Beginner doing London2Paris in May

JPHJPH

In a keen beginner looking to purshase to purchase my 1st road bike?? With my bro i plan run to do the London 2 Paris in may 2013 as my 1st goal.... with a budget of £600-1000 what bike should i go with, at Halfords i was looking at Broadman COMP or CARRERA VIRAGO(CARBON) but im now swayingn towards a PLANET-X PRO CARBON RIVAL for £999.

Question is am i looking at the right bikes & anyone got any advise for a beginner looking to ride to Paris in 8 mths time.

cheers for your time,, Jason

Anonymous

Cannondale CAAD8 or last years CAAD10 would also be worth considering. Giant are very good value for money, and at £1000 you have lots of options.

It's a long way so you may want a more 'relaxed' (read 'upright) geometry or if you are flexible/lucky you may fit a aggressive (read 'hunched forward') frame with no aches after long mileage.

Obviously its hard for someone to decide for you and you need to try a few bikes out to see what you like the fit/feel of.

Personally, for your 1st bike. I would say the 2 most important things are this:
1) It is comfortable
2) (and nearly as important as 1) You like it for a reason you can't describe - look, shape, paint scheme, whatever. You surely appreciate that you will be training hard over the coldest months and god knows what weather May will bring. I don't doubt there will be some dark times on frosty mornings and the alarm ringing early on a weekend, but if you love your bike, you'll ride it anyway.

PX and Boardman are very good bikes, btw. I would avoid Carrera as Halfords do have more than their fair share of horror stories.

Gizmodo

Have you seen this article from Cycling+ magazine - Best road bikes under £1,000

secretsam

Cannondale's CAAD bikes are good (I've got one) but not exactly a relaxed ride

Personally, I'd get down to a decent bike shop and talk to them - where do you live?

Also consider some of the online retailers - Ribble had an excellent £1k deal on a 105-equipped carbon bike recently (though you'd need to spend an extra £2 upgrading to a compact chainset!)

BTW, are you buying on Cycle to Work? If so, you'll save a bundle

JPHJPH

SecretSam wrote:

Cannondale's CAAD bikes are good (I've got one) but not exactly a relaxed ride

Personally, I'd get down to a decent bike shop and talk to them - where do you live?

Also consider some of the online retailers - Ribble had an excellent £1k deal on a 105-equipped carbon bike recently (though you'd need to spend an extra £2 upgrading to a compact chainset!)

BTW, are you buying on Cycle to Work? If so, you'll save a bundle

#
No im a cab driver so can't realy cycle to work,,, im from Uxbridge, W.London (Nr Heathrow).

To be honest a few people have mentioned the Cannondale CAA9 etc but think i will sway towards the PLANET-X PRO CARBON RIVAL.
A full carbon frame with alot of SRAM components which i'm led to beleive are quality components, & more importantly i think it looks the part... will try & find a bike shop that has 1 in store so i can try it before i buy..

Thanks for your comments

klep

I ride a Planet-X SL Pro Carbon frame. Built it myself with Shimano 105 Groupset and I am VERY happy with it. Great stiff frame and good for racing, climbing but also for longer rides. Did 100mi last sunday without any uncomfortableness.

Sram Rival should do the job just as well.

RDW

JPHJPH wrote:

A full carbon frame with alot of SRAM components which i'm led to beleive are quality components, & more importantly i think it looks the part... will try & find a bike shop that has 1 in store so i can try it before i buy..

Geoff Butler in Croydon has a nice Campag build you might want to check out, though it's now £100 more than the standard SRAM build:

http://www.gbcycles.co.uk/product/35771 ... ce_Bicycle

I have a version of this and am very happy with it. Not sure if they can also source the SRAM build, but it would be worth going along to try the frame (phone ahead to check stock). I think there's at least one other PX dealer in the London area - possibly a triathlon gear shop..?

junglist_matty

One quick thing to mention here:

Carbon does not mean better than aluminium, there are lots of different grades of carbon and the lower graded carbons are not as a good as a well made aluminium frame and usually heavier. The pro that some people like to claim is that the carbon is less harsh than the aluminium but again, that all depends on the frame design; you can get harsh carbon frames and "soft" aluminium frames.

There are so many bikes out there you could buy for £1000, Planet X are good value for money, I've got an On-One Carbon 456 (sister company); it's a harsh ride for carbon. I've also got an aluminium road bike and it's far better than a lot of similarly priced carbons, so it's swings and roundabouts.

Just don't get too hung up about carbon vs. alu


As for recommendations, for the money Canyon can't be beaten and they are brilliant, but then I have one and I love mine so of course I'm going to be biasd towards them.... PS, I hate the CAAD bikes, they're not comfortable at all, and would be hell for a longer ride like London to Paris (a friend has one and even he is looking to get something more comfortable).

JPHJPH

Even more options now,, ive just been to my LBS & they also said don't get too hung up about a carbon frame... obvioiusly b'cos they stock them they have pointed me towards the SCOTT Speedster 2012 range,, the Speedster 10 has Shimano Ultegra components,, so i think the question is: carbon frame which less quality components or alu frame with higher spec components.... quite like the look of the Speedster 10 though... hmm decisions!!

secretsam

JPHJPH wrote:

Even more options now,, ive just been to my LBS & they also said don't get too hung up about a carbon frame... obvioiusly b'cos they stock them they have pointed me towards the SCOTT Speedster 2012 range,, the Speedster 10 has Shimano Ultegra components,, so i think the question is: carbon frame which less quality components or alu frame with higher spec components.... quite like the look of the Speedster 10 though... hmm decisions!!

End of the day, it's about a bike you'll feel comfy on, for doing a long ride

You can try other bike shops to get a range of opinions - bear in mind, if they don't get to sell you a bike, they will still probably service it so will still be getting trade that way

BTW, cycle to work doesn't mean you have to use the bike for commuting - you can get one even if you never use it to ride to work

Bear in mind any bike for L2P will probably need reasonable gear spread as well

Captainlip

if your going to buy from halfords and not your LBS dont expect any aftercare service if something goes wrong.

MichaelW

If the ride is in may, you will need to train for a min of 3 months, basically, as soon as the winter freeze ends, you will need to get back on your bike ASAP to get some miles in your legs and some conditioning in your butt.
Riding in winter is much easier with mudguards. Many people use race bikes with clip-on crud or raceblades. If you were buying a commuter roadbike I would advise one with threaded eyelets and clearance for proper bolt-on 'guards, but since this is a playbike, the clip on style will suffice.
You do need to have sufficient tyre clearance for clip on guards. Avoid any bike with extremely tight tyre clearance.
The current trend is back towards wider tyres after a decade or so of ultra-narrow ones, which is a good thing.
I think the style of roadbike you need is probably Sportiff, designed for long events rather than fast racing.