Viner Gladius & Miche

duckson

There is a high probability my employer will be implementing the Halfords C2W scheme shortly, as i'd be looking for a road bike for £1k is the Viner Gladuis a good option?
I would prefer Campg over Shimano as the current old bike i use has Campag groupset (although an old Mirage setup).

http://www.cycle2work.info/employees/viner.html

Since i last looked at this bike 3-4 months ago it seems a number of parts are now not Campag but Miche.....never heard of the brand, are they any good?
Is the Gladius as good as it was for £999 or have they cheapened the quality?

Or should i be looking at something else without Campag? (Dolan Mythos, Boardman carbon?)

TIA.

kozzo

http://www.miche.it/prodotti.php?lang=en

This brand is older than Campagnolo...1919 Miche 1933 Campagnollo
Mainly producing Campagnolo compatible parts
I've been using chains, sprockets, cranksets.
They offer signle sprocekts that allow to compose custom cassette.
http://www.miche.it/scheda.php?id=460&idCat=247
In my opinion they are really OK.

rowman

You may find that Halfrauds no longer supply the Gladius. I believe that the only choices left are the Dolan and Boardman?

Chip \'oyler

As I biased owner of a Viner I would say go for it!

They are very well made and handle very well. Don't worry about Miche - they are a quality company and produce very good track components.

Chip \'oyler

There are a few 'Cycle to Work' bikes on Viner's own website

http://www.vinerbikes.com/cycle-work-bi ... 7_462.html

duckson

rowman wrote:

You may find that Halfrauds no longer supply the Gladius. I believe that the only choices left are the Dolan and Boardman?

Well that would be typical!!! :roll:

Can anyone confirm if this is true or not?

rowman

I called Halfords today and they confirmed that only carbon framed bikes for £1K were the Boardman and Dolan.

This is very annoying as Halfords in their wisdom have severed links with just about all the good sources of quality bikes at the £1K price point.

Rowman

duckson

Doh.

I was wanting a Campag Centaur setup.
Would Halfords be able to source a bike from Ribble? Their Carbon Sportive has Centaur for £999.

bigmat

Halfords don't deal with Ribble. For Cycle to work with Campag the Gladius is the best option. Might be worth asking specifically if there are any left. The Miche parts are fine except for the calipers which are a bit underspecced compared to the rest of the bike, but that would be an easy upgrade. The 08 Centaur parts are actually slightly higher spec than 09 Centaur therefore way better than the Veloce on the standard Gladius.

If there are no more Viners available, I'd get a Boardman - great looking bike for a grand.

duckson

Thanks. Well as the scheme isnt here yet the Gladius's might be all gone by then if indeed there are any left.
Think i'd probably go with the Boardman Team carbon as yiu suggest....SRAM Rival looks pretty good tbh and the bike gets great write ups.

duckson

Slightly OT but on hte Halfords C2W scheme if you wanted a specific bike and it was out of stock and wasnt due back in till after your scheme ended (its likely to run for a month) could you still get it through the scheme? ie once an order is placed thats it, just wait till you get it even if it only arrives after the scheme ends?