Old Bikes, New Bikes

This spring I came into possession of an old bike of mine, a 2007 Felt F1/X cyclocross bike that my wife gave me for my birthday. My brother had been using it for years, and when he moved on to something else, my friend returned home. I’ve been using that old bike for commuting duty the last several weeks and thought it might be worth looking at the ways in which time has marched on by comparing it to my current gravel bike.

Drivetrain. The old cyclocross bike has 10-speed SRAM Rival with gearing appropriate to the time — a close-ratio 36/46 crank up front and an 11-25 cassette in back. My more modern gravel bike has 11-speed SRAM Rival with a 44-tooth crank and an 11/32 cassette. The old bike ratios are 1.44 for climbing, and 4.18 when going real fast. On the modern gravel bike, it’s 1.375 on the low, slow end and 4 on the speedy side. The older bike requires 20 gears to achieve its range; the new one requires 11. I generally prefer the simple life without a front derailleur.

Tires. When I retrieved the cross bike, it had 33mm tires and inner tubes, which made me nervous; I’ve grown accustomed to tubeless and (ahem) don’t regularly carry a spare tube. Miraculously, I have some old tubeless-ready Mavic wheels on the bike — Ksyrium Elites with proprietary spokes that haven’t been produced in a decade. I refer to them as Time Bombs. Now the bike has tubeless 35mm tires that I run about 40 psi. Smooth like butter. The gravel bike has 650b wheels with 47mm tires, and I love that setup. Realistically, tire clearance is the biggest difference between the bikes.

Brakes. During the Kalamazoo Commuter Challenge, I rode the old cross bike home in a downpour. Once in my driveway I grabbed the (cantilever) brakes… and thought that I might be well on my way to punching a hole in the garage door. My gravel bike has hydraulic disc brakes which offer vastly superior stopping power and modulation in all conditions. but they’re neither as light nor as charismatic as the classic Paul cantilevers on the cross bike.

Weight. While I searched for a picture of the cross bike, I weighed ’em. Old bike: 20 lbs, 11 oz. New bike: 20 lbs, 12 oz. Big deal.

As is so often the case, I stated writing this stuff down without a clear idea of where it was going, but I’m not surprised where it ended. My old cross bike is a dandy, but its limitations are clear. I can’t put wider tires on it. I can’t put significantly better brakes on it. I can eek a little more gearing range out of the drivetrain, but not much. The modern bike addresses those issues handily. But how much does it matter? I suppose it depends.