a wire bead will not be slower than a folding kevlar bead.  The key is the sidewall and the tread, you want a tire that takes very little energy to deform it.  After all at 15km, you are deforming about 9 meters of tire for every second that you are riding it, so you want a tire that will not consume energy to deform it.

I find that my vintage Columbus tubing fast bike with skinny tires feels much faster than my Thorn Nomad (heavier bike than yours), but when I get home after a bike ride on flat and level terrain, the actual time spent on the road was not much different.  Although my fast bike is not in the ultra light carbon class of bikes, it probably is almost as fast as those bikes are on the flat and level.  Note that I said flat and level, you did not say if you are doing big hills or not.  It is the hills where the weight of a bike becomes much more noticeable.  If you are frequently wearing out brake pads, then maybe you should consider a lighter bike.

[martinf]

A light-build Mercury should be faster than a Koga Signature, but perhaps not enough to be worthwhile.

I've had lots of bikes over the years, and for me, bicycle weight is one of the least important factors influencing speed, though it does play a small part, especially on hills and for stop-start town riding. Weight in wheel rims and tyres is more important than weight elsewhere.

Apart from training, the two factors I find most important are first aerodynamics, mostly influenced by riding position, and second tyres. Not found the difference between derailleurs and hub gears to be very significant.

I am significantly faster on a drop-handlebar bike than on a bike with flat handlebars. And I reckon good lightweight tyres with thin sidewalls are faster than heavier tyres with thicker sidewalls.

My current heavy tourer is a Rohloff-equipped Thorn Raven Tour. Not weighed it, but probably equivalent to Koga Signature. This bike has heavy Andra 30 rims, but lightweight Schwalbe Supreme tyres in the fattest 2 inch size. And drop handlebars. Front and rear racks and a set of medium size panniers to carry my stuff. I reckon to do about 22 kph average speed with the Raven Tour on the 50 km circuit with moderate hills I quite often ride.

My lightest bike is a lightweight 700C drop handlebar tourer with derailleur gears and 28 mm Schwalbe One lightweight (near racing type) tyres. Almost certainly slightly lighter than the lightest Mercury build. No racks, just a saddlebag tucked into an aerodynamic position behind the rider. On the same 50 km circuit I average about 24 kph on this bike. About 10% faster. If I tweaked the Thorn (saddlebag, no racks) I reckon the difference would be much less.
 

[JimK]

what's the story u only averaging 10mph your doing something wrong 

I have been quite stuck at 10 mph on my Nomad. I live in hilly country and weigh 2.5 pounds per inch. Joel Friel says anything much over 2 pounds per inch, forget the hills. If you want to race! I just go 10 mph and don't worry about those old ladies with shopping baskets. It does mean that I can't really join in a group ride or get too much into randonneuring with a stop watch involved. If I can get down to 2.1 pounds per inch, maybe I will consider an Audax.

I rather suspect that if you want to get fast, you need to be doing intervals, to train for speed. You build up endurance by going out and riding a lot, but not so much speed.

[DONE]

On a good day on my X Nomad unloaded with 1.6 Marathon Supremes on  lightish! wheels. I get 12 - 13 mph on a 35 mile undulating circuit from home. Usually though it's about 9.5 mph. for the same route.
I much prefer the leisurly pace days; time to look around and take in the views.

[jags]

The more u cycle the easier it becomes,  if andy wants to go faster he has to train faster its that simple .on every spin i do i take 2 energy gels 1 bounty bar 2 bottles high energy drink.
now most of the time the gels are never used but there there if push comes to shove.

[gma]

I live in hilly country and weigh 2.5 pounds per inch. Joel Friel says anything much over 2 pounds per inch, forget the hills. If you want to race! … If I can get down to 2.1 pounds per inch, maybe I will consider an Audax.

Perhaps I've misunderstood something here Jim, but I reckon you should just go and do an Audax!

I'm 6' and weigh around 84kg. I make that to be 2.6 pounds per inch, and rode my first (100km) Audax this summer. The time allowance was very generous, and even though I set off 50 minutes late (due to an alarm clock mishap) I had no trouble catching everybody up.

I did that ride on a classic lightweight British road bike (i.e. far more nimble than a Thorn), but plenty of people were riding it more slowly than me, on much heavier less-roadworthy bikes than my Nomad-X. I'd happily ride the Thorn next time…

I agree, incidentally, with other comments in this thread about speed and riding position. I'm around 2 mph slower on the Nomad (flat bars) when cruising along on the flat at constant speed, than I am on my road bike (drops, though I ride on the hoods). The riding position is the only thing that could cause such a significant difference. Leaning forward and resting my elbows on the handle bars increases speed noticeably for the same amount of effort (though it's neither comfortable nor safe).

I'm keen to try drops on my Nomad at some point. It's a short frame anyway, so I suspect they'd work really rather well.

I've just bought some Rat Trap Pass tyres for my Nomad (very thin-walled 2.3" slicks), but haven't fitted them yet. I'd also love a set of wheels with lighter rims (I've got Andra 30's, which weigh almost 800g each).

[mickeg]

Regarding aerodynamics, I use drop bars on most of my bikes.  If I am facing a headwind, I usually find that by using the drops instead of the tops of the bars that I can increase speed by about 8 to 13 percent.

what's the story u only averaging 10mph your doing something wrong 

I have been quite stuck at 10 mph on my Nomad. I live in hilly country and weigh 2.5 pounds per inch. Joel Friel says anything much over 2 pounds per inch, forget the hills. If you want to race! I just go 10 mph and don't worry about those old ladies with shopping baskets. It does mean that I can't really join in a group ride or get too much into randonneuring with a stop watch involved. If I can get down to 2.1 pounds per inch, maybe I will consider an Audax.

I rather suspect that if you want to get fast, you need to be doing intervals, to train for speed. You build up endurance by going out and riding a lot, but not so much speed.

I never heard of that ratio being used for cycling, but I never heard of Joel Friel either.  I calculate to 2.48 but I usually tour with someone that is about 3.2 or 3.3 and he does ok on hills.  The big difference between us is that he runs out of steam in 3 or 4 hours, I can keep going for hours longer.

[Andybg]

I have a number of Thorn Bikes. Until recently my main use bike was an old derailleur Nomad with a Raven Tour as back up. I recently bought a Raven Sport Tour and although about 1.5kg lighter than the Tour and about the same weight as the Nomad (think Sherpa) it is much faster than either. My average speeds on the 3 bikes for my local circuit is Tour 22kph, Nomad 25kph and the Raven Sport Tour 28kph.

I think as much of the speed increase is down to the sporty feel of the bike as much as any weight/aerodynamic/ rolling resistance improvement.

My advice is go for the lighter sprightly Mercury and you wont look back.

Andy

[JimK]

Here's the Joel Friel post I was referring to: http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2010/04/power-and-weight.html

I have some Kojak tires squirreled away someplace, which I figure should bump up my speed nicely. But these days I have on Marathon Plus Tour! I seem to be doing mostly errands on the bike these days, on some nasty roads.

One big advantage of derailleur systems is certainly the practicality of keeping multiple wheels to swap in and out. Lighter rims would be fun as well as lighter tires.

Here's Jan Heine on speed and intervals: https://janheine.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/last-minute-pbp-prep-tabata-intervals/

[geocycle]

I think Huernie wants us to say yes to his original question! ive asked it myself many times. But I agree with the balanced comments above.

[StillOld]

what's the story u only averaging 10mph your doing something wrong 

I live in hilly country and weigh 2.5 pounds per inch. Joel Friel says anything much over 2 pounds per inch, forget the hills.

I just worked mine out.....2.9lbs to the inch. Sounds like I need to stick to downhills.