First road bike...

pitch2009

Looking at various different bikes up to the magical £1,000 mark including Giant Defy 1 or 2, Trek 1.5 or 2.1 (or reduced Madone if I'm lucky enough to find one!)

So I have 2 questions:
1. Opinions on the short list, good points, bad points, what they are like to live with etc.
2. What would be the maximum size tyres I could run. They mostly come with 23-25c, but I would like to be able to run larger if possible, a lot of the roads I will likely be riding are not the best!

Cheers.

ALaPlage

All good choices. If you can find a 3.1 Madone on offer then definitely worth considering but probably have to stretch the budget by up to £200.

I would also consider the Cannondale Synapse or CAAD 8 which is a little racier in geometry. The Cube Peloton Race with 105 group set is a fantastic bike and great value for money and the Specialized Allez also would sit comfortably on your list.

Ideally you need to go and try the bikes out for size, feel and fit as this should be the driver on which you eventually go for. All the bikes in the £1000 arena are good and little between them so it does come back to what feels right and fits your body shape best. Componentry can differ but little between 21012 Tiagra and 105 group sets and also check out what the standard wheel set is if you are comparing on value for money.

The Cube is hard to beat if its the quality of the components that interests you as they fit better standard wheels and finishing kit than most other brands.

If you are happy to trust online and not try before you buy then Canyon, like Cube, give great value with better kit on the standard bike.

Good luck, don't procrastinate too much, get the bike and get cycling

ALaPlage

Oh and unless you want to use a road bike on tow path type surfaces (in which case get a cyclocross bike such as the Cannondale CAADX or Kinesis Crosslight or Ridley) 25mm tyres will be more than adequate for comfort on roads.

I ride around North Yorks and also Cheshire (due to work dragging me across to the North West) on 23mm tyres and some of the backroads are atrocious but the bike handles them comfortably.

clickrumble

If you can, get the shop to let you try the bike before buying. Also check the gears as it seems to me that most road bikes come with highish gearing as standard, fine if it's fairly flat where you are but you may need lower gears if it's hilly.

karlth

Clickrumble wrote:

If you can, get the shop to let you try the bike before buying. Also check the gears as it seems to me that most road bikes come with highish gearing as standard, fine if it's fairly flat where you are but you may need lower gears if it's hilly.

They do. It's so that the staff in the LBS can abuse you when you ask about triples/compacts/larger cassettes in much the same manner as this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxQqWSnsHoA