Sorry for another "which bike" question but ......

pmg001

I've been stalking these forums for a few weeks now and have been doing a lot of research in trying to find out what bike I should invest in.

The thing is, while I want the bike for cross training purposes( as my first sport is rowing), I could definately see myself getting into competitive cycling in the future.

So I want to know what bike would be capable of being upgraded to a competitive bike?

I'm trying to decide whether to buy say a Spec allez sport/Trek 1.5/Bianchi via nirone xenon or should I spring for say a Felt f75 (this would be seriously stretching my budget!)??

Any advice would be much appreciated!

fuzzynavel

Firstly....welcome.

I am no expert as I am a newbie myself but what sort of budget do you have?

what sort of riding are you into. I presume as you are on this forum that you want to ride predominantly on the road.
Any expectations of the mileage that you want to cover?
What type of terrain? all flat...hills etc
club riding in the future?

I am sure there are lots more questions that could be asked but that should get the experts started!

pmg001

Thanks for the reply!

Well I'd spend up to 800 ( as I know there are felt f75 going for this) but this would be stretching myself!

Yeah I'd be doing road riding with probably quite a few hill as I live near a mountainous area of Ireland.

Like I said I could see myself starting to get competitive in the next few years as I already have a good base of fitness from rowing (and we all know rowing is much tougher than cycling!!!! ), so I probably be clocking up a fair mileage-12/14 hours cycling a week.
I wouldn't be joining a club straight away-but probably would in the future.

fuzzynavel

pmg001 wrote:

Thanks for the reply!

Well I'd spend up to 800 ( as I know there are felt f75 going for this) but this would be stretching myself!

Yeah I'd be doing road riding with probably quite a few hill as I live near a mountainous area of Ireland.

Like I said I could see myself starting to get competitive in the next few years as I already have a good base of fitness from rowing (and we all know rowing is much tougher than cycling!!!! ), so I probably be clocking up a fair mileage-12/14 hours cycling a week.
I wouldn't be joining a club straight away-but probably would in the future.

Even though you have the base fitness you may still find it hard going at first as your muscles will all be geared to rowing. You should probably take it easy to start with to allow them to get used to the different exercise.

allezscotia

First thing to do is make sure you get the frame that suits you, believe me there is nothing worse than having the wrong frame and finding you cannot get power through to the road (past experience of bad advice from a shop).

As for upgrading bikes the first place to be looking at is the wheels.
The groupset/finishing kit that you get with the bike and what your looking to do would then dictate whether to upgrade bits of kit as you go along.

When i started out i changed the wheels first then the crankset then the frame and i'm now at the stage of upgrading my top bike and then using the parts stripped from that for my partners bike which then donates to my winter bike (i'm soon gonna end up with an ultegra winter bike).

The warning here is that if you get into it, the obsession might follow and cost you lotttttssssssssss of moneyyyy :x :roll:

incog24

pmg001 wrote:

Like I said I could see myself starting to get competitive in the next few years as I already have a good base of fitness from rowing (and we all know rowing is much tougher than cycling!!!! ), so I probably be clocking up a fair mileage-12/14 hours cycling a week.

Nice to see some other rowers on the forum . As changing discipline goes my main problems were/are! technical. The main problem is the pedalling action, unless you do all your training up at rate 50 its pretty different (but less stressful). I find that I get a bigger lactate burn as well, but then again I row very long so that might be different if you're used to a much shorter punchy type style. On the upside in cycling the UT2 workouts are at about 15bpm lower than rowing due to only using the legs, much more pleasant than 18km ergs and with a better view! Watch out, cycling will suck you in...