Winter bike: old-ish Vs new-ish
yaya
Posts: 411
Hi all,
With the winter coming I find that my CR1, other than being a bit stiff, is also quite twitchy in the wind and there's no way to fit any mudguards on it. Also I don't want the delicate carbon frame to rot due to road grit and grime.
So I'm looking for a cheapish alu bike that can take the beating of the English winter and the questions is do I go with a 5-10 yr old racer with good spec (105/ ultegra and good wheels) or do I look for a newer entry level bike with Sora/ Tiagra groupset and cheap wheels.
Assuming I find both used in VGC, which option will give a better ride that does not feel like a major downgrade from the CR1? Is an old high end groupset better than a newer entry level?
I'm looking to spend not more than £300-350...
Any advice is welcome!
With the winter coming I find that my CR1, other than being a bit stiff, is also quite twitchy in the wind and there's no way to fit any mudguards on it. Also I don't want the delicate carbon frame to rot due to road grit and grime.
So I'm looking for a cheapish alu bike that can take the beating of the English winter and the questions is do I go with a 5-10 yr old racer with good spec (105/ ultegra and good wheels) or do I look for a newer entry level bike with Sora/ Tiagra groupset and cheap wheels.
Assuming I find both used in VGC, which option will give a better ride that does not feel like a major downgrade from the CR1? Is an old high end groupset better than a newer entry level?
I'm looking to spend not more than £300-350...
Any advice is welcome!
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Comments
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Definately the older choice, especially as old Shimano kit is bombproof.And now you know, and knowing is half the battle
05 Spesh Enduro Expert
05 Trek 1000 Custom build
Speedily Singular Thingy0 -
get some crud roadracer mk2s on there and it'll be fine.0
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halfords do there carreara range of road bikes.
they take full mudguards
they may have a sale on at the moment.
The bikes are 8 speed compact chainset sora or 2330 kit on them.
steel fork. i've had one for 3 years and with a set of of mudguards
on them you can get through the winter on them.
i have been gradually upgrading the kit as it wears out
it's considerably cheaper than ribbles audax although to be fair
ribble spec will be better. tiagra versus sora carbon fork v steel - frame weight
the alternative as napd says is use the crudcatcher roadracer mk2 for bikes with
minimal clearence - parker interational, ribble, wiggle will sell them.
bear in mind there will be quite a difference from you cr1 to this interms of handling
and weight!!! to the carreara0 -
Why does a winter bike have to be low end? Just look after it like you do, and it'll be fine. Using 520 steel/Veloce bike for wet/winter bike (in fact use it far more than road bike, since it has guards and panniers)Say... That's a nice bike..
Trax T700 with Lew Racing Pro VT-1 ;-)0 -
Thank you all,
I've managed to fit the old Cruds (MkI) on but it still needs some tweaking.
I'm ordering the MkII extended bits from Crud (great service by the way...you just send them post stamps!!!)
Hopefully these £5 will save me £350:-)
Will keep you'all posted
y0
