Secteur Sport or other bikes with triple chain ring?!HELP!?!

Aggerdoo

Hey

I've recently done the London to Brighton on my Giant XTC mountain bike and really enjoyed it, but i know if i had a road bike then i'd be able to do it faster and i'd like to do some more similar rides, me and my friends are thinking about the Coast to Coast in the summer and London to Paris next year.
I've been looking and saw the Specialized Secteur Sport and liked it with the triple chain ring giving me 27 gears so i have more ammunition to be able to hit the hills with (next time i do the London to Brighton i don't want to have to walk the last bit of Ditchling Beacon!)
I was wondering if there are any other road bikes which are in the £500-£1000 bracket which would be good for this?

Thanks very much

Chris

keef66

There's dozens of road bikes with triple chainring in that price range!

Specialized do the slightly racier Allez with a triple at various price points, there's the Trek 1.2 or 1.5, the Scott Speedsters also come with a triple option as does the Cannondale Synapse.

Have a look on Evans' website. 2011 Specialized bikes have already been discounted

Aggerdoo

Ah thanks very much I'll have a look at them. I've literally only started looking in the past week, and wasn't sure where to look hence this post =D

rodgers73

I have last years Secteur Sport with the triple and I'm doing the Coast to Coast next weekend and London to Paris to coincide with the end of the Tour.

You'd be very happy with that bike I can tell you - it does me fine and I'm commuting to work on it twice a week (46 miles round trip) and doing sportives etc (100 miles+).

I've had no bother with any discomfort, stiff back, sore arse etc and the components are working nicely (Sora front, Tiagra rear mech, Sora levers and no-name brakes) if not as slick as a 105 or other more pricey groupsets.

The triple is very handy for my level of cycling (still in my first year) although some will say it adds unecessary weight. My reply would be - dont worry about that at this stage, save the ultra light bike for when you genuinely "need" that level of quality. While you're getting your fitness up to scratch and your own weight down a kilo up or down on the bike's weight isnt going to make much of a difference to you.

I'm sure there are other good deals out there but I'm a happy customer!

lifeform

Agree with Rodgers73 - you'll miss the triple if you're coming off MTBs - Ditchling Beacon is murder on a double

However, only having a double on my Trek 1.1 is driving me to put some effort into climbs like the Beacon (and the equally steep King George V Drive over the side of town).

Depends also on where you live - it's only on the 15% plus hills that I miss the granny gear - most of the time a compact/double is plenty low enough

rodgers73

I'm a stone's throw from the Peak District

lifeform

Ah, in that case I'd get one with six gears... and an engine.

Aggerdoo

I live in Cambridgeshire at the moment but I'm at uni in Sheffield. So will be back up there in September for the next couple of years, so think I'll need that 'granny gear' to get me up the hills. =D

rodgers73

You will - I did the AMR Peak District 100 starting at the HSBC Sports Ground in Dore the other week. I was on the granny ring for a lot of that ride!

CasperCCC

I loved my Secteur Sport. Great bike - really comfortable, fun to ride, easy to maintain. Traded up to a Condor Fratello, but still miss the Secteur a bit.

Aggerdoo

keef66 wrote:

There's dozens of road bikes with triple chainring in that price range!

Specialized do the slightly racier Allez with a triple at various price points, there's the Trek 1.2 or 1.5, the Scott Speedsters also come with a triple option as does the Cannondale Synapse.

Have a look on Evans' website. 2011 Specialized bikes have already been discounted

Thanks for saying these various other bikes, has anyone had any experience with these bikes??
possibly another stupid question coming up here, are all road bikes with triple chain rings more likely to be sportive kind of bikes or do you just get triple's on all styles?

and another silly question, i don't fully understand what a compact set is? could someone relieve me of my ignorance.

hstiles

If you are considering the upper limit of your budget, you could do a lot worse than the Focus Cayo - carbon frame & 105 groupset for £999

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/focus-cayo-105- ... 5360059957

CasperCCC

Aggerdoo wrote:

keef66 wrote:

There's dozens of road bikes with triple chainring in that price range!

Specialized do the slightly racier Allez with a triple at various price points, there's the Trek 1.2 or 1.5, the Scott Speedsters also come with a triple option as does the Cannondale Synapse.

Have a look on Evans' website. 2011 Specialized bikes have already been discounted

Thanks for saying these various other bikes, has anyone had any experience with these bikes??
possibly another stupid question coming up here, are all road bikes with triple chain rings more likely to be sportive kind of bikes or do you just get triple's on all styles?

and another silly question, i don't fully understand what a compact set is? could someone relieve me of my ignorance.

The Allez is basically the more aggressive version of the Secteur. My workmate has just gone from my old Secteur (got nicked - bastards...) to a colleague's Allez. Likes both, but the Allez is definitely built for speed, not comfort.

A compact has two chainrings, but a wider spread of gears than you'd get with a standard double. With a compact, you've got almost as wide a range of gears as you'd have with a triple.

Downside is that the difference between the chainrings is much bigger than you'd have with a triple, so there's more chance that you'll have to double shift. (Change gears at the back as well as at the front.)

I've just shifted from a triple to a compact. I'm not used to it yet. You've got to think about things more, and I'm finding that sometimes the bike really, really doesn't want to go from the smaller ring to the larger one - you've got to be in the right spot on the rear cogs. Annoying, and I've lost the chain a couple of times. Might partly be that I need to tweak the setup as the gear cables stretch a bit, might just be that it's something you learn to live with.

It's the first time I've had a compact, so I don't really know if it's my fault, the way the bike is set up, or just an inevitable part of running a compact. At the moment, I'd probably rather have stuck with my triple, though, even though I hardly ever used the smallest chainring.

Avanti Roman

hstiles wrote:

If you are considering the upper limit of your budget, you could do a lot worse than the Focus Cayo - carbon frame & 105 groupset for £999

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/focus-cayo-105- ... 5360059957

Good shout - as is this from Decathlon, Carbon frame & fork, Shimano 105 5700 triple for £900:
http://www.decathlon.co.uk/EN/btwin-facet-3-175387571/

Frame was ridden to victory by Christophe Moreau in the 2007 Dauphiné Libéré and French Road race championship - pretty good pedigree for £900!:
http://team.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id ... eaus_BTwin