You can read about my early years of cycling here. After those early years I had a hiatus from cycling of about 20 years. This was due to a combination of having more of an interest in cars and also the narrow garage at home not being conducive to storing a bike in a way where it was quick/easy to get it in and out. I still kept the Marin mountain bike I’d bought post-university though as it was still in good working order but it languished in a bike locker at work and then the attic.
Then, a few years ago, myself and my partner moved to a residential suburb of Oxford. We ended up with another house with a garage so keeping the Marin wasn’t an issue and we had enough room on the drive way to not need to keep the car in the garage. I actually didn’t have any particular plan to start cycling again following the move but after a few months of exploring the immediate area on foot both for food shopping and wildlife photography (plus finding the bus route into the city centre being less than ideal) I decided to give cycling another go.
Marin Bobcat Trail – It Still Lives!
At that point it had been 10+ years since the Marin had last seen any use and about 20 years since I’d last ridden it properly. The condition still seemed pretty good – the frame paint was a little bit marked, but mechanically it still seemed decent. I pumped up the tyres (still original), checked the brakes worked, greased the chain and gave it a tentative short ride through a quiet housing estate just to see how wobbly I was. I had been doing 1-2 mile runs daily at that point so I wasn’t unfit, but I didn’t have cycling fitness and my bike balance was out of practice so although the ride went ok I wasn’t entirely comfortable riding one handed. I figured I’d quickly get back my balance and so I started doing regular short rides, often to local supermarkets with a backpack to shop for food.
During the first couple of rides I noticed the brakes sounded very rough. Naturally, given it’s age, it’s a rim brake bicycle and the brake blocks were still the originals. The rubber compound had gone very hard in the 25+ years since I bought the bike and so they were basically removing rim material – fresh brake blocks easily sorted that! It was also on the original nobbly tyres so since I would mainly be doing road cycling I got some more road-oriented tyres which had the added bonus of making the bike feel way more stable for one handed/no-handed riding (it had never occurred to me the tyres could have that effect).
Over the course of the next year I made some additions: mudguards, pannier rack, road-oriented saddle, strapless toe-clips. I also got a second set of wheels as the hubs on the originals became noisy – they had never been serviced and I didn’t want to risk trying to service them myself without having another set of wheels on hand in case I screwed up (I did then manage to service them ok). We had some icy conditions during my first winter of getting back into cycling and with memories from my paper-round days of how dicey it is cycling in icy conditions I also picked up some new-old-stock studded winter tyres (which very noisy on paved surfaces, but gave confidence that I won’t risk fracturing my wrists if the temperatures drop below zero).
Despite having subsequently acquired other bikes I’m intending to keep the Marin for now for winter duties (ideal with those studded tyres still for icy conditions and also to spare newer bikes road salt) and because its slightly tatty paintwork and age mean it’s at lower risk of theft than my newer bikes when I need to cycle into the city centre (and relatively cheap to replace with another old tatty MTB if it did get nicked).
Going Hybrid – Pinnacle Neon Two
Having gotten back into cycling with the Marin I gradually started increasing the length of pleasure rides over the course of the next year as I explored around Oxford by bicycle. The Marin wasn’t ideal for longer distances though – the weight and geometry of it made the rides harder work and of a less comfortable riding position than they would be on something more road-oriented. Because I was enjoying cycling so much I thought it worth spending a little to get something more modern and a little better suited to longer distances. Since my cycling routes still included some rough ground, such as unpaved sections of the Thames Path, I figured a hybrid bike (flat bar, relatively relaxed geometry) made sense rather than a drop-bar road bike.
I kept an eye on online marketplace adverts for a month for anything suitable locally but nothing quite right was coming up (the closest was a Marin Larkspur but rust on the cassette concerned me about its mechanical condition). I then found a local-ish bike seller who actually had three bikes that might be suitable so I popped over to see him, tried the three out, and came back with a 2015 Pinnacle Neon Two.
As hybrids go the Neon Two leans a little more towards the flat-bar road bike style of hybrid which means the riding position isn’t as upright nor are the bars as wide or shaped as some hybrids. It’s also fitted with a Claris 2×8 drivetrain and flat bar shifters, where I’ve seen quite a few hybrids tending towards mountain-bike-esque 3-by groupsets.
In terms of how it rode – I could feel the difference compared to the Marin straight away – less effort and much more comfortable. The Claris drivetrain shifted nicely and was lovely and smooth. Thanks to the increased comfort for longer rides I gradually extended the distance I was riding until I was regularly cycling to places 10 miles away (Witney and Woodstock being among the regular destinations).
The Neon Two already had a pannier rack fitted, which was handy. The tyres were very road-oriented though (and a bit cheap and thin) so I got some slightly wider Schwalbe Marathon tyres for better grip on rougher surfaces (and better puncture-resistance) and I also fitted mudguards for winter.
Unfortunately, after less than a year of owning, it a careless driver knackered it. You can read about the accident and my next bicycle here.