£1000 road bike what should I look out for?

donaldtramp

Been recommended to come here, hope you guys can help.
I've got the chance to buy a new road bike through cycle to work tax break. I have an old specialized off roader for cutting about town and now want to buy a road bike again and start putting the miles away.

Have decided to go for it. There is a limit of £1000.and although I have read other posts on here about trying out other bikes to see what I like and work my way up, this is a one off tax break. So I might as well get the best I can and spend the grand.

Only thing I'm not really keen on is a bike with too low a front end. Other than that what components should I be going for/expecting for that cash.
What brands/bikes have been popular just now. Anything you guys could recommend to go try out?

Any advice gratefully received...

Cheers
DT

donaldtramp

Been looking about and I really quite fancy this Focus Cayo 08....


http://www.roadcyclinguk.com/news/article/mps/uan/1940

Last years review..

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/p/Cycle/7/Focus_Cayo_2008/5360032366/

Thoughts?

keef66

The focus Cayo or the Planet X carbon seem to be the most popular choices when people are spending their £1000 cycle to work money.

doyler78

keef66 wrote:

The focus Cayo or the Planet X carbon seem to be the most popular choices when people are spending their £1000 cycle to work money.

The Planet X is out of the £1000 limit now therefore unless your scheme allows you more than £1000 or allows you top-up ie pay the extra over £1000. Both these are usually not permitted for different reasons.

The Cayo is back on offer at £999 however it is likely to rise again back by £100 therefore if you do want it the best advice is not to delay as it could be withdrawn at anytime. The problem with Wiggle is that there are very few schemes out there that will allow you to buy from Wiggle as most are tied to a facilitator and Wiggle have no agreements with any facilitator so far as I am aware of therefore it may be impossible for you to get anyway.

You need to decide what you plan on doing on the bike. Will you be using it for your commute only or will be planning on doing a bit of weekend riding and if you are how competitive do you wish to be. If you want to do some touring on it then you will be looking at something a little more robust and therefore a bit heavier than if you wanted a bike for fast weekend riding and fast commutes and it will have room for guards and racks for keeping the worst of the rain of your ass and give you somewhere to carry stuff to/from work.

donaldtramp

The bike will be for weekend blasts mostly. So don't really need to carry anything and it won't be used for crossing through the city usually, I've got an old mountain bike for that.

yeah you're right. I am not allowed to top up the £1000.

Another issue is that the Bike 2 work scheme is through Halfords but I've been in and spoke to the bike guys and they assured me that they can spec absolutely any bike I want. (as long as it is within the grand limit)
Just the day before they had a Bianchi delivered and they built it up.

http://www.evanscycles.com/dept.jsp?dept_id=3200 few nice bikes there.

I also like the look of this Felt..

http://www.evanscycles.com/product.jsp?style=87300

Carbon fibre would be nice but to tell you the truth it wouldn't be essential for me. My mountain bike has an aluminium frame and it's fine by me.
I'd prefer a decent set of gears/drivetrain, as from bitter (and painful) experience that's where all my serious problems have came from with my mountain bike.

But I don't think the spec on these bikes is quite the same as the Focus in areas like the drivetrain. I've been told that ultegra is the way forward and a few of the bikes I've been looking at have this.

Don't know which way to go! Suppose I really shouldn't complain all of these bikes look great.
Going to try out a Trek 1.9 tomorrow hopefully (It has the gears I'm after)...

I also wonder where halfords source their bikes from???

Thoughts???

doyler78

If they really can get anything what about this @ £999.95

It's from ribble. Its under their special edition bikes. You can only view their special edition bikes in Internet Explorer which I don't really use (Firefox for me). That's very poor but hey the bikes are well respected these days so who cares about their crappy website.

By the way they can't get Planet X so anything isn't quite anything.

Ribble Dedacciai Nero Corsa Ultegra 10 Double

Choice of either standard or compact chainset.
See selection in the drop down box below.

This is not just another carbon frame. It's a 12K full carbon monocoque frame with matching 12K carbon forks, designed and developed by Dedacciai of Italy.
Dedacciai have long been established as the masters of carbon technology and for this reason we chose them to develop a Ribble range of carbon frames.

- Sloping top tube geometry
- Carbon 12K monocoque frame and forks
- Shimano Ultegra 10 speed Double groupset
- Shimano RS20 black wheelset
- Integral hidden headset
- CSN Carbon SE seat pillar
- Selle Italia XO Transam saddle
- Deda Big Piega Oversize Bars and Quattro Stem
- Deda Tre Grinta folding tyres

Price excludes Pedals

Now that's a nice spec and about the only bike that may be available that has a spec that comes anywhere close to the Focus Cayo with that £1000 ceiling.

biondino

doyler78 wrote:

The Planet X is out of the £1000 limit now therefore unless your scheme allows you more than £1000 or allows you top-up ie pay the extra over £1000. Both these are usually not permitted for different reasons.

The Cayo is back on offer at £999 however it is likely to rise again back by £100 therefore if you do want it the best advice is not to delay as it could be withdrawn at anytime. The problem with Wiggle is that there are very few schemes out there that will allow you to buy from Wiggle as most are tied to a facilitator and Wiggle have no agreements with any facilitator so far as I am aware of therefore it may be impossible for you to get anyway.

I was the person who encouraged my company to offer the scheme and I suggested we do it through Wiggle, which was fine - a guy in accounts organised the whole thing directly with Wiggle without too much hassle. On top of this, I was able to spend well over £1000 with me topping up the excess with a cheque. No problem, no complication, and entirely by the book.

doyler78

biondino wrote:

doyler78 wrote:

The Planet X is out of the £1000 limit now therefore unless your scheme allows you more than £1000 or allows you top-up ie pay the extra over £1000. Both these are usually not permitted for different reasons.

The Cayo is back on offer at £999 however it is likely to rise again back by £100 therefore if you do want it the best advice is not to delay as it could be withdrawn at anytime. The problem with Wiggle is that there are very few schemes out there that will allow you to buy from Wiggle as most are tied to a facilitator and Wiggle have no agreements with any facilitator so far as I am aware of therefore it may be impossible for you to get anyway.

I was the person who encouraged my company to offer the scheme and I suggested we do it through Wiggle, which was fine - a guy in accounts organised the whole thing directly with Wiggle without too much hassle. On top of this, I was able to spend well over £1000 with me topping up the excess with a cheque. No problem, no complication, and entirely by the book.

That's all well and good however your organisation's scheme is just as restrictive as most others as you have restricted choice to Wiggle. As Wiggle is an online retailer it will not be the best choice as a sole supplier for encouraging people to cycle as it doesn't allow inexperienced or non cyclists to go to a shop and sit down and discuss with experienced staff their needs. It doesn't instil confidence in them. People like to see things before they buy when they are unsure about what it is they are buying.

You my have created a scheme which suits you and not all employees unless of course you are the only employee.

As regards topups they too are something which most companies will steer clear of because they do create a legal minefield. The purpose of cycle to work is to allow employers to provide bikes to employees whereby the employee gives up part of their salary as salary sacrifice which will be used to hire the bike to the employee from the employer. The employer is not the sole owner of the bike and therefore this makes enforcement of the scheme rules much trickier. There are some that actually believe topups may render the scheme void given this dual ownership as the employer is not the sole owner therefore it makes the hire of the bike complicated. For this reason we decided not to allow topups. In any case £1000 is sufficient for anybody for a bike used for commuting and it isn't a scheme which has been created to provide weekend riders with a top of the range bike at a fraction of the cost therefore there should be no need for topups in any case. As the person who brought the scheme to attention of my employers I strongly argued against topups.

donaldtramp

Strictly no top ups with the scheme I'm using and it states in the literature that this is not allowed at all.

Going to try a Trek 1.7 out tonight. The geometry is the same as the 1.9 just without the top components. They don't stock the 1.9s in my local shop as it is in a price bracket above the ones they can usually shift easily.

If it fits, this looks like a favourite to me from what I've looked at.

Hudster

donaldtramp wrote:

The bike will be for weekend blasts mostly.

A small point, but surely the bike needs to be for commuting mostly..?

donaldtramp

A small and fair point. I agree.

But with the amount of tax Broons government takes from us I'm going to take advantage of every tax break I can get my hands on. I aint gonna feel guilty about it.

The bike will cut down my car usage. If I'm on it at weekends/evenings my car use will fall.

phelim

use your lbs to get your bike via the cyclescheme good advice and expertise, halfords would get u your bike via lbs or one in the area that sells the make your after.

jethro924

If it is going to be your only road bike then IMHO get something that will take full length mudguards, guarantee you won't regret it. 105 is excellent kit and I am not sure if the upgrade to Ultegra is worth it unless you worry what your mates think etc.


If you are after something without a low front end then an audax or the recently developed ubiquitous "Sportif" genre would fit the bill. Try looking up Planet X Kaffenback, Racelight T or TK, Ribble Audax/Winter, Hewitt Chiltern for starters

donaldtramp

use your lbs to get your bike via the cyclescheme good advice and expertise, halfords would get u your bike via lbs or one in the area that sells the make your after.

Is that how it works? I go into halfords and they then buy the bike from a local company? I have to go to Halfords it's in the scheme wording.
Went to local bike shop but unfortunately they didn't have a frame in my size in stock. Think I'm a 54.
I'm a 30" inside leg, bout 5 foot 8" tall, would buying a 52 over a 54 make that big a difference?
All the bike guys looked me up and down and reckoned 54 was my size. I'd like to try one out first though....

I will have a look at those other bikes... cheers