Winter Trainer through cyclesheme

passout
passout Posts: 4,425
edited December 2009 in Road buying advice
Hi

I am going to get a winter trainer through cyclescheme. I expect to pay well over £500 up to an absolute max of £1000. I would welcome any suggestions.

So far I have been looking at Ribble Winter Trainer (Tiagra £570, 105 £750), a Dolan alu. winter trainer with Tiagra for £700 from Broadgate Cycles in Preston, a Kinesis T2 with 105 with RS10 wheels custom build from Merlin for £800 or the slightly more leftfield choice of a Kaffenbach (steel with canti brakes) from Planet X for about £830 but with some Ultegra on it. Got a quote for a Tiagra Condor Fratello for about £1150 which looks nice but is just a bit too pricey.

Kinesis seems best to me and of course there is always Ribble trainers which are hard to fault, what do you think? Seen any suitable bargains? Any advice.

Cheers
'Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible' Marcel Proust.

Comments

  • prawny
    prawny Posts: 5,443
    A little over budger but the Viner Passo is £1199 and gorgeous.

    I like the Kinesis bikes too. Does Bob Jackson do cyclescheme? I fancy an Audax club.
    Saracen Tenet 3 - 2015 - Dead - Replaced with a Hack Frame
    Voodoo Bizango - 2014 - Dead - Hit by a car
    Vitus Sentier VRS - 2017
  • redddraggon
    redddraggon Posts: 10,862
    Kinesis has a bit of a funny geometry but if it suits you I'd go for one of them - £800 seems a good price too.
    I like bikes...

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  • passout
    passout Posts: 4,425
    Yeah the Willier looks nice but too much I fear.

    Reddragon, what do you mean by 'funny' as I haven't given a Kinesis test ride yet?
    'Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible' Marcel Proust.
  • redddraggon
    redddraggon Posts: 10,862
    Some of the frames are quite long with a short headtube. So they come out quite racy, which may or may not be an issue.

    The RC2 doesn't seem to have that "funny" a geo to be fair, and for £800 seems like a very good buy.
    I like bikes...

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  • VinceEager
    VinceEager Posts: 247
    kinesis do the decade convert with 'swopouts' -(that can interchange for 130 / 120 mm hubs and vertical dropouts / track ends...)

    meaning you can run it as a fixed / single speed for winter training and have the option of having it as a geared bike if you want to.

    as soon as i have some spare cash i'm buying the frameset
    :D
    ...the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon...
  • passout
    passout Posts: 4,425
    Interesting. Thanks chaps.
    'Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible' Marcel Proust.
  • hopper1
    hopper1 Posts: 4,389
    Kinesis are very highly rated.
    I'd go for the Viner Passo, too.
    If you speak to Epic Cycles, it can be specced as you like, so may come in at under £1000...

    And, as you point out, Ribble are almost too good to pass at those prices. :wink:
    Start with a budget, finish with a mortgage!
  • andy162
    andy162 Posts: 634
    I got the Ribble for a winter hack through the scheme. Mine's the Tiagra build & I rate it. It's cheap enough not to be too precious about because now the weathers turned it's getting battered. I spec'd a decent saddle when I ordered mine rather than the default cheapo perch.

    Fully recommended.
  • passout
    passout Posts: 4,425
    I'm veering towards ribble now. Does seem good value.
    'Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible' Marcel Proust.

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