murcurio road racing bike, any good?

Panter

Morning all

I've got a confession to make, I'm a MTB'r at heart but I'm interested in trying a roadie for training and mebbe riding to work on 2 days a week.

I'm just in the process of replacing my old MTB so I haven't got the funds for a decent road bike. Anyways, i was just having a quick flick through ebay to see if I could pick up a secondhand cheapie when I saw an ad for a murcurio road racing bike 12 speed for 119 quid :shock:
Is this going to fall to bits as quickly as the pice suggests or is it worth a shot. Or should I concentrate on trying to pick up a SH bike.

I can't afford to spend over 200, and preferably a lot closer to 100 quid to try out a roadie or should I just wait untill funds are in better shape?

any advice appreciated

cheers

Chris

daniel_b

To my untrained eye, it would appear that the gear shifters are still on the downtube, where as really, you want one where the shifters are integrated into the brake leavers:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-Mercurio-12-s ... dZViewItem

What's your top end budget?

Raleigh Airlite seems to be a reasonable spec for the price:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Raleigh-Airlite-A ... dZViewItem

Private sale for a better spec 100 model here:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Raleigh-Airlite-1 ... dZViewItem

Dan

Panter

Thanks for that Dan, appreciated

I suppose my top budget would be about £150.00, would you go with the Raleigh then?

TBH I'm not too bothered about havng the gearshift on the downtube, my last racer was like that (albeit some 16 Years ago :oops: ) I just thought it might be one less thibg to go wrong as my commute is 38mile round trip over the North Downs :shock:


Cheers

Chris

Eat My Dust

Hmm, the raleigh would probably be better, although it still doesn't have integrated gears, looks like the gears are old mountain bike type gear on the top tube. If you can get the last link raleigh with the sora gears for £150, then I'd go with that one.

daniel_b

Eat My Dust wrote:

Hmm, the raleigh would probably be better, although it still doesn't have integrated gears, looks like the gears are old mountain bike type gear on the top tube. If you can get the last link raleigh with the sora gears for £150, then I'd go with that one.

:oops: Sorry, I thought it did have, good spot EMD.

This ones not far over budget, purports to be the same as the 2nd link, but has a campag groupset - are these integrated into the brake levers??

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/raleigh-airlite-1 ... dZViewItem

I've noticed recently, there don't seem to be many bargains going on ebay, bidding wars start and they go way beyond what they are worth.

For example, a 6 or 7 year old Trek 1000, going for £205!
You can pick up this years models, if you search, for £399.

I would be incliined to look on Adtrader, or one of the local free ad websites, and see if you get a Carrera advertised on there or similar, I remember seeing a decent Valour advertised a while back for £150, so they do come up.

I found a 2 year old, but completely unused (Still had the labels on) Carrera Subway one with a rack, cost the guy £220, he wanted £85 for it - done deal!

Let us know what you get.

Dan

Panter

Thanks Dan

I did have a good scout through the local papers but road bikes are few and far between, I think the mainstream popularity of the mountain bike (even for soley road communting :shock: ) has made road bikes almost a bit "specialist"

The couple on ebay I was watching sold for more than I would've paid.


Incidentally, by a strange twist of fate, I got given an old hybrid at the Weekend. I've given it a service and it rides quite nicely and is faster than the MTB so I'm going to give it a trial commute tomorrow to see if its viable.
I also ended up at Decathlon yesterday and had a quick nose round their roadbikes. I think I may end up getting one of those eventually, they look beautifully made although a lot more money than I wanted to spend. I think in view of the length and the climb involved on my commute I should go for something like one of those instead, I can't afford to have too many breakdowns on a busy dual carrigeway.

Thanks for the help

Chris

daniel_b

Hi Chris,

good result with the hybrid - what make/model is it?

I nearly bought a Decathlon Sport 3, but chickened out at the last, but the Sport 2 is also meant to be rather good for the money (Though they may have changed the names by now)

If your thinkinf og new, then either Decathlon are a good bet, and I guess the Halfords Carrera bikes might be worth a look, for when they have a sale on anyway.

Hope your commute went well!

Dan

Panter

Cheers Dan

The bikes a Raleigh Pioneer Commuter, I'll try and put a pic up later.

I had my first ride in this morning, clad the old girl with some five quid panniers from Lidll, covered it in lights and left at 5:20am

Took me 1Hour, 20minutes to do the 19miles, average was 12mph which I'm pretty choughed with considering the climb involved, and my fitness level :oops:

I forgot to mention that this is all part of a fitness campaign, I'm over 17st at the moment and have lost at least 2 St since the Spring so I'm pulling a fair bit of weight over those North downs :oops:

Still, it went pretty smoothly, I wasn't tiired when I got to work and it was over 20mins quicker than when I last did it on my MTB.
Not looking forward to the journey home though, I had a fair wind pushing me this morning and its steeper on the way back, and, I think its gonna rain

Still, how bad can a 70mpd dual carrigeway be in heavy rain in the South East of England in rush hour? :shock:

Cheers

Chris