Replacement Bike suggestions (warning - long post!)

hotdiggitty

Hi all, 'pologies in advance for the long post!

Had some bad luck with bikes recently - had my Boardman CX stolen last December and got that replaced with a Genesis Vapour Disc with the insurance payout. Unfortunately had a bit of a SMIDSY last month which landed me in hospital and left my bike in three parts and well-and-truly written off!

Still not really well enough to get on a bike yet but to cheer myself up I'm looking at potential replacements

The driver's insurance have admitted liability so I've just had a cheque through for the bike and damaged accessories, which is obviously good news. As I'm getting married in November and money is tight I'm thinking of banking the cheque into the wedding funds and getting a replacement on finance as my C2W and my fiance's engagement ring should be paid off soon.

Unfortunately getting C2W again isn't an option as my employer has 'cunningly' made an overlap between the end of my current agreement and the window for applying for a new one!

Anyway, you can see from my bike history I've been into cross bikes so far as I've liked their kinda go-anywhere do-anything style, plus the ability to handle rack and mudguards for commuting duties. Initial thought was to get another cross bike as the Three Peaks CX race is in September but that's clashing with my Stag weekend at Oktoberfest (which is obviously more important!).

I'd really picked up my mileage before the accident (doing 100-150 miles per week) with the aim of doing a few Sportives and had joined a club hoping to start to get my racing licenses as time went on so I'm really looking to get something a bit faster than the cross bikes I'd had in the past.

To treat myself (and so I'm not getting anything that will hold me back for a while) I'm looking at something full carbon around 8kg or lower and preferably with an Ultegra-level groupset. Obviously don't fancy commuting on a fancy road bike every day so I'll be looking at getting a commuter/hack to get around on the rest of the time.

Now there's an Evans store nearby which have been quite good to me in the past and they do Finance. The finance options point me towards 24 months interest free to keep monthly payments down but I have to spend over £2200 to get this. Sure this won't be a problem though! Want to keep monthly payments under £100 but don't mind going slightly over for the perfect solution.

I've looked at this ordered it to store for a look so (I think) that's why it's showing as out of stock now. Was £2700, reduced to £1900. I think the 53cm will be OK for my height (177cm) as they do seem to be quite different in terms of geometry.

For the commuter/hack I've been looking at something like this which seems pretty nice steel SS steed, braze-ons for mudguards and a rack at £650.

My calculations say £1900 + £650 = £2550 -10% deposit and /24 months leaves monthly payment at £95.63 approx

What do people think of these choices? Any other bikes/sites I should be considering? I know Tredz do 36 months interest-free so I have the go-nuclear option of the Cube Agree GTC SL Di2 and that with the Genesis Day One would leave my payments around £78 over 36 months.

Again, sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for helpful suggestions!

bigmat

Don't get hung up on sub-8kg, most off the peg bikes come with pretty heavy wheels / tyres / saddle, these are items you will probably end up upgrading sooner rather than later and you can easily close to a kilo in weight on those parts alone. My best bike was 9.5kg when i bought it, a few upgrades later and it weighs under 7.5.

hotdiggitty

Good point! Gonna be looking at next year before I can afford some nice wheels but maybe if I look at cheaper bike I can put the wheels onto the finance package? Again, suggestions please!