Giant Cima mitts

I haven't written a kit review for ages, mostly because I buy the majority of my bits and bobs secondhand. However, I was in the market for a pair of mitts for commuting, now the weather has turned warmer, and ended up plumping for these Giant Cima short-fingered gloves. So what are they like?

I chose these because I want decent padding, but don't want gel pads. In my experience, they compress and become less effective over time. Your mileage may vary, but they're not for me; I prefer an old-school pad. I've also been spoiled in recent years, using excellent DHB Aeron mitts for all my serious rides. So I expect a lot from a glove.

Mostly, these Giant mitts deliver. They feel very well made, stitching is tidy, and the materials, especially the sweat-wipe thumb, have a quality feel. The all-important padding is firm but comfortable and, for me at least, in exactly the right places. Even the price - £14.99 plus P&P at the time of writing - feels alright for a branded product. And although they do an all-black variant, I went against type and bought the black and white colourway shown, complete with reflective branding across the knuckles. Can't hurt to be better seen, right? So why only four stars?

It's the sizing. I have always worn a Large in cycling gloves and, after consulting the Giant size chart, saw no reason to change that. These, though, are ironically not giant. In fact, they may be the tightest Large mitts I have ever tried. They are just wearable enough for me not to return them, but they are very hard to get off, being so tight. In fact, I had to roll them off this morning, so that they ended up inside-out. This wasn't helped by a complete absence of any pull-tabs to help remove the gloves, which seems like quite a basic oversight these days.

TLDR: these are good quality, nice looking gloves at a fair price, but size up! Consult the chart, then order one size up from whatever that says. And if you have ham-hands, maybe look elsewhere... ★★★★☆

BUY: Cima mitts, currently £14.99 from Giant

Full disclosure: I bought these with my own money. If anyone wants to give me kit in exchange for an honest review, I'm open to that, but unless I explicitly say otherwise everything I review on here will be sourced and paid for by yours truly.

Life in the old dog yet?

You may have seen me refer to The Tank™ on here before. Well, here it is:

The only thing older and more clapped out than this bike is its rider.

For clarity, this is a Saracen Rufftrax that I bought new from Halfords in Folkestone, Kent, all the way back in 1995, for the princely sum (then) of £199.99 - as you can see, it is not all original (that's a padded but very comfortable Wittkop saddle from middle-Lidl, of all places, and Giant bar-ends, for starters) but is, for the most part, the same bike I did the 1996 London to Brighton bike ride on, incredibly.

It was starting to feel very tired though. Last October, I had to bite the bullet and find some new shifters, because I just couldn't change gear any more. I managed to find an as-new compatible Shimano set, still boxed, from an Ebayer in the US who bought them for his kids' MTBs years ago, never used them and then rediscovered them at the back of his garage. Result. They went on and suddenly I could change gear again. I put a new rear mech on at the same time.

I also upgraded the brakes, which felt like a more significant change because it meant a move away from period correctness - I swapped out the old cantilever brakes and fitted V brakes instead. I can stop a bit better now (though the gain is marginal).

I've been using The Tank™ all through the winter for commuting, which is why it's in the state it was at the weekend, propped up against the table tennis table in the back garden. But having spent time and money keeping it usable, money that could easily have bought something half-decent (and modern) on the used market, I suddenly realised that I have committed to keeping the old beast on the road. And that, having made concessions to modernisation with the change of brakes, the shackles were off in terms of other modifications.

Let's be clear, although it's technically a mountain bike, most of the time it's on the road, just in bad weather. So the fact that it weighs a tonne is an issue. Okay, not a tonne ... but I picked it up with a fairly accurate luggage scale on Saturday and it clocked 14.5kg. That's a lot, and needs to change. However, I also don't want to spend a lot on the bike. It doesn't owe me anything, but I have other bikes that I'd rather spend money improving. So, my goal is to see if there's life in the old bike yet, but do so without spending too much... and this is how I started at the weekend:

⮜	OFF:	Wittkop Medicus MTB saddle	-	430g
⮞	ON:	Giant Performance Road saddle	No cost (had it spare in the garage)	340g
⮜	OFF:	Saracen OEM alloy handlebar	-	416g
⮞	ON:	USE Atom carbon handlebar	£44.49 on Ebay	135g
⮜	OFF:	Giant Contact SL bar-ends	-	158g
⮞	ON:	Houson R15 bar-ends	No cost (freebie)	64g
⮜	OFF:	A leftover bolt from the old cantilever brakes	-	5g
Total weight saving:				460g

In other words, I battered the weight-saving rule of 1g/£, by a factor of 10! Hanging it back on the luggage scale returned a figure of 14.1kg though, so there's still work to do...

As luck would have it, The Tank™ needs new tyres. Because it is mostly used on the road, for commuting in inclement weather, I plan to downsize from 26 x 2.00 to 26 x 1.75. I'll be sticking with Schwalbe Land Cruiser Plus though, as they've served me brilliantly. The tyres have been ordered, I'll post here again when they've arrived and I've put them on. Maybe there'll be an "after" photo too, to go with the "before" above. I also plan to save a few cheap grammes with a new bottle cage. Whoop-de-doo, right?

Saddles... before and after

As part of the continued bargain bike challenge, I picked up a new saddle on ebay for a third of RRP. So here's a gratuitous before and after.

Before: Giant Performance Road saddle (OEM)

After: Selle Italia SLR Kit Carbonio Flow saddle with carbon rails

As you can see, according to the Kitchen Scales of Inaccuracy^TM, swapping out my saddle has saved me 209g - a weight reduction equal to very nearly five KitKats. And okay, I've yet to complete a long ride on the new saddle, but a very unscientific test (poking with my thumbs) suggests it is better padded than the saddle I did LEJOG on, so fingers crossed.

Worth the weight?

I wrote last time about changing the project bike's wheelset, specifically swapping out the stock 2016 Giant SR-2 alloy clinchers with a pair of Mavic Aksium Elite hoops that I'd sourced secondhand.

Well, I haven't done the back wheel yet, as I'm waiting for a new lockring tool to be delivered, but the results are in for the front wheel. And they are, truth be told, a little underwhelming.

The weight of the front Aksium Elite, bare except for rim-tape and skewer, registered as 882g on the Kitchen Scales of Inaccuracy^TM. The Giant SR-2 front wheel, in the same bare state, clocked in at 910g. So a weight saving, sure ... but 28g isn't much. I must admit to feeling a little disappointed. Part of the reason for this is that Giant make it very hard to find weight information for anything they sell, whether that's a stem, a wheelset or a whole bike, to the extent that you're reliant on reviews to find any weight data. Unsurprisingly, I hadn't been able to find any reviews of a six year old wheelset, just this comment on Reddit that gave the weight of the front wheel as 930g.

Anyway, it's not all bad news. Since I had the wheel off and the scales out, I weighed both skewers separately too. The Mavic skewer showed as 60g, the Giant at 56g. So the Giant skewer went on with the Mavic wheel. Another 4g saved.

I also took the opportunity to fit a light weight inner tube whilst I was at it, specifically a Schwalbe Extra Light. My size of choice is the 18c-25c with 50mm Presta valve, so I can tell you that size weighs in at 76g. As for the Vavert that came out of the tyre, well, it's quite hard to fit a deflated, user tube on some kitchen scales ... the only reading I managed to get was 125g. I'm not convinced that's right but, if it was, I made more of a weight saving changing an inner tube than I did replacing a wheel...

Oh, and since prospective Giant owners have to rely on bloggers and reviewers for weight data, let me reiterate the following:

A 2016 Giant SR-2 front wheel, bare except from rim-tape and skewer, weighs 910g.

The skewer that comes with a 2016 Giant SR-2 front wheel weighs 56g.

It's unlikely, but I hope that helps someone.

Wheel-y exciting

So, I wrote last time that the stock Giant SR-2 wheels on the project bike are fine and run true but seem heavy - you can certainly feel them when you try to spin up to speed quickly (like cresting a hill, for example).

Decent, light, robust wheels are expensive though, and I'm trying to build something half decent on a budget. So what to do?

What to do is act fast when you see something half-decent being sold secondhand, that's what.

That said, time will tell whether I've been wise, lucky or foolish but, for now, let me just report that I saw a Mavic Aksium Elite wheelset going secondhand, lightly used and in good condition, for £100. And I jumped in.

For comparison, the SR-2 wheelset run out at 2,130g for the pair, bare apart from rim-tape. The claimed weight for the Aksium Elite is 1,735g. So not super light but, in theory, offering very nearly a 400g weight reduction that will hopefully translate to better acceleration. And who knows, I might even save a gram or two on the skewers :)

I haven't fitted them yet though, so we'll see. I'm waiting on a delivery of a new tyre for the back wheel because, as I've mentioned before, the existing tyre has been flattened, presumably by lots of turbo trainer mileage. All I can tell you for now is that they have very cool bladed spokes. Other than that, watch this space to see how the new wheels (and tyre) go, and if I can feel the weight difference afterwards.

As a footnote, I should add that Mavic don't make the Aksium Elite any more. I'm hoping the fact that it had such a short shelf-life is all to do with the trend towards wheels for disc brakes, and the fact that the clincher market could no longer support both the Aksium and Aksium Elite, and nothing to do with some design flaw or inherent crappiness. I guess we'll find out...

Project bike green run

You'll remember from last time that I've bought a project bike for £200 rather than spending upwards of £2k on something new and fancy. My goal is, through judicious upgrades, to turn it into something to rival at least the Boardman SLR 8.9 105, the cheapest bike (at £1,150) on my original "What should I buy?" post. I'm calling this the Bargain Bike Challenge. Anyway, here's the bike as bought - the only thing I've done to it thus far is raise the saddle:

I say only but even that was a bit of a job - the composite D-Fuse seatpost is not round in cross-section but, as the name suggests, D-shaped, which means you can't really twist it to get it out if it proves stiff ... which it certainly did. I was just about to break out some form of lube, in the hope that I could channel some down into the seatpost, when it finally budged. Anyway, let's not digress. So this is the bike, a 2016 Giant Defy 2, in mostly original condition, as far as I can tell. The only thing that might not be original are these brakes which, correct me if I'm wrong, don't look like the original Tektro set that were on the spec sheet. Indeed, these are unbranded, and are shod with solid blocks rather than cartridge brake shoes. Having been out for a green run over the weekend, I can report that these are not very good at all, and will be getting replaced at the earliest opportunity.

The other thing to notice from the picture above is the state of the tyre. Now the project bike has come to me shod with Continental Gatorskins (great) but the back one, as you can see, is very worn. Indeed, it is worn flat, in a manner that suggests it has either been run woefully under-inflated or, more likely, has spent a fair time on a turbo trainer. Either way, new tyres will also be high on my list of things to do early doors.

What else? Well, I can tell you from my green run pootle around the village (in figure of eight loops, to even out the effect of head- and tailwinds, of course) is that the gearing is okay, and well indexed. Yes, it's only 2x10 Shimano Tiagra, 50/34 at the front and 11-32 at the back. But look, there's a long cage there, which provides some scope should I want to make incremental changes in the future. I think my ultimate aim, budgetary constraints permitting, is 2x11 105 or Ultegra, with 11-34 at the back, but that's a bigger job, for further down the line. Maybe I could experiment with 52/36 at the front too, although I fear this may be beyond the financial limits of the project. Just as well, then, that for now, at least, I'm happy to report that the Tiagra set-up here works well, and certainly well enough to see off a lot more miles. Plenty of life in that cassette yet, I hope.

Another thing you can see quite well in this photo is the stock Giant SR-2 wheelset. Again, I can happily report that both front and rear run pretty true, so there's no urgent imperative to swap them out. They are quite heavy though, and you can feel that when you try to spin up to speed quickly (like cresting a hill, for example). So in time I will look to replace them if I can find something equally robust but significantly lighter without blowing the budget. That just might be the biggest challenge of all. Either way, it's something I'd probably only do when I was ready to change the cassette too ... and that's a little way off yet.

The other obvious take-home from taking the project bike out for a green run is that I'm not going to be immediately comfortable on it, even though the saddle has been raised to something like the right height. Sure, it is basically a comfy machine, with a supportive saddle, a well-padded (if slightly ragged) handlebar, good damping from the seatpost and fork, and more. But I think I might need to shift the saddle back a little, and there are changes needed in the cockpit, for me - the stem is only 100mm, and I think I might benefit from 110. Plus the pitch is perhaps too low - I might start by flipping it over and seeing if that feels any better.

And whilst we're on the subject of stems, why, oh why, do Giant bikes of this age appear to have a coffin shape around their stem logo? Hardly inspires confidence in the exposed road cyclist, does it? Ride fast and die!

Of course, the other painfully obvious finding from the green run is that I have to adjust and get comfortable (and confident) too - I haven't ridden a drop-bar on the road since 1992, and it really shows. I'm depressingly timid around corners and in descents, and that'll have to change; after all, there's no point building a rocket if I ride it tamely.

So, the post green run verdict? Well, it's not a bad little bike, as it stands. My first priority is to swap the brake calipers for something better, and then to clock up some confidence-building miles. Check back here again to see how that goes...

The Bargain Bike Challenge ... or #bargainbikechallenge if you prefer

You may recall that I wrote recently about wanting to buy a new road bike and, specifically, comparing the options. Turns out that it's a fraught business - I have quite a specific list of requirements (light, fast, endurance-focused, hill-friendly gear ratios and aesthetically pleasing, to name but five). Indeed, the conclusion I came to was that the bike that best met my needs was the one most out of my price range ... and even that wasn't a perfect match.

Speaking of a price range ... yes, I accept that to some spending upwards of £2k on a bike is chump change but the reality of all this is that I am a middle-aged man on a modest salary, with a family to support, a mortgage to pay and a somewhat limited amount of disposable income for non-essentials. In other words, I can't really justify £2k on a bike. In fact, forget really, I can't justify it at all, or even the £1,150 current list price of the most affordable bike on my shortlist (the Boardman SLR 8.9 105).

So, what to do, what to do, what to do ...

What to do, it turns out, is comb the used bike market until you find a bargain that, with careful upgrades and judicious spending, can be transformed into something the equal of that Boardman, but without spending £1,150 ... of course! And so (drumroll please) begins the Bargain Bike Challenge! Or #bargainbikechallenge if you prefer.

The first, and arguably hardest, part of the challenge is finding the right starting point, a semi-decent used bike at an affordable price. Immediately I had to forsake the idea of a carbon frame - a carbon fork is the best I could do. Turns out that I also had to forsake a Shimano 105 or higher groupset, and internal cable routing. And note my earlier requirements about the bike being aesthetically pleasing. Anything that looked ugly was immediately discounted. And why, oh why, are so many used bikes black, white and red? If I wanted a bike that looked like a teenage boy's duvet cover from the mid-80s, well, I'd be spoiled for choice. But most of my cycling gear is blue or black with blue accents, and these things are important...

The upshot of all this is that I've just bought a secondhand bike - yes, today is n+1 day!

After a long search, I managed to find a 2016 Giant Defy 2 in metallic blue. Originally it was up for £350 but had been reduced to £275. I offered £200, on the basis that I'd had to travel a bit to get it (not too much though, under an hour) ... and to my surprise the offer was accepted.

So what have I got to work with? Well, the 2016 Defy 2 would have cost £799 when it was new - that equates to about £900 in today's money. Now even the most basic Defy in the current Giant range is £2,099 but then it's a very different beast these days - all carbon frame and disc brakes for a start. So perhaps a fairer comparison would be ... well, that's tricky, because of the current vogue for disc brakes. Maybe the Contend SL 1, albeit that has 11-speed 105. But it's close enough otherwise, and would cost £1,299; that's the kind of ballpark my new bike, henceforth the project bike, will have to operate in.

Of course I did my research before offering up my cash. This review, from the ever-reliable BikeRadar, proved very instructive, even though it was for an earlier incarnation of the bike. This article from Road Cycling UK also gave some good contemporaneous background.

My first impressions of the bike, having just ridden it to the end of the road and back? Well, it's completely stock, as per original spec, for starters, so that's 2x10 Tiagra with 50/34 on the front and 11-32 on the rear. It could benefit from some lighter wheels at some point, and a definite brake upgrade, replacing the unbranded block brake set-up with some cartridge-based calipers. New bar tape is a given, as is putting on my lighter saddle. I need to be a bit more scientific with weight reduction than I was on my current road bike though, as I made the front-end of that so light it got a bit skittish under fast cornering. But swapping the saddle out will probably save 150g at the rear, and that's no bad thing. Oh, and I'll put my SPD pedals on to replace the current flat pedals, of course.

Talking of scientific, I used the time-honoured method of standing on the bathroom scales with and without the project bike to determine that its baseline weight, pedals on, is 9.6kg - 600g more than the Boardman I aspire to rival. Still, I can work with that.

Bottom line: after comparing all those lovely carbon bikes that cost upwards of £1,150, I ended up buying a six year old mostly alloy bike for £200 instead, and called it a project. Watch this space to see what I do with it, and whether the project is a success or abject failure ... after all, what could possibly go wrong?

When the bike was new, it looked exactly like this ... just look at those dropped seat stays ...

Difficult choices ... or, the pain of buying a new bike

I am in the market for a new bike. My road bike is, after all, 15 years old, and there's a limit to how far I can take it, however many parts I replace and upgrade. And whilst old faithful got me through LEJOG with no major issues, there were plenty of times I wished I'd had a faster, lighter, more comfortable and better equipped bike. In other words, it's time for a new bike, before I take on any other serious challenges.

Of course, to achieve a significant upgrade on what I've already got, I'm going to have to spend a fair amount ... but I don't have the budget to go crazy. Anything less than a grand will be no better than my current set-up; anything more than two grand will be out of my reach.

There are other considerations too, of course. I've spent a lot of time, effort and money making my current bike light - it's 8.3kg, pedals on. So any new bike needs to be light too. Then there's gearing - I currently have a 2x9 set-up, with 50-34 at the front and 11-30 at the back. To improve on that set-up, I'd like 2x10 or 2x11, so there's less of a jump between cogs, and in an ideal world a 32-tooth big ring at the back would be good. The next time I go up Bannerdown or the Lecht, I don't want to have to get off and walk any part of them.

Another requirement, and one that I haven't really bottomed out, is brakes - everyone says disc brakes are better, and certainly they were the popular choice on LEJOG. Coming down the Lecht in torrential rain, I had both my rim brakes fully on and was still doing in excess of 30mph, which could be described as a bit too lively, if I'm honest. But disc brakes add weight and, to this old-school home mechanic, maintenance complexity. Sure, they stop better in heavy rain, but how often do I cycle in really heavy rain?

There are other considerations too. I'm old and stiff, so I'm looking for something with an endurance geometry, rather than anything too racey. Oh, and because I'm shallow, there are cosmetic considerations - I have to like how it looks, and the colour has to fit with my cycling clothes, helmet and shoes.

So ... lots to think about. I've narrowed the options down to these four, across the spread of my budget, and have subjected to them all to my patented PCI analysis, below. That's Pro's, Con's and Interesting things.

The budget option Boardman SLR 8.9 105 - £1,100 from Halfords
	Pro's Carbon forks and frame ... ... at that price! Mostly 105 groupset 2x11 with 11-30 cassette Looks and colour Upgrade potential	Con's Long-reach brakes hard to upgrade meaningfully 9kg ... ... so upgrading would be inevitable It's not all 105	Interesting Attracts some Halfords-related brand snobbery, but I don't give a monkeys about that.
There's a strong case for the Boardman - it's a lot of bike for the money. The slightly high weight and mish-mash of compenents mean I'd want to upgrade bits straight away - the wheels and saddle first, but also the seatpost, stem and handlebars potentially. Suddenly it's not so cheap. But I could use the wheels, saddle and stem from my current road bike, to offset that. The result would be an 8kg flyer! So what's stopping me? Well, I'm not sure on the brakes - Tektro long-reach, undoubtedly fine but, if I'm going to stick with rim brakes, I'd like something sharper and lighter, and that's hard to find when you're restricted to long-reach.
The mainstream choice Giant TCR Advanced 2 - £1,999 from Giant
	Pro's 7.9kg Clean, simple aesthetic 105 groupset 2x11 with 11-30 cassette Carbon seatpost 52-36 at the front is great for speed Upgrade potential Available with 0% finance	Con's Two grand and still only rim brakes? Slightly racey geometry	Interesting 52-36 at the front might mean I'd need bigger than 30 at the back Is it over-priced?
I've seen this reviewed recently as "the best rim-braked bike you can buy today", the logic being that anything better inevitably has disc brakes. Also, my current road bike is a Giant, and has served me well since 2006, which inspires confidence and brand loyalty. I could shave even more weight off by putting my current saddle on, and adding an unused set of Ultegra brakes I've got; I'd probably want to upgrade the wheels too, though that would be far from an immediate necessity. What might be a concern on big hills is that 52-36 crank at the front, as that only gives a hill-climbing ratio of 1.2 when coupled with 11-30 at the rear ... my current bottom gear is 1.13, and that wasn't enough for some LEJOG hills. But how often do I have to contend with hills like that?
The bang for buck Vitus Zenium CRS - £1,899 from Wiggle
	Pro's Mostly Ultegra 2x11 with 11-32 cassette Disc brakes 8.19kg Carbon seatpost Endurance geometry Striking paint-job Deep, lightweight wheelset Available with 0% finance	Con's Availability issues?	Interesting Recent 5% price cut suggests this is a "clearance" item - will it continue, or be replaced?
On the face of it, this is a tremendous bargain. It has pretty much everything I'm looking for, is light (and could be made lighter still if I put my current saddle on), would give me Ultegra hydraulic disc brakes for downhill confidence and, with that (non-groupset) 11-32 cassette, a low gear ratio of 1.06, so no more getting off for hideous hills. So what's not to like? Well, it's only sold through Wiggle and Chain Reaction, availability is scarce (currently only available in XL), and a 5% price cut at Wiggle (not replicated at Chain Reaction) seems odd in the current climate, and suggests to me that it is "end of life". If I could get one, great. But that doesn't look very likely at present. And even if I could, should I wait to see if a new version is coming soon?
The left-field choice Van Rysel Ultra CF - £2,229 from Decathlon
	Pro's Full Ultegra 2x11 with 11-28 cassette Mavic Cosmic carbon wheelset 7.6kg Deda Zero 2 handlebar and stem Won't see many of these in the peloton	Con's A lot to pay for a rim brake bike Only a 28T big ring at the back Racey geometry	Interesting Van Rysel is a Decathlon own-brand, so again attracts snobbery
Buying a less heralded brand is a double-edged sword - sure, you lack the cachet but you also avoid the ubiquity. And this is a superlight piece of kit, and could be made even lighter with the addition of my existing saddle and stem, whilst the alloy handlebar would be a candidate for a future upgrade, and then you'd be starting towards the UCI weight limit (not that I go racing). All that aside, this does feel like a lot of pay for a bike with rim brakes; if they were essential, would the 105-spec Giant be a better buy? Because, let's not forget, this exceeds my two grand price cap.
The cat's pyjamas Canyon Endurance CF 8 - £2,249 from Canyon
	Pro's Full Ultegra 2x11 with 11-34 cassette Disc brakes Carbon seatpost Endurance geometry Available with 0% finance Looks the cat's pyjamas in Canyon blue or matt grey	Con's Slightly heavy at 8.38kg Exceeds my budget slightly So desirable, would I be scared to leave it locked up anywhere?	Interesting Has a set of top tube rivets, allowing a top tube box to be securely mounted.
Okay, so it exceeds my budget, but only by a bit, and it can be paid for in six instalments, interest free. And yes, it's a bit heavier than the Vitus, but if I put my saddle and stem on it would immediately shed 200g, so ... Besides, just look at it. A thing of beauty, and with a low gear ratio of 1 to boot.

So I have a lot to think about, and some tough choices to make, the first of which is should I even be thinking about this, at a time when inflation is spiralling, the cost of living is soaring and fuel prices are through the roof. Even the budget option feels a bit extravagant, when I have a serviceable, if ageing (and creaky), bike. Hmm... anyway, your question is: