Road bike advice

kasandrich

Hi, looking for some advice, I have lost a llot of weight (over 11 stone) and with a view to upping my excercise level, I bought a Mountain bike in November last year, not wishing to buy twice, I bought an expensive ('ish) bike, a Marin B17 http://www.bicycledoctor.co.uk/p_marinb17.html I was amazed at how it rode, its great bike and I love it, although I have not done anything extreme with it, usually riding down an old railway line with my dog, a round trip of around 7 miles.

Recently I went out for a ride on the road with a friend, we did 5 miles one day, 8 miles the next day, then 12 miles one evening in the week, then he asked me if I would consider doing a sponsored ride of 62 miles in August. I have since done a couple of 15 mile rides and decided I will train for this 62mile sponsored ride in August.

I have since put 1.5" road tyres on my bike to make it more suited to the road, but the next obstacle is the gearing, I have run out of gears and do not have high enough ratios. I have considered modifications such as a bigger 48 (from the mtb 42) or more chainring, but it brings all sorts of headaches with it such as chain length, and I do not want to spoil a good MTB, so I am starting to think that buying an entry level road bike may be the way forward.

I cannot afford or justify an expensive road bike at this time, but I have seen Teman bikes on ebay from £150 - £200, lightweight ally frame 700c wheels. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320889052004? ... 872wt_1270

Your thoughts and advice would be welcome, leave it alone and ride the Marin as it is, modify the Marin, buy a cheap road bike?

rolf_f

I suspect the cheap bike will just be horrible. If you have a decent MTB, probably you need a reasonably decent road bike as well (better to buy two £500 bikes than one £850 bike and one £150 bike).

Chances are a £200 bike is not going to stop costing you at the purchase price.

As your MTB is a hard tail, I would get some narrowish slicks for it and a smaller geared cassette and then learn to spin the pedals faster. If you can't be bothered with the five minute job of switching the cassette over between road and MTB trips, make it a two minute job and spend some of the money you saved by not buying a junk road bike and get a new rear wheel (or pair so you can keep the knobblies on one set). A spare set of wheels is always worth having and, in the mean time, you can keep the small cassette on one pair fitted with the slicks and keep the MTB set on the other.

Yes, you'll probably want a slightly shorter chain but then you should already have spare chains so all you need to do is make sure you can distinguish which is which.

Either the above or double your budget and get something like a Carrera TDF.

kasandrich

Thanks for the advice, its kind of what I expected to hear, as I said, I am not in a position to buy a decent road bike at this time, so thats not an option.

How much do you think I would need to spend on a pair of wheels, thats a great idea, knobblies and off road gearing on one pair and slicks and road gearing on the other pair.......do you think there is any chance of fitting 700c wheels to my mtb frame which is built for 26" wheels, bearing in mind that the tyres are much smaller width & section, the bigger diameter will help with the gearing wont it? Should be loads of room on the front with telescopic forks, but the back may be tight, brakes are not an issue as the are both disc.

I have of course locked the forks up as much as possible.

kasandrich

I have just been looking at wheels on ebay, its only just occured to me how few disc brakes are used on road bikes, that could stop me fitting 700c wheels

Gizmodo

As much as Halfords are disliked by some on this forum, they do some reasonable cheap road bikes. I bought a Carerra TDF Ltd last year, ok I've have upgraded since then, but I've seen plenty of people doing 60 mile Sportives on those level of bikes.

Go down to Halfords, sit on a few bikes to find what kind of size you need. Don't forget that the forward reach is as important as height. Then go home and get on eBay and Gumtree and see what's for sale. You will be amazed at how many people buy a road bike for a charity ride and when they've done it they put it on eBay for sale!

Be careful, you don't want to end up with a stolen bike. Check their feedback. Ask them questions that an owner would know and a thief wouldn't. Ask them if they have the original receipt. Go to their address, check them out, sit on the bike and get a feel for the seller - the vast majority are honest!

houndlegs

Second hand all the way, some real bargains to be had. Follow the tips giz gave about checking it out. And congrats on the weight loss.

unixnerd

Yep, second hand from ebay or gumtree. I've had a few bargains that way. You'd get a decent road bike from a known brand name for 250-400 quid (I did). I got my nephew a ten year old Trek with Shimano RSX shifters for 60 quid then spent 40 doing it up, so anything's possible :-)