Stubborn Friend.

gcaster
gcaster Posts: 152
edited May 2009 in Road buying advice
Hi,

One of my friends has asked my advice as to which road bike he should go for.
His budget is around £550-600 for his first road bike.

He's looking at the Specialized Allez Sport from Evans but I'm trying to warn him off. For this kind of money (£570) I think he should be looking at something with a Tiagra or Tiagra/105 groupset, not Sora.

The boardman for £650 comes with a Tiagra/105 set and seems the ideal choice if he can stretch his budget Otherwise for £600 there's a few alternatives that offer a Tiagra set-up.

Can anyone offer any thoughts as to what he should do?

Cheers.

Comments

  • STEFANOS4784
    STEFANOS4784 Posts: 4,109
    Personally i'd go 2nd hand at that price range. However brand new most at this price point, from a bike shop, are Sora equipped. The boardman is risky because even thoufgh it's good on paper there maybe hidden costs when it comes to getting the bike set up properly as Halfords mechanics seem a bit hit and miss.

    Personally i'd go for the Sora equipped Bianchi Nirone for that budget, if i had to by new and i had to buy from a shop :)
  • kingrollo
    kingrollo Posts: 3,198
    Are you near a decathlon they do a nice bike for £500 -

    I wouldn't get to hung up on the groupset - frame is much more important . FWIW - I have a sora equiped Decathlon as my commutter bike - for a base groupset the sora has been fine - bikes coming up for 3 years old without problems