Jan 26: Just another Bombtrack
I got my current touring bike for about 400 GPB back in Scotland: it's been a great reliable bike that got me safely back home after many long days out, and it got me to Copenhagen last year with no problems.
But it's now old enough to vote. And if I get stranded in the Portugese wilderness because an 18 year old brake cable fails, it's not the bike that'll get blamed... so it's time to get a new one.
I’m very happy with my touring bike, it’s done some light offroading with no problems: can I just get another one? Or do I need something more rugged?
There's info about what the finishers were riding at https://europeandividetrail.com/finisher/. I see a lot of angry bike names in there: "Cutthroat", "Crush", "Bombtrack" ... "Goat". Also, they were all mountainbikes rather than touring bikes.
But the only thing that really matters is the state of the trail. According to the route setter, it is "entirely rideable by most people on most off-road-capable bikes".
However the comments on bikepacking.com have a different story:
"I am continuously running into spots where I don't see how anyone with a loaded touring bike would want to follow the track."
"... for the part in France 99,9% rideable is definitely not true."
"..if anyone thinks about doing the trail with anything less than a Mountainbike- DONT! And be prepared for a lot of hiking and pushing your bike."
Which is troubling. But it also lines up with what the finishers were riding - so a mountainbike is clearly the right choice.
I tried Googling a few of the finisher bikes. Prices vary from 2000 euro up to at least 4k, and that was looking at the cheaper options - it's easy to spend over 6k. But brands are retired, or get revised and updated, and Google likes to mix in options it thinks are similar so it's hard to know what the options actually are.
For instance: finisher #2 took the "Merida Big Nine NX 2020" but this model got archived; and Merida has 24 current models whose name starts with "Big Nine". I do not want to spend time researching each one to find if it's a hard-boned mountain machine, or if it's an overpriced commuter with bike rickets that'll bend like a banana when it goes offroad in Portugal.
To make things more complicated, most bikes are out of stock. Apparently this is the aftermath of Covid; supply chains are still recovering. One recommended manufacturer has a 7 month backlog (!), which adds up to about August.
There’s also a good brick-and-mortar bikeshop nearby; they were very nice and helpful, but their best option was a 2750 euro touring bike.
In summary, there’s no good options: only murky and expensive bad ones.
So when I found a 2000 euro, two-year old bike on an online store that required me to agree that I this purchase was really a preorder, and the delivery dates were nothing more than idle speculation ... I did not close the window.
Trustpilot says they’re OK. And they do have an actual shop. There's online forum posts asking about my exact worries, and they're answered by satisfied customers. Their online chat also worked, and the person on the other side seemed to both exist and know what was going on. And it’s a Bombtrack Beyond, 2021 model, same as the one used by finisher #3.
It’s also the name of a Rage Against the Machine song, which totally does not affect my decision in any way. At all. Of course.
So ... I grudgingly went ahead, and paid over an awful lot of euros. Will this turn into a cautionary tale about internet scams? Of how I got burned so savagely that the chorus is going to be quoted whenever this story comes up? I desperately hope not. We’ll find out next week …
