If You Want to Go with Comfort, Try the Specialized 03 Expedition Sport Bike
Written: Dec 15 '03 (Updated Apr 15 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A comfort bike, great grips, brakes are great, 21 gears.
Cons: None
The Bottom Line: I love my bike! It is comfortable, my hands don't hurt nor does my butt. I can get uphills on gravel yet ride on paved roads.
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| jo.com's Full Review: Specialized 03 Expedition |
After the summer of riding our Caldor (A store that hasn’t been in business for years.) bikes, we decided it was time to treat ourselves to new ones. We went to 4 bike stores, checked with a husband of my husband’s colleague who used to sell bikes and asked a lot of questions. We ended up with the Specialized Expedition Sport.
The first question we were asked was “What kind of riding do you do?” That is key. Without going into all the various types of bikes which is beyond the scope of this review we told the owner (in all cases that is with whom we dealt) that we are not competitive, long distance riders, that we do ride off rode but we do not ride on mountains or very hilly terrain but that we do ride on gravel, forest and often times there will be sand on the road. (There were other brands we looked at such as Giant.) The major aspect of our bikes are the tires and thus the questions.
For long distance, paved road riders, or racers, you’ll want a thin tire. If you are mountain biking you’ll want a very thick tire. Ours is not considered a Hybrid, though it is somewhere between thick and thin. It has the grooves on the tires necessary to handle gravel and sand yet the tires aren’t so thick that they will slow us down too much. Our bike is slower than one with thin tires. In the amount of time we could go 10 miles with a thin tired bike, it might take twice as long with a bit more effort. That was fine with me. I like the security of the tires being able to grip the gravel or slippery road. The tires are wide-stance Hemisphere 26x1.9 tires. The wheels are rust proof with stainless spokes.
What sold us on the Specialized brand were some of the features. The Giant is very similar but were not in stock in our size and we wanted then while the weather was nice. My bike is very, very comfortable. It has a Comfort Plus mattress base spring saddle. The saddle is very wide, which I like. It would have been possible to switch saddles but I really like the one that comes on the Expedition Sport. It has a slight groove down the middle of it making it really easy to sink into. On top of that the saddle sits on a spring so there is some give if I go over bumps. The saddle is easily adjustable with a lever that pulls out. I then can raise or lower the seat and just push in the lever. It is very simple.
Actually the whole suspension of the bike is fantastic. This was another selling point. The seatpost itself is on a suspension as is the handle bar unit.
It comes in only two colors. (The black you see in the picture is incorrect. The Sport doesn't come in black or my husband would have bought it.) We were told that Specialized does this to distinguish bikes. It comes in red or blue. We both chose the blue.
I am 5 feet 4 inches tall and got the small which is 14 inches. My husband is 5 feet 11 inches tall and got the medium, which is, considered a medium. In other brands we were looking at 15” and 17” sizes. It comes in large for men as well.
I love how comfortable the ride is because of the upright position my body is in. I do not like bikes where I have to lean over for long periods. Not only don’t I have to lean over, but also the handlebars are adjustable. With a small tool a screw is loosened on the underneath side of the bars and it can be raised or lowered depending on how comfortable you are in which position. I do change heights of my handlebars. I don’t usually stop to change them, but if I know we are going for an easy ride, I might raise them a bit. If I know we are going for a fast ride I might lower them. It depends and you will use your own guidelines for the handlebars. The handlebars are considered wipe-sweep handlebars.
The handlebar grips are amazing. They are called Therapeutic Body Geometry Grips that help prevent numbness. When I first saw them in the store, that would have sold the bike to me. Therapeutic Body Geometry Grips have some padding in the handlebars right where the palm of your hand would be. It is as if I am wearing gel gloves. They are wonderfully comfortable to hold – even for long periods of time. My hands are prone to soreness and numbness and I haven’t had any problems because I have been holding the handlebars too long.
The Expedition Pro-Fit Comfort A-1 Alloy frame weighs something – well the bike weights something, but what it is no one knows exactly. From the website, “Understanding that many of today's consumers are weight-conscious when it comes to their bicycles Specialized stands by our policy to not record or provided weights for our bicycles. Our frames are among the lightest in the market and still carry a lifetime warranty--which many manufacturers have abandoned. We want to make our bicycles light weight, but we want them to last a long time as well.” Our bikes are light. They are not as light as a racing bike would be. They were publishing weights of older bikes so I did a bit of research and asked my husband what he thinks they weight. He estimates the weight at 25 pounds.
The construction of the bike is called TIG Construction. TIG stands for Tungsten Inert Gas welding and involves heating the joint of two tubes with an electric arc. TIG is strong.
My bike has great standover height. This is the basic element of bike fit. It is the distance from the ground to the top of the top tube at that point where your crotch would be if you were straddling the bike by standing half way between the saddle and the handlebar stem. I never knew all this until I went to buy this bike. The fit is perfect.
It has a Shimano Acera 21 speed wide range drive train with SRAM MRX shifting. This all has to do with the gears and the braking system. First the gears are amazing. I was using a bike that had the gears that had to be pulled down with a lever. Bikes in the 21st century don’t use this anymore! The gears, which are on the handlebars turn and they turn easily. Before I even bought this I “test drove” it in the parking lot and was so impressed because I had just come from a summer of my hot pink bike.
There are 3 gears on the left, 1-3 and 7 on the right making 21 gears. It is very easy to remember so when I am coming to a steep hill I just have to turn each handle to 1, making it the easiest ride possible. And it is. There were times during the summer that we joked and called our biking "bhiking." That was because I couldn’t make it up some hills so my husband would walk both bikes (thus biking and hiking put together). That won’t happen again, hopefully. If it does, it won’t be the bike’s fault.
The brakes are great. An easy pull of the levers and the bike stops nicely. I am a conservative rider and use the brakes for fast downhills. They are wonderful. We were warned to use each brake at the same time to prevent injury which is something I have always done.
We wipe our bikes off when it rains. You really need to do that because there are some parts that will rust. We don’t keep them out in the rain but when we are traveling we have a bike carrier on our car so they do get wet. In addition it was recommended that we cover the seats with a plastic bag if it is raining while we are traveling with the bikes.
There is a limited one-year warranty on the complete bike and a limited lifetime warranty on the frame and framesets. The same is true for the suspension attachments and suspension related equipment.
My final thoughts:
Needless to say we have certainly upgraded. We were only going to upgrade a notch to a Specialized bike that cost $329 but the Sport model was just right for us. It has a nicer seat, better grips and a bit more suspension. We are still in the low end of bikes. I do realize that people spend $1000 on bikes but we are very happy with ours and I will highly recommend the Specialized brand and the Sport model if you do the kind of biking we do.
It has gotten me up hills that I wouldn’t have been able to get up this summer, I feel stable on sand and uneven pavement or areas with some tree roots and I am just all and all comfortable riding it. I can't say I don't feel bumps, of course I do. But the bike bounces with the bumps rather than my body taking the blow!
This is my first bike review (and most likely my last since I am not into test driving bikes!) Please let me know if I have left out anything crucial. There are many technical specs on the website: www.specialized.com that I didn’t include. I will be happy to answer any questions I can so feel free to leave one or a comment. Thanks for reading.
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Recommended:
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