Tag Archives: Specialized

No change there: my faulty SRAM Rival-equipped Specialized Roubaix

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My Specialized Roubaix, about to tackle Palace to Palace

Back in April, I picked up my latest bike, a Specialized Roubaix Expert. I loved my original, more basic Roubaix (as I noted in my account of my century ride in 2015) and had high hopes for its successor, with its SRAM Rival electronic gear change. Sadly, it has proved my most troublesome, unreliable bike ever. I’ve decided to blog about it in case anyone else is having similar problems with their SRAM-equipped bike.

I had a hint of the bike’s unreliability on my very first ride, just hours after collecting it from Dees Cycles in Amersham on Good Friday 2023. The brand new Roubaix was making a distinctive squeaking sound, rather than the smooth as silk ride you expect from a maiden journey. I had to take it back to Dees several times before that irritant was banished.

Far more seriously, the bike had a habit of shedding the chain when I changed up onto the bike chainwheel. As I pushed the dual gear change paddles, I would hear an ominous clanking noise as the chain went beyond the large chainwheel cogs, and flopped onto the outside of the chainwheel. I soon found that shifting straight back down would retrieve the chain and place it back onto the small chainwheel. Bizarrely, if I then tried another shift up the chain would move obediently onto the large chainwheel without incident.

My new Roubaix on an early ride
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My fastest century bike ride

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Climbing to a century: Marsworth, Bucks

Climbing to a century: Marsworth, Bucks

On the last day of 2014, I blogged that 2015 would see me riding 100 miles in a day: a cycling century. Yesterday was the day. I repeated my 2005 century route through Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire, stopping at Buckingham for lunch.

The cycling guides give helpful and sensible advice on how to prepare for a century. They tell you to build up your stamina with regular long rides. I certainly did a lot of cycling in the three weeks before the big ride, making the most of the long June evenings to get on the bike. But none was more than ten miles…

That lack of long distance experience no doubt contributed to the fatigue I felt as I finished. It also explained my usual failure to eat before feeling hungry, the curse of the ill-prepared long distance cyclist. But I finished strongly, powering at 17mph or more along the A413 from Wendover to Amersham and beyond. (I love quiet roads, but after 85 miles I like to avoid unnecessary hills…)

When I got home, I was delighted to find that I’d completed the century at an average speed of 13.7mph. For me, that’s a miracle: my fastest century. On my first century in 1995, I was pleased to maintain 13mph for the first 75 miles. (I finished at around 12.75mph.) True, this time I had the benefit of a wonderful road bike, my eight month old Specialized Roubaix. In 2005, I was riding my trusty Dawes Super Galaxy with a pannier full of maps and an SLR camera. But I had just got back from a 315 mile cycle tour of the hilly west country.

Here are my reflections of my fourth century. Continue reading →