Re: HYBRIDS: Gary Fisher / Trek / Cannondale - Your Opinions Please

[RJRider]

I own an older Trek Hybrid, a 730. I like the bike very much. I do about 16
miles a day on it. Nice, well-made bike.

RJ

[Dan Birchall]

(Matt) wrote:
> Hi everyone, and thanks for the several posts back. I appreciate your
> inputs.
> Unfortunately, I was hoping for someone who actually owned one or more of
> the below three models, especially the Cannondale or Gary Fisher, as I am
> leading towards one of these two.

> > > Gary Fisher Utopia ~$620 @ my local bike store
> > > Trek 7300 ~$500 @ my local bike store
> > > Cannondale Adventure 400 ~$500 @ my local bike store

The closest I can get, Matt, is a 1997 Cannondale H300 hybrid I bought
my wife. They keep changing the names, but at that time, it was the
entry-level hybrid from Cannondale, and it looks like the Adventure 400
is the current holder of that title. SO... hmmm. I know hers was pretty
handy and reasonably capable - we lived in an old town and she had a
garden at a friend's farm several miles away, so we'd ride out there on
paved roads, then go on dirt roads and offroad at the farm to the garden.

Hers was 21-speed, of course everything has gone 8-speed in the back now,
so you'd get 24-speed. I'm pretty sure hers has a CAAD1 frame; they've
stopped calling a lot of things CAAD now, hybrid frames included. I'm
not sure whether it's the same frame.

The riding position on hers is pretty upright; we stuck a rack on the
back (heavy-duty with 3 supports, had to have the shop grind down the
curved end of one support due to the size of the seatstay tubes) and a
child seat.

I have to get her a new inner tube sometime... I was the last one to
ride it and now it's got a flat. (But my '98 XR800 cyclocross doesn't
have a flat, so... I lack motivation to go to the store. ;)

I hope maybe this is a little helpful. Oh, and some other pointers.
We actually bought hers in the spring of '98 - the dealer still had a
couple of "last year's model" boxed up in their back room, and were
pretty eager to build them up and get rid of them... I think it was
listing for $460+ and we got it for something like $360 plus tax due
to it being old.

We're nearing the end of summer now, and they'll be coming out with
the 2004 models soon (just like cars ;) so you may find that your local
stores are eager to get rid of their 2003's. And if one of them has a
2002 still gathering dust, you might score a really good price.

-Dan

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