Soma GR - Feedback from Actual Users
John Hawrylak
cdshar...@gmail.com
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions that I can try to answer.
shawn b
Harald Kliems
On Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 6:19:37 PM UTC-5, John Hawrylak wrote:
Seriously considering 55cm Soma Grand Randonneur. I would appreciate any feedback from the actual users.* Did the Soma GR fulfill what you wanted??
* What doe s it do well??
* Are you happy with its ride and "planing' ability??
* Any regrets??
* Any problems with a rear load other than a saddlebag hung from the saddle
satanas
* Did the Soma GR fulfill what you wanted??
No, not even slightly. It did sort of do the job, but with maximum aggro and minimum enjoyment.
* What does it do well??
Nothing, except shimmy. :-(
* Are you happy with its ride and "planing' ability??
No, the ride was excessively hard due to the overkill forks and seatstays, only made acceptable by the low pressure 42mm tyres. The bike did not plane for me at all, but at the same time shimmied horribly, so the worst of both worlds - unstable and a harsh ride.
* Any regrets??
Plenty! It's the first bike owned or ridden in ~40 years where I actively hated both the ride and handling; I wasn't able to find anything the GR did well. Look elsewhere, or at least do not buy without test riding; if you don't like the handling at first, do not assume you'll adjust, or get used to it - I never did.
* Any problems with a rear load other than a saddlebag hung from the saddle?
Didn't try this, but given the very strong shimmy tendencies above ~28km/h with just a front load (with a needle bearing headset) I'm sure mayhem would have been the result.
I say stay well away unless you manage a successful test ride and really like the bike.
NB: It may be that I just don't get on with low trail, as a framebuilder checked it out and said it handled "as one would expect." However, that IMHO doesn't excuse or explain the shimmy, or general lack of stability or predictability at any speed or with any load. Things were somewhat better with another fork with less offset (45 instead of 31mm trail), though still a long way from good.
Later,
Stephen
Mark
Mark
Nick Favicchio
I did the 2015 Oregon Outback on the bike.
More pics...
I liked it as a touring bike with big tires. It wasn't very spritely, the frame felt stiff but it was super easy to build and ride. It put everything in the right place. I decked mine out with 2" 650b tires which fit up front w/ the v1 fork crown but to fit out back required some frame crimping :).
I'd say the most fun I've ever had on a bike was on this thing riding across Oregon with a gaggle of weirdos.
Eric Daume
Eric
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Stephen Poole
Certainly the 55cm V1 had standard sized main tubes, though the seatstays were huge, and the fork blades must have been heavy gauge; they never flexed visibly despite lots of rake.
erick
my soma GR v.1 61cm have standar size tubing.
i would recomend to "go bigger" one ore maybe two sizes bigger than you normally ride, the reach of the frame does not increment much size to size (392mm for the 55, 395mm for the 58 and 398mm for the 61) and you will have a bike with less seatpost show and higher handlebar whitout raising to much the stem geting a much more pleasent look ...
i normaly ride 58 frame and whit the soma i get the 61. sometime im very tempted to get another frameset and re-weld the canti bosses to fit 26x2.3 tires, i think they could fit and transform the bike to a enduro all road.
Stephen Poole
Re sizing: My 55cm V1 had a rather short uncut steerer tube, allowing only a small amount of spacers, so when the higher trail fork was built the steerer was made slightly longer by ~10mm to allow a slightly higher bar. This wouldn't be an issue if using a tall stem like a Technomic, but I used a 3T stem with a somewhat shorter quill.
This was a surprise, given most bikes these days come with threadless steerers, with plenty of extra length for adjustments. I've cut down threaded forks in the past, but there wasn't even enough extra with the GR to fit a Tanaka decaleur.
Later,
Stephen
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Harry Watson
I've been riding a 58 v2 for a year or so, and I reckon it's about a 7/10. Which is pretty good for such a cheap frame I think. I use GB Hetres or Compass SBH.
In response to your questions:
1. Yes and no, but I think I had slightly unrealistic, or hopeful expectations. I wanted an all-road bike because I live on a farm, and I've got a minimum of 5km of rough roads and gravel before I see tarmac. The GR is fine for this stuff w/o a load on, but really not suited for loaded gravel touring. Having said that, I used it for the 3000km Tour Aotearoa, but there was some serious underbiking involved, and I'm onto my third fork...
2. It's a nice lively workhorse that I don't have to worry about thrashing. It feels just about as fast as my steel road bike, but I get a lot fewer pinch flats on the gravel, and I can really push it on the descents. I like the low-trail thang. I pretty much always have a rando bag with a minimum of kilo or two of gear/snax etc in it though.
3. I don't think it planes. Planing remains a bit of a mystery to me though. It definitely can shimmy at high speed, especially with low-riders, but roller bearing headset does seem to reduce this. It's not bad enough to be an issue.
4. No regrets, it's been a lot of fun. I regret hitting a wallaby on it actually, it was expensive and I'll never be a back model now.
5. I put a Carradice Camper long flap with about 5kg in it on as an experiment and it was so noodly I abandoned that idea immediately.
Hope that helps,
Harry
satanas
The only thing which helped much was a new fork with ~14mm less offset/more trail; the bike only shimmied once with the new fork, but that was once too much for my liking.
I'm inclined to think there was some sort of horrible synergy between the huge fork offset (70mm measured), minimum trail (31mm as calculated from actual measured geometry), and stiff fork blades combined with an overly flexible head tube/top tube; these could be seen and felt to flex with front panniers when making sharp turns at low speed.
If you don't care about planing, aren't planning on carrying front panniers and actually like shimmy then I guess the GR isn't so bad...
Later,
Stephen
Nick Bull
I've ridden 9500 miles (including PBP twice) on my other low-trail bike, which is a Gunnar Sport with S&S couplers and a custom Waterford fork (rake = 73 resulting in trail of 29 and flop of 8.3--almost identical to the GR). The Gunnar never shimmies, either. Chris King headset.
Almost all of the Gunnar miles have been randonneuring miles. But I did do a hundred-mile tour with low-rider panniers, which made the handling rock-solid, stable, and perfectly intuitive. I haven't tried the GR with panniers.
The Gunnar planes slightly better than the Soma GR, but it's just slight. Really only detectable in head-to-head climbing tests where the Gunnar outperforms the GR.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/650b/Oebx_ObeCVw/I1xOs9tOFzIJ;context-place=forum/650b
So my experience with the GR and with low-trail bikes in general is the pretty-much the exact opposite of Stephen's. I love low trail, he hates it. I don't understand why he hates it, but then I'm sure he doesn't understand why I love it! FWIW, I also have several medium-trail and high-trail bikes including my Rambouillet with trail of 57. The Gunnar's trail was originally 62 before the custom fork. Since I like to use a handlebar bag, and since it's almost impossible to ride no-handed on a high-trail bike with a handlebar bag, I much prefer the low-trail geometry. Plus, low-trail geometry means I'm not constantly fighting the steering, which is particularly important on climbs where you have to stand up, particularly near the end of a 1000km or 1200km ride where you're pretty tired and pretty beat up.
FWIW, to the original posters question ... The Gunnar is my travel bike and I prefer to ride it only when I'm traveling or on a special event (1000 or longer) so that I don't wear out the components and then discover before a long trip that I can't take it because it needs too much work. Plus the Gunnar has slightly-higher-end components than the GR. So the GR is my regular rando bike. And it is just fine for regular rando. If I had had an extra $500 when I bought it, I'd have gotten a Boulder Bikes Allroad, and I think that would have had a ride more comparable to the Gunnar. But I didn't and still don't have an extra $500 so I'm fine with the GR for all my regular riding.
Nick
Stephen Poole
On 2 Nov 2016 3:18 am, "Nick Bull" <nick.bi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've ridden 8400 miles on my Soma GR (58cm, first generation). It never shimmies. Headset was a Miche needle-bearing for most of those miles, but now is an IRD "Need'l Blaster Roll'r Drive" (needle bearings on the bottom; ball bearings on the top).
>
> I've ridden 9500 miles (including PBP twice) on my other low-trail bike, which is a Gunnar Sport with S&S couplers and a custom Waterford fork (rake = 73 resulting in trail of 29 and flop of 8.3--almost identical to the GR). The Gunnar never shimmies, either. Chris King headset.
If we're going to talk about PBP, I've ridden two on ~55mm trail and 700c, and two on low trail, one on the GR with fork #2 (45mm trail) and the other on an AM (32-369, 30something trail). The 700c bikes needed the least mental effort. Before the fork change (with 31mm trail) the GR was generally unstable and liked to shimmy, plus I found holding a line extremely challenging, especially trying to draft someone when tired; IME *all* aspects of handling at any speed and with any load improved with the second fork, thankfully fitted before PBP. (And yes, the original fork was aligned correctly.) The AM had a fairing and did not like sidewind gusts at all, but was fast in the headwinds; 17" wheels do not increase stability.
It seems to me that some people find turning or manoeuvring hard work, and like low trail as this makes the bike more responsive/less stable, while others (like me) prefer the bike *not* to change direction unless firmly directed to do so(!). I figure 99% of the time one is going straight ahead, so reducing the effort to do that makes sense to me. YMMV. And yes, I do like descending at high speed, and don't find this difficult on bikes with normal steering geometry - at least they don't tend to shimmy.
> Almost all of the Gunnar miles have been randonneuring miles. But I did do a hundred-mile tour with low-rider panniers, which made the handling rock-solid, stable, and perfectly intuitive. I haven't tried the GR with panniers.
>
> The Gunnar planes slightly better than the Soma GR, but it's just slight. Really only detectable in head-to-head climbing tests where the Gunnar outperforms the GR.
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/650b/Oebx_ObeCVw/I1xOs9tOFzIJ;context-place=forum/650b
>
> So my experience with the GR and with low-trail bikes in general is the pretty-much the exact opposite of Stephen's. I love low trail, he hates it. I don't understand why he hates it, but then I'm sure he doesn't understand why I love it!
^ The reason why I didn't like 31mm trail on the GR is that IMO it did nothing better than a bike with 55-60mm trail, plus many things aggravated me (ie shimmy) and/or required more effort - much more concentration was needed to ride in a straight line or follow a wheel, responses to steering inputs were overly sudden, etc. With 45mm trail things were much better WRT handling, but the ride quality was still fairly dire, certainly no better than my old 531 Pro road frame with 23mm tyres, and possibly worse. :-(
> FWIW, I also have several medium-trail and high-trail bikes including my Rambouillet with trail of 57. The Gunnar's trail was originally 62 before the custom fork. Since I like to use a handlebar bag, and since it's almost impossible to ride no-handed on a high-trail bike with a handlebar bag, I much prefer the low-trail geometry.
Hmm. I don't generally like or feel comfortable riding no-hands at any time, on any bike (except my first 1980s MTB), so getting into the bar bag while riding doesn't mean much to me. Yes, it's a bit easier to use once stopped, but I'm not convinced all those people with racktop bags or saddlebags are wrong, and they're a lot less complicated. And 55-63mm trail feels entirely normal and predictable to me, under all conditions, loaded or not.
> Plus, low-trail geometry means I'm not constantly fighting the steering, which is particularly important on climbs where you have to stand up, particularly near the end of a 1000km or 1200km ride where you're pretty tired and pretty beat up.
Now this I don't get at all - "fighting the steering on climbs?!?" I just sit there and spin, no fighting involved; I don't see how trail makes any difference here. Also IMHO, if you *have* to stand up the bike isn't geared low enough; standing because one chooses to is another matter.
The thing to take away from all this is that people aren't necessarily going to agree on anything much. If we were talking about "ideal gearing" there'd be even more blood spilled! Or we could discuss the US election...
Later,
Stephen
Ethan Labowitz
Philip Kim
> Plus, low-trail geometry means I'm not constantly fighting the steering, which is particularly important on climbs where you have to stand up, particularly near the end of a 1000km or 1200km ride where you're pretty tired and pretty beat up.
Now this I don't get at all - "fighting the steering on climbs?!?" I just sit there and spin, no fighting involved; I don't see how trail makes any difference here. Also IMHO, if you *have* to stand up the bike isn't geared low enough; standing because one chooses to is another matter.
The thing to take away from all this is that people aren't necessarily going to agree on anything much. If we were talking about "ideal gearing" there'd be even more blood spilled! Or we could discuss the US election...
Later,
Stephen
Stephen Poole
On 2 Nov 2016 11:28 pm, "Philip Kim" <phili...@gmail.com> wrote:
> When climbing on my Hunq with a front load, I am fighting the steering as it veers left and right. The steeper the climb, the worse it gets. My low trail Pelican doesn't do this.
Huh. That sounds bizarre to me. The only time I've ever experienced anything like this was back in 1984 on my first MTB, a Diamond Back Mean Streak. On the first tour I used very large front panniers (~45 litres) on a steel tube lowrider rack, and maintaining a line while climbing in the 16" low gear on fire trails was difficult. However, the loading was unusual, and the bike didn't fit as well as it should have. (This was in the early days of MTBs with bullmoose bars, 180mm cranks, etc.)
With drop bars on the road or with more normally sized front bags offroad this has never happened to me again; I truly do not understand what's going on here.
Later,
Stephen
Nick Bull
FWIW, I don't like to ride no-handed and I like it even less when people ride no-handed around me. Earlier this summer some dufus started riding no-hands in front of me and promptly crashed at speed. I was barely able to avoid crashing into him as he slid sideways down the bike path, leaving only a foot of room to the left side of the path. I won't describe his injuries. (FWIW, carbon-fiber racing bike with narrow racing tires and typical high trail.)
Nick
Nick Bull
Stephen Poole
On 3 Nov 2016 2:51 am, "Nick Bull" <nick.bi...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There's an easy way to test stability given the way you like to load your bike. Loaded as you want your bike to be loaded, ride at 15mph on a flat surface on a day with negligible wind. Take your hands off the bars. If the bike starts to veer...
With my GR 15mph was perilously close to the threshold for onset of shimmy with the original fork, so I'll pass on that test thanks! I haven't totally given up on the idea of low-ish trail, or on handlebar bags, but any further testing will have to wait until I'm in a better position to do some fabrication; there are things I'd like to try, but I really have no interest in riding the GR ever again, except perhaps as a reference, or control.
Later,
Stephen
Steve Palincsar
Joseph Kopera
First impressions:
1.) I really like how it handles and responds. For me, it "planes", which, for me, means that the bike feels like I can always make it go faster, and it's very responsive to my pedal strokes. YMMV. Does it plane as much / better than a more expensive frame? I ain't got enough cash to find that out just yet.
2.) I happen to like low trail 650b, and find it stabler than mid trail bikes I've ridden. That's me: YMMV. I have ridden it with 10-15 lbs in my bar bag and found it a little more stable than without. YMMV. For me, narrower bars make low trail bikes less floppy. For me. YMMV.
2a.) I've yet to load the front up with 30 lbs on the racks and panniers. I have seen pictures by a guy on Flickr (Marc McShane IIRC) who did a fully loaded tour across country on what looked like a GR, IIRC.
3.) Mine shimmies a lot. This doesn't really bug me that much. However, I also bought it from someone who'd had an old XTR ball bearing headset installed that kept coming loose after about 10 miles on each ride no matter how tightly I adjusted the lock nut. That probably had MUCH more to do with my shimmy than anything else on this bike-- which disappeared whenever my hands were on the hoods. YMMV. I'm just installed a Miche roller bearing headset, so we'll see! For me shimmy also disappears when I have the fit dialed in juuust right, which changes with the season / my back / how much yoga I'm doing in a given month.
I don't find the frame as aesthetically pleasing as almost every other rando-style 650b bike I've seen out there, but I'm also not looking at the thing when I'm on it. I've come to find it quirkily endearing even though it doesn't look as good in my photos as other bikes I own.
Besides aesthetics, my only complaint is that it requires a fork crown daruma bolt for front fenders, which is a peeve of mine for a bike advertised as fender-ready.
I think it's a very excellent bike for its price point, and I don't think you could go wrong between it or a Velo Routier for an intro to low trail 650b bicycles. In the end, it will come down to tweaking the fit just right, which can take a while-- if it takes longer than you'd like and you find the bike ungainly, now you know! And you have a popular frame you can sell used at not too much a loss. YMMV.
Have a blast!
Joe K.
Western Mass.
Joseph Kopera
WMdeR
Stephen Poole
That's two people now who've suggested one's position can influence shimmy. This had been suggested to me too, but I'd largely discounted it as my position has been pretty well constant across various bikes, and I have ridden others with similar front centre and chainstay lengths to the GR (but more trail) without issue. The range of frame rigidity here was large too, including frames both much less or more stiff, and all without shimmy tendencies.
Will's description of his position sounds similar to mine, but I've only ever experienced shimmy with three bikes, and the other two had very rigid tubular steel racks with bags in non-standard locations. With other racks and bags these behaved much better.
So, other than the reduced trail I'm grasping at straws to explain why the GR shimmied. With the new Columbus SL fork, rake was reduced by 14mm, and trail increased by a like amount. Front centre also shrunk so maybe the change in weight distribution might have had some effect(?), but this seems unlikely as the final differences from other bikes were small.
The other constant on the GR was the GB22 handlebar bag. At first I used a homebrew decaleur made from Spinaci clamps and bits cut from an old MTB handlebar, with the bag strapped to these with the original leather straps. This was clunky plus the bag deformed/lozenged quite noticeably across the unstiffened rear. Later I bought a GB decaleur, and while this made fitting and removing the bag somewhat easier and improved hand clearance on the tops, it did little or nothing to stiffen the bag and reduce deformation or slop. This bugged me, but as I was cycle touring in Europe there wasn't much I could do about it.
After PBP I spoke with one of the finishers at Alex Singer's stand, and noticed that his bar bag and decaleur arrangement was totally rigid, with zero movement possible. I wonder if flex and movement of the bar bag could be enough to cause or exacerbate shimmy??? Seems like it's worth stiffening the bar bag and making a really solid connection to the bike to find out.
Even if this does solve the shimmy problem, I don't like the handling with circa 30mm of trail, but 45mm seems doable. More testing is required! :-)
Later,
Stephen
Steve Palincsar
On 11/03/2016 12:05 AM, WMdeR wrote:
> Dear Steve,
>
> I don't want to interject too much (I was one remove from the GR's v1
> design (I tested the 56 cm with a Boulder Bicycle 1" threadless fork
> as a prototype, and liked the geometry and wanted them to get rid of
> the overbuilt seatstays), and I enjoyed one in 52 cm as a guest bike
> until a co-worker bought it--a daily driver for his family), but some
> folks just have shimmy problems.
guy who claimed to have shimmy on every single bike he'd ever tried,
including a Trek Madone he test rode at the LBS. It's just plain
inconceivable that every single bike this guy had ever ridden, including
a bike that is very well represented in my bike club and one I've never
ever heard an owner claim had a shimmy problem. I myself had a
terrifying speed wobble problem with my P15 Paramount back in 1972 and
1973. Somewhere along the line, among a host of changes made to try to
improve my position (turned out the bike was 1" smaller than the bike I
ordered, thanks to an error in the placement of a check on the order
form) the speed wobble went away, and it didn't come back in the
remaining 18 years I rode the bike.
What I do find amazing is Stephen's issues with low-trail steering.
Steve Palincsar
On 11/02/2016 11:21 PM, Joseph Kopera wrote:
> 3.) Mine shimmies a lot. This doesn't really bug me that much. However, I also bought it from someone who'd had an old XTR ball bearing headset installed that kept coming loose after about 10 miles on each ride no matter how tightly I adjusted the lock nut. That probably had MUCH more to do with my shimmy than anything else on this bike-- which disappeared whenever my hands were on the hoods. YMMV. I'm just installed a Miche roller bearing headset, so we'll see! For me shimmy also disappears when I have the fit dialed in juuust right, which changes with the season / my back / how much yoga I'm doing in a given month.
have thick enough spacers in the headset stack. A good mechanic fixed
it by replacing a spacer with an ever-so-slightly thicker one.
Stephen Poole
On 3 Nov 2016 9:49 pm, "Steve Palincsar" <pali...@his.com> wrote:
>
> What I do find amazing is Stephen's issues with low trail steering.
^ I'm not sure if you mean that I didn't like shimmy(!), or that I'm not fond of handling with 30mm trail. If the former, things were checked out very carefully, but only changing the fork made any difference. If the latter, I'll bet you like some foods I don't, and vice versa.
For example, some people I know claim to like Brussels sprouts, and after Interbike in 1991 I was in Santa Cruz - allegedly the sprout-growing capital of the US - during their annual festival. They had Brussels sprout ice cream, sprout-flavoured salt water taffy, sprouts and chips, etc. I think I can say with some confidence that others beside myself would find those "delicacies" less than tempting, but some thought they were great. Tastes do vary, and no, I've never acquired a liking for sprouts, despite plenty of exposure to them (unfortunately).
Later,
Stephen (who would be worried about anyone who disliked chocolate)
Steve Palincsar
Stephen Poole
Sorry, but I find it hard to believe that everybody does - or should - like anything, chocolate included! For example, if Grant Petersen liked low trail, one would expect Rivendells to have it, but they don't. It may well be that I am in fact a lunatic, but GP has fans who would say he is not. :-)
The other thing we're likely seeing here is "self selection" where those who respond about a particular topic do so only if they have strong opinions about it; those who aren't so fussed are less likely to do anything. It's a bit like voting. (I'll duck for cover now).
Steve Palincsar
it is. It's not relevant if you like red wine or not, the question is
does this drink taste like red wine, or does it taste like beer. Your
experience of low-trail steering as you experience it is completely
unlike mine. Going by your description, I'd have said you were
experiencing high trail steering, not low trail.
Cameron Sharp
Cameron
HillDancer
Here's a product-of-promise I'm anticipating the release of:
Ryan Watson
> On 2016/11/03, at 6:26, Stephen Poole <nsc.e...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> For example, if Grant Petersen liked low trail, one would expect Rivendells to have it, but they don't.
Ryan
Jim Bronson
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Steve Palincsar
On 11/03/2016 10:10 AM, Cameron Sharp wrote:
> While I'm firmly in the pro-GR camp, it doesn't seem entirely true that Stephen's experience with constant shimmy is an anomaly.
own issues; some individual bikes and some individual riders are simply
prone to it, and nobody can explain exactly why.
The anomaly in question is that he experiences low trail steering in a
completely opposite way from everyone else. It's like his left hand tap
gives cold water and his right hand one gives hot -- while everyone else
gets hot from the left and cold from the right.
Steve Palincsar
On 11/03/2016 01:57 PM, Jim Bronson wrote:
> Regarding "fighting it" on the climb mentioned previously in the thread,
>
> The only time I've ridden a high trail bike with a somewhat heavy
> handlebar bag (10-15ish lbs) on a long ride was on Portland-Glacier
> 1000K in 2007. Bike was my late 90s Rivendell Custom
> (or maybe Road Standard semi-custom, who knows, I'm the 2nd owner).
> The bike was running 700Cx28 at the time. The wheel flop was horrible
> taking off, so bad that I had to be
> very careful starting up. And on the 2 passes we ascended, I had to
> white knuckle the steepest parts when I was in granny gear for fear of
> wheel flop putting me over at 5-7 mph.
> Climbing the hills around Flathead Lake in the dark on the 3rd day I
> had some white knuckle moments as well as there were some short steep
> rollers.
>
induced 90 degree turn under exactly those circumstances, on two
different high-trail bikes. One of those was on a sunken gravel road,
and I came to an abrupt halt when I rode right into the
wall/shelf/berm. One of those was on a bike with a handlebar bag, the
other was not. But that same wobbly instability at really slow speed
climbing steeply characterized both. That kind of low speed,
bike-wants-to-dart-off-by-itself instability is completely absent with
my low trail bikes, even with heavily loaded bags.
Joey Kopera
into shaming riders for their experiences on a bike-- I doubt that's the
intent of anyone here on this forum, and we'd hate to scare new folks
away for having experiences that diverge from some sort of "norm".
Steve-- I'm interested in what the common experience is for low trail
steering, as everyone I talk to seems to have a different one...
Thanks,
Joe
Western Mass.
Joey Kopera
degrees, which was exacerbated by various factors including position,
load, handlebar width, etc... I still don't find low-trail to be any
more rock-steady than mid-trail bikes I've ridden on climbing and at low
speeds unless well-loaded... it still takes some consciousness and
effort, for me at least, to keep the bike from twitchy wandering at low
speeds unless everything is dialed in just right... a process that's
taken over a year, and at times, was so frustrating to a degree that I
was ready to swear off low trail-- too many modifications and
compromises required to achieve said stability that everyone else raves
about. And yet I still prefer it to my mid-trail bikes... but I'm not
entirely sure "everybody" experiences such stability with low-trail
rigs. I have a good friend who's a 650b / low trail convert who
couldn't stand the twitchiness of the GR at low speeds and finally built
his own frame to suit.
Cheers,
Joe
Western Mass.
Steve Palincsar
On 11/03/2016 03:56 PM, Joey Kopera wrote:
> I think we need to be careful here lest we stray (if we haven't
> already) into shaming riders for their experiences on a bike-- I doubt
> that's the intent of anyone here on this forum, and we'd hate to scare
> new folks away for having experiences that diverge from some sort of
> "norm".
widely varying experiences.
As for shimmy - if every single bike you've ever ridden shimmies and
you've ridden a wide range of bikes and not just only ever the one
single bike, then that's on you and not the bike. I won't say "shame on
you" to someone in that situation, but I definitely will say "Look out,
kid, it's something you did; God knows when but you're doing it again."
>
> Steve-- I'm interested in what the common experience is for low trail
> steering, as everyone I talk to seems to have a different one...
of a turn; weight in the handlebar bag isn't noticed much and more
weight isn't more noticeable; straightening up out of a turn you don't
feel like you're lifting the weight of the bag as is the case with the
same bag & same weight on a high trail bike; steering pretty much
unperturbed by wind or road roughness; at low speeds steering doesn't
want to dart off on its own, instead if you just leave it alone the bike
will continue to climb straight even at very low speeds/low gears/steep
hills; steering feels fairly light at all times.
WMdeR
Low trail does reduce the speed at which shimmy happens in my experience, as does main-triangle flexibility. Adding weight to the rotating portion of the front end can either increase the shimmy potential (relatively light weight) or decrease it in favor of a long-period oscillation (heavy weight and low mass).
I can initiate shimmy pretty consistently by changing my weight distribution over the wheels.
One of my good friends and I are the same size, ride similar equipment, and can swap bikes mid-ride. I am much more likely to experience shimmy on a given machine....
Best,
Will
William M deRosset
Fort Collins CO USA
Nick Favicchio
V1, didn't have a needle bearing headset. Tried to install one but shop that installed the headset cut the steerer after doing so and I was mad then, but when the Miche didn't work I was ALL OF THE MAD. That was soon before I learned that the V2 fork crown wasnt as wide and couldn't fit a 2" knobby like the V1 could and was all of the sad and angry again.
In my experience, you can make just about any bike shimmy. The GR seems more prone to it. Needle bearing headset, maybe even adjusted a scutchy tight? I dunno, pick your gremlin.
I have a 747 tt 858 dt custom, very light and skinny rear triangle, 35mm trail, no shimmy except once doing 50mph w/out a knee in the tt and loose headset. Since properly adjusting the headset, zero issues.
I've talked to a few people about why the GR seems to wiggle so much. Few folks suggested seatpost and/or headtube extension as the culprit. I have no idea.
Stephen Poole
Please note that I've never claimed either 650b or low trail trail bikes are generally prone to shimmy, only that my GR is. However, given how often people here talk about equipment or techniques to ward off or control shimmy I'm inclined to think it must be a fairly common issue with this type of bike.
FWIW, I've owned and test ridden many, many road, non-low-trail touring and mountain bikes from very flexible (various ALANs, light steel) to very stiff (Klein, Columbus Max, various carbon), with wheels from 17" to 27". Apart from the two exceptions mentioned before, none of these had any shimmy tendencies, and I certainly hadn't noticed any ability to induce shimmy pre GR.
The absolutely guaranteed way to get the GR to shimmy was to hit a bump on the exit from a corner. Even with the front panniers one could feel the shimmy trying to start, but it was quickly damped; with just a bar bag things were more serious. Shimmy happened on many other occasions too, but with no obvious cause.
The original geometry was measured as 72° head angle and 74mm offset, so not to spec (72.5°/69mm). The replacement fork had 60mm offset, and flexed a bit more over bumps, though still not a huge amount. It's hard to pin down which of the changes (trail, flex, offset, weight distribution) affected shimmy tendencies, but something certainly did, and I found the bike much less mentally taxing to ride with the second fork. Shimmy incidents were greatly reduced, though sadly not quite eliminated. I'm also inclined to believe Will's theory that main triangle flex, or more specifically head tube twist, may be a factor, and IME it certainly doesn't help either steering precision or stability.
Perhaps there's something about the way the various bits of the GR work together (or against each other) which makes shimmy more likely? I don't know the answer, but am keen to ensure the problem goes away if and when the replacement frame ever happens!
Later,
Stephen
Mark
East Palo Alto, CA USA
John HawrylakWoodstown NJ
Brad Paris
I've had the bike assembled for less than a year and I use it for commuting, shopping, and one short tour with a handlebar bag and front panniers. I rarely ride it without a load and occasionally I take it to the grocery store and ride home with way too much stuff in the front basket. I'm using a Haulin' Colin rack, which is pretty sturdy under heavy loads.
I'm pretty sure this bike won't plane for me (and I didn't have any hopes that it would) but I love the way it handles. I normally ride a Quickbeam and I prefer the handling of the GR to the QB. I still like the QB, but I prefer how low and stable the GR feels. The steering is light at low speeds, but not in a way that bothers me. The steering is steady at high speeds.
On Saturday, October 22, 2016 at 7:19:37 PM UTC-4, John Hawrylak wrote:
Seriously considering 55cm Soma Grand Randonneur. I would appreciate any feedback from the actual users.* Did the Soma GR fulfill what you wanted??* What doe s it do well??* Are you happy with its ride and "planing' ability??* Any regrets??* Any problems with a rear load other than a saddlebag hung from the saddleThis is first foray into 650B low trial. I'm coming from a 88 Panasonic Schwinn Voyaguer touring frame/fork with Columbus Tenax tubing (0.9-0.7-0.9 TT?DT STD size) so the thinner wall GR should be an improvement. Looking for a general ride, up through brevets and light touring with front bag and low riders. Nothing out of the ordinary.I saw Nick's Nov 2015 Big Blog on the Soma GR and other than "stiff' ride (vs Nick's Motor Bacon), it seemed positive.If anyone in the Philly, Wilmington DE, South Jersey area has a 55cm, I'll be interested in a ride.John HawrylakWoodstown NJ
Jim Bronson
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Nick Bull
I do wonder if the movement of your bar bag is a contributing factor.
FWIW, I use a GB28 bag. Bought from Boulder Bikes who included an aluminum stiffener bracket. I've got that stiffener bolted to the decaleur and also bolted to the sides of the bag. The decaleur receiver is a Velo Orange bolted to the stem (these are no longer available). I use a little leather strap to tie the bottom of the bag to the front rack (I loop it through the bag's leather strp that goes around the rack's "tombstone"). The front rack itself is sitting right on top of the fender, to which it's bolted. It's a very stable setup.
Riding position--the key thing for me on all my bikes is to be balanced so that if I lift my hands off the bars, I don't tend to fall forward and so that my sit bones neither tend to slide backwards nor forwards on the saddle.
As to shimmy ... I rarely ride no-hands. And any time I'm descending (and often when I'm coasting) I always have my knee pressed against the top tube. I don't know when I started doing that but that's how I've been riding for as long as I can remember. Someone must have told me to do that when I was in my teens! I think that makes it so that I seldom experience shimmy.
Nick
erick
mitch....@gmail.com
Guy Washburn
I'm 6'1" with long arms but short femurs., I have a 65cm v1 GR. I use a straight Thompson and have a rather long rail sddle all the way forward to get to a comfortable KOPS position on the bike. I use a 130mm stem and the IRD RollerDrive headset. I initially experienced a touch of shimmy but after putting more tension on the headset it disappeared. I really like the handling characteristics of low trail either fully loaded or with just a couple of tubes and a toolset. The ability to intuitively change line to avoid potholes on a diminishing radius dirt corner is a delight, and I have never been comfortable on long trail bikes since. I recently found an Elephant NFE XL that has taken it's place in the normal rotation, but the GR still has a fond place in the stable.
Guy
Eric Nichols
Shimmy: none, ever. I have another low-trail rando bike so I knew what to expect, which for me is nothing, except that it handles a front load well and is quicker steering, which I really like especially on technical trails. Even with these characteristics it is well-behaved in a fast group ride at close quarters. As others have noted, shimmy has a lot to do with the interaction of the rider with the bike, a person's "proprioception" as it relates to cycling. We are all different, and bodies react and adapt differently, with different operational envelopes.
I've not tried tires smaller than 42mm, but doing so would exacerbate any tendency to shimmy.
Overall the GR has exceeded my expectations. My "fancy" custom rando bike gets used less frequently than the GR, partly because the GR is so versatile, and partly because the GR is not as "precious" so I don't mind taking it anywhere, anytime.
As others have noted, the steering tube on the 65 cm frame has no extra length. I had to mill down my cable hanger to reduce the stack height enough to allow the headset locknut to fully engage.
On this size frame the main tubes are OS. Reportedly the ST is 9-6, DT is 9-6-9, and TT is 8-5-8. Those tubing choices are just fine for me at 6'5" and 200 lbs. The overly stout seat stays and fork are a little odd, but with tires this big, the impact on ride quality is hardly noticeable. The bike doesn't "give" quite as much under hard pedal pressure as my other rando bike does. If that is planing, then this bike does less of it, but the difference is not great.
The fender clearances are nice and consistent. I have used fenders with the 42mm tires. It might be possible to run a fender with 48mm tires, but it would take some very careful fitting, and even then the clearances would be super-tight.
The real surprise with this bike has been how it excels in the rough. With the 48 mm tires (=1.9" MTB width), it is a sure-footed all-roader. The stout fork and stays are probably an asset in rough conditions. The BB is quite low (65m drop) and I use 180 mm cranks, so the pedals do run close to the ground. The wider/taller tires help in that respect. The Paul canti brakes are quiet and powerful. The triple crank gives a huge range and close spacing, the best of both worlds. The SON hub and integrated lights are a joy and a frequent ride-saver. This bike is a truly a "Grand Explorer" that continues to take me to all sorts of improbable places.
Photos of my setup here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/87833632@N05/albums/72157671986015912
Eric Nichols
Newfields NH
WMdeR
Note: my guest bike was a 52 cm (really a 54 with the dropped top tube) gen 1 before it got poached as a do-it-all bike by a mountain-biking friend. My shorter friends and family sure rode well on it....
Mike Klaas
On Thursday, November 3, 2016 at 4:36:55 AM UTC-7, satanas wrote:
On 3 Nov 2016 9:49 pm, "Steve Palincsar" <pali...@his.com> wrote:
>
> What I do find amazing is Stephen's issues with low trail steering.^ I'm not sure if you mean that I didn't like shimmy(!), or that I'm not fond of handling with 30mm trail. If the former, things were checked out very carefully, but only changing the fork made any difference. If the latter, I'll bet you like some foods I don't, and vice versa.
mitch....@gmail.com
Steven Frederick
game-changing revelation for me that it has been for some folks.
Actually, I believe I'll part with the thing sometime this
winter...got my eye on a (non low-trail) disc-braked gravel bike!
Steve
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Ryan Watson
Actually when I got my first low trail bike, I was most surprised how ordinary the handling felt. But now when I ride high trail bikes, they feel a bit "off" somehow.
Ryan
Andy Bailey Goodell
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Eric Nichols
Some other details are noted in the Flickr comments. This bike sometimes has fenders, and I wanted a permanent tail light that wasn't attached to the fender.
The idea came from Mitch Pryor of MAP Cycles.
Eric Nichols
Steven Frederick
nice bike. And I like having all my stuff right in front of me in the
rando bag. But those things alone aren't enough to be worth keeping
it around. I have too many overlapping road bikes and I'd like to
pare things down. And I've got a yen for something a bit more modern.
My plan is to sell the Stag and my custom Quiring gravel bike and
replace them both with one disc-braked bike with two wheelsets, one
shod with slicks for pavement oriented rides, the other set up more
dirt oriented. It's all just tentative right now, but that's the way
I'm leaning. I'm thinking about the Lynskey GR250. It's designed to
work with either a 700X40ish OR 27.5X2ish. Pretty cool. A set of
700X38 Compass tires for pavement, and a set of 27.5" X 47mm Terrene
Elwoods or 50mm Thunderburts seems like the ticket. We'll see. Steve
mitch....@gmail.com
Fred Blasdel
That tail light on the back of the C17 saddle is a SON unit powered by the generator hub. I ran the wire through the seatpost, seat tube and down tube. It emerges through an unused water-bottle boss on the underside of the downtube.
Eric Nichols
Shane Williams
John Roberts
Andy Bailey Goodell
John Roberts
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