First century on the G.1
Woke up the other day and decided to ride the explorer for 100 miles. Had previously ridden 50 & 75 mile rides over the past two weeks, but had never attempted a century before. Packed up some water, carbs, and electrolytes, then I hit the greenway.
The bike was a solid 3/5 stars for me. The ride went fine, but the main challenges I found were comfort (which very likely could be due to poor bikefit), brake calipers requiring mid-ride adjustment, and derailleur also requiring adjustment twice.
For this ride I put 700x35c gravelking SS+ tires on the bike with TPU tubes. This made a huge difference with speed and grip. I really don’t like the tires that come on this bike, they are very thin and I found myself losing grip often with them. I understand they have to reach a price point but if there was one change I would make, it would be to have slightly better tires. The stock ones are somewhat translucent if you hold them up to the sun. 🌞
The night before the ride I had cleaned and oiled the drivetrain, made sure the shifting was good, and adjusted the brake calipers to eliminate rubbing on the rotor. During the ride I had to tighten the shifter cable twice, which to be fair is probably just cable stretch… but still annoying. The calipers needed adjustment to eliminate rub twice, the second time it happened worse than the first as it was noticeably slowing me down. Luckily both of these issues are pretty easy to fix with a multi tool.
Overall the ride went well, and I’m very grateful that this bike exists. If this bike wasn’t sub $300, I wouldn’t have been able to pick it up and get introduced to the whole cycling universe. Now that I’ve had the experience that I’ve had with this bike, I’m saving to get a higher quality bike, checking out new upgrades and accessories I can add to the explorer while I save, just completely absorbed into the hobby!
I would recommend this bike to anybody that is able to learn how to fix things on the bike. You’re going to have to buy tools and learn how to maintain and repair the bike. For example i had a bolt strip out and destroy the threads on the stem during a short ride around the neighborhood, the handle bars shifted forward and I thought I was gonna go over the bars. Luckily this was easy to fix and I was able to replace the stem for less than $20 with a replacement from Amazon. So as long as you’re able to learn to repair stuff I think you would have a good time with this bike.