So I am heading to college next year and instead of doing the responsible prep stuff. I am preparing what cycling stuff to bring. What do yall recommend for essentials? I will be able to go back home on weekends to switch bikes if I have something coming up. My big races next fall are Big and Little Sugar. I have a Cruz, Windspace T1550, Old Alley Sprint, and a tricked-out 2018 Epic.
There is a garage for bikes, but I don’t want to just leave my non-bike stuff in there cause it’s mostly for people who just have a bike, if you know what i’m saying. (Me trying not to sound like the snob we all know we all are…)
My thought is to bring the Crux. Get a cheap road wheelset and throw an e13 9-45 cassette to give me road gearing and some road wheels on. So I just bring 1 extra wheelset. What do y’all recommend for tool essentials? Is it worth it to try to bring two bikes? I will also have an old, old beater single speed to get from class to class that will probably sit in lobbies or stuff. So that’s not a concern.
I really want some new fast gravel wheels but think that getting all the colloge stuff should be first priority.
Uni was an awfully long time ago now and in the UK so rather different cultures but I’d take a single bike to get about on plus the tools to keep it running.
Then after Freshers week (and resulting life altering hangovers) see what clubs you get with them get the bike that works for that.
If it were me and I could get home on weekends, I’d simply go and concentrate on getting oriented and squared away with the college stuff. I’d suss out the cycling scene, and then go home and get what I needed. It’d iterate on that as time went on. That was my situation when I started college. It was only a few hours drive to get home.
Not sure if you have already sized up that garage situation, but I’d want to make sure it’s really secure before leaving a high end bike there. When I was in college (a long, long time ago), we would bypass the rules and keep our bikes in our dorm rooms because anything nice would be stolen from the “official” storage locations. The garage is likely a great place to store your beater single speed, hopefully good enough for your nice bike also.
The crux is a good choice and I personally wouldn’t worry about the wheelset/gearing unless you plan to do some road/crit racing with it. Gravel tires and gearing are plenty fast for fast group rides and it’s good training to ride the setup you’ll be racing on. And you’ll likely get less flats with gravel tires. Tools really depends on how much of your own maintenance/repair you do. Obviously, you’ll want the basic stuff to keep a clean/fresh drivetrain and fix flats and top off sealant, but bikes are pretty maintenance free other than that. I’d just make sure all the common wear parts are good before heading out (fresh brake pads and bleed, bottom bracket and headset, etc.). And a lot also depends on how much room you have. If you have a shared dorm room the size of a closet, that’s very different than a larger apartment or whatever. Good luck, fun times.
Alas, they do not. It’s a small Christian College. So not even a club. Only place near home that I could afford and get the degree I wanted. So all my racing will be u23 as an independent unless I join a team.
I love the idea. But they do not have a cycling team, and I am barely going to have time to train, work, and do school as is. So I probably wont be able to start one. If I get free time, I would definitely try.
I have not. Some people say its nice. I don’t think my room mate really likes the idea of bikes in his dorm. So I may be outa luck on that. I will probably just leave the single speed wherever I feel like. It may spend a day in the rain for all I care. Its a old fixy that was found near a dumpster lol.
Yeah I am basically gonna be in a fancy shoe box. I already own the wheelset (pull off from a road build) so I just have to buy a cassette and rotors. I do plan on doing some fast stuff and maybe the race or 2. Thanks for the advice.
Honestly I’d bring my cheapest most expendable bike if I was going to be living in the dorms. Look at things again after you’re oriented better and have a better sense of your free time and training options
The thing about crime is that most of it, especially in a college campus, are crimes of opportunity. So a bike left unsecured is going to be treated like communal property, especially by the inebriated. It doesn’t matter if it’s a beater, in fact that encourages casual theft because the thief feels less guilty about taking it
If you use a good lock on it and secure it to something that doesn’t move it should be fine, as long as a more professional thief doesn’t come by, which hopefully you don’t need to worry about on a small campus.
Like the others said, start without the bike, then after you settle in for two weeks bring the beater and figure it out from there.
The good thing about crappy bikes is as long as the fit is good, their crappiness gives you a workout even at slower speeds. They’re very effective for training.
Gearing-wise, you’ll be fine, too. In fact, you may not even need the 9-tooth cog. In my riding, I find outside of perhaps racing 42:10 as my top gear was more than enough on the road. At around 100 rpm I was easily able to maintain around 50 km/h and still have a gear or two left. I’d spin out at 65 km/h on downhills. However, that’s plenty fast for me on public roads, I don’t want to end up as an organ donor.
When it comes to climbing gears, it depends on the terrain, but you will be ok, too. If you are running out of gears, I reckon you’ll want to be on a mountain bike anyway.
Personally, I’d likely not even change the cassette and simply have two different tires on the two wheelsets, perhaps a suitable gravel tire for the terrain on one and a 35–38 mm slick on the other.
One thing to take into account with the storage is other people, thanks to my housemates having a few drinks and going skating at midnight without locking doors my lovely Super V went on an adventure to god knows where.
If there’s no club then if it were me I’d take the most suitbale commuting rig, I might even build a single speed just so expensive things are locked up while at lectures. A nice single speed bike is lots of fun, cheep to fix and if the worst happens cheep to replace.
Thankfully, I already have an old beater single speed (thing has the old horn bars), so commuting the literal 50ft from class to class, cause I’m too lazy to walk for 3 minutes, will not be a problem. I wish that was a joke, but they literally advertised “all classes and chow hall within a 5-minute walk. 3 if ur fast”. But I still want to go out and do long days on the weekend and stuff.
Good idea. I mean, it’s not too far from Bentonville, so if you have ever ridden there. I currently run a 46t up front and a 10-44 in the back. Should be fine cause I know the area. The fun question is wich wheelset do I bring? I have 2 to chose from. A windspace Hyper 67. I have 140 on it rn. But just getting a new cassette and rotor, and I got a super fast road crux. It may look stupid with 67mm deep wheels but that implies I don’t already look stupid. Or do I just use the cheap aluminium wheelset I have and buy only a cassette, but have slow, cheap, shallow, heavy wheels? (My dad and I share parts, so what I can use from his stuff vs what I would have to buy prob doesn’t make much sense.)
I am not sure if starting without a bike will be logistical as I have some big events (Little and Big Sugar) that fall. So taking off a week in the middle of a big block might not be possible.
Just take the carbon wheels. Me thinks a Crux with deep wheels looks sexy, not dumb. With disc brakes there is no need IMHO to get a pair of training wheels.
Could be anything depending on what you usually work on on your bike and what’s available around the college. At a minimum, bring what you would on a long ride (mini tool, tire lever, stuff to fix a flat (tube, patches, plugs…). You probably want a floor pump. Most of the tools used to work on a bike don’t take up much room so you could bring a lot: allen and torx wrenches, open end/socket wrenches, pedal wrench, chain breaker, torque wrench and bits, spoke wrenches, tire levers, brake bleed kit, cable cutter, etc… Personally, I always like to have a work stand. You might check around and see what bike shops around and see if there is a bike coop nearby where you could use their shop facilities. Other than that, you could go home to tackle any major job.
Update. So I know this much. I have a 1k budget to prep my cycling-related equipment for college. (not including training, fuel, that fun stuff, just purely equipment). However, I plan to sell my Roval Terra C wheels for around 600 to 700 dollars. This will leave my budget at say 1600 dollars. So here is my plan. I want to see if any of y’all have better ideas.
Buy a set of Farsport 2026 C wheels. 24mm internal rim width. Steel spokes, 1380g (50m depth) for 1200 dollars. This will be my gravel race wheelset for at minimum the next 5 years or until I am no longer in debt. Would I be better off with a set of Zipp 303 Firecrest? I can get them for 1k used. Or is there a better wheelset to upgrade to?
E13 9-45t cassette (and some rotors), this will go on my gravel bike to get me top-end speed for road rides (46t chainring, but I don’t like to spin). This will go on my Windspace Hyper D. (60mm front 67m rear) so I can keep up and roll turns during TNT. (23ish mph avg group ride).
I will have access to my road and MTB. But they will stay at my parents who will live 2 hours away. So if a road race is coming up, I can switch. But my gravel will be my daily driver, Tuesday nights worlds, and everything in between.
What do yall think? Is there something I am not considering? I have spoken to my roommate, and he is willing to put up with my bike and extra set of wheels (we also have a questionable bike garage).
Depends on what tires you tend to run. I like a wider wheel, but I seldom run tires smaller than 50’s. If running 40-45’s, either of those wheels is probably fine, but I’d personally go with the used zipps and use the $200 to replace the crappy stock bearings if they have a bunch of miles on them. My rule for frames, bars, and wheels is to buy from big established brand to minimize the risk of quality issues.
If you already have a 10-44 or 10-46, I’d argue that the 9 tooth is overkill (and less efficient than the 10t). A 10t with 46t ring is good for well over 30mph. I run a 44t ring on my gravel bike and it’s good for steady ~35mph (I run big tires, so that’s basically similar to running a 46 with road tires). If you have to buy a new cassette for a new wheelset, the E-13 probably makes sense, but I’d spend that $ elsewhere if you already have a cassette for both wheels. Or at least try it for a while before pulling the trigger.