halfords £200 road bike

esd

just had a look at the halfords apollo road bike £199....screw headset, brake levers, quick fire shifters on the bars...cheap wheelset, 7 speed cassette...cheap caliper brakes

But whats the point?

or is it just the price mark...get youngsters first road bike?

views?

ESD

Pross

What's the point of what? It's just a cheap 'road bike' aimed at the same sort of market as those 'MTBs' you get in Argos and supermarkets. There are still plenty of people who would put class a Triban or similar as an expensive bike.

Not sure it justifies two threads though

Anonymous

Are there not dozens of other bikes you could ask that question of?

danlikesbikes

Plenty of similar bikes out there at that price range & for some it is a good option cost wise for others it could be a lot of money to spend.

diy

I have to say given that Argos do a trax mtb for less than the cost of a decent seatpost, there is an argument that if you are just riding 5 or 6 miles along a canal path, its perfect for the job.

Personally if my budget was £200 I'd be looking second hand.

Anonymous

When I looked at the bike, underneath where it says 'You may also like' is full of £2K+ Pinarellos :?:

I have only ever looked at them once on there, so if its not cookie related they are really trying to shift those bikes

danlikesbikes

Carbonator wrote:

When I looked at the bike, underneath where it says 'You may also like' is full of £2K+ Pinarellos :?:

I have only ever looked at them once on there, so if its not cookie related they are really trying to shift those bikes

Are you sure you have not been checking them out on the sly

goonz

I guess its good for getting the public into cycling. good for a first bike for many. not everyone can access the cycle to work scheme or has loads of cash under their mattresses

Bike Radar

Lots of people buy a bike and only use it occaisionally. Kids have bikes which they smash to bits before anything wears out because of mileage.
If a bike only covers 100 miles in its lifetime there's little point in spending much on it.

notnot

Pross wrote:

What's the point of what? It's just a cheap 'road bike' aimed at the same sort of market as those 'MTBs' you get in Argos and supermarkets. There are still plenty of people who would put class a Triban or similar as an expensive bike.

And - as long as it's well enough built to be safe to ride - a cheap bike to get to pub, supermarket etc. can be a far quicker way of getting around than walking

chris_bass

like most have said, if you only cycle once or twice a month and just pottering about then its probably great for your needs.

My friends had a £100 trax mtb, not a great bike, but she used it and found that she liked cycling and so after a while she bought a better bike and now cycles more frequently.

would you buy a fender stratocaster or gibson les paul to learn to play guitar on? or a cheaper one and then upgrade when (and if) you find you like it and get better?

MattyyP

I started my riding on a £90 Totem Pro. I thought it was a pro bike, it made me feel pro anyway! It only takes a cheapo machine to get bitten by the cycling bug! However I now sometimes take it for a spin to the shops, and wonder how I used to ride it so much, it's not a pleasant experience!

notnot

I've got a £50 Giant MTB which I use regularly - was across to Tescos on it today. For shorter rides, it's fine.

There's also the perverse pleasure of climbing past people with far more expensive kit

declan1

My road bike cost me £200. It was crap. I since purchased a second-hand steel bike with Shimano 600 Ultegra components and Mavic MA2 wheels and swapped them over to the original frame. It's still a rubbish bike, but it's perfectly adequate for me.

wellbeloved747

Saw this today in my local halfords, in my opinion it is a waste of £200!

goonz

Says you with a garage full of top spec specializeds. Not everyone can afford those.

roger_merriman

It is what it is, it's got those rather fugly shifters though they normally do quite well in reviews, compared to downtube etc.

clearly it is isn't light, no matter what is printed on the frame, and will have a narrower gearing range, and has rubbish tyres.

this said as long as the frame isn't too rubbish, may well be a nice enough bike, by time it has new saddle/tyres brake pads probably feels like a new bike!

Beckers62

If you have a £200 budget that you could stretch to £300 you can't go far wrong with one of these

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/tech/bik ... y-for.html

My other half has one, they are quite tidy for the money

elderone

wellbeloved747 wrote:

Saw this today in my local halfords, in my opinion it is a waste of £200!

Yet another halfords dig.Proper bike snob.

Good thing is your opinion is worth about as much as tits on a bull.People buy what they can afford and if that,s halfords then so be it.

MountainMonster

elderone wrote:

wellbeloved747 wrote:

Saw this today in my local halfords, in my opinion it is a waste of £200!

Yet another halfords dig.Proper bike snob.

Good thing is your opinion is worth about as much as tits on a bull.People buy what they can afford and if that,s halfords then so be it.

Seems to be a dig at the bike rather than at Halfords.

NITR8s

I recon they could build a bike to retail at £200 with at least 2300 shifters, imho the person who has designed and agreed to build that bike knows nothing about bikes.

I can imagine the conversation went like this.

Halfords guy: I want to sell a cheap road bike for say about £200.

Guy at factory in China: Ok we can put all these cheap and nasty components on a frame and make it look like a road bike and the wheels will turn and every thing.

Halfords guy: Great idea!, lets do it.

canny_lad

wellbeloved747 wrote:

Saw this today in my local halfords, in my opinion it is a waste of £200!

Stop going in Halfords then, all you do is slag their bikes off. As has been said, not everyone has a garage full of bikes like you.

MountainMonster

NITR8s wrote:

I recon they could build a bike to retail at £200 with at least 2300 shifters, imho the person who has designed and agreed to build that bike knows nothing about bikes.

I can imagine the conversation went like this.

Halfords guy: I want to sell a cheap road bike for say about £200.

Guy at factory in China: Ok we can put all these cheap and nasty components on a frame and make it look like a road bike and the wheels will turn and every thing.

Halfords guy: Great idea!, lets do it.

They are cheap because they are the most basic parts you could buy, and are of no quality worth speaking about. It would be darn nice if they could do decent bikes at that price point, but it simply will not happen. Also putting 'nicer' shifters on will do nothing for the bike, as that could cash could have spent on a more vital part.

cheaterkiller

esd wrote:

just had a look at the halfords apollo road bike £199....screwed headset, broke levers, quick fire shíters on the ars...cheap wheelset, 7 speed cassette...cheap calipers brake

But whats the point?

or is it just the price mark...get youngsters first road bike?

views?

ESD

I corrected your post mate.

There isnt really a point to such bikes. Not even useful for spares. Their quality will likely put off youngsters from cycling.

Bustacapp

It's still a road bike and will generally work as well as one that costs £10,000.

Quit being such a snob.

cheaterkiller

Bustacapp wrote:

It's still a road bike and will generally work as well as one that costs £10,000.

Quit being such a snob.

Quite being so naive then.

Bustacapp

cheaterkiller wrote:

Quite being so naive then.

Please explain.

Anonymous

Bustacapp wrote:

It's still a road bike and will generally work as well as one that costs £10,000.

Quit being such a snob.

At what point would it not work as well? £150? £100? £50? £14.99?

Bustacapp

Carbonator wrote:

At what point would it not work as well? £150? £100? £50? £14.99?

You tell me! You seem to be the type that has a minimum threshold when it comes to spending money on a road bike. What is your cutoff point and why?

If the bike rolls well and generally works like a roadbike should, then I'd be happy to pay 99p for it even if the gear levers were twist grips!!

slowbike

What a load of crap from ppl that should know better ...

a £200 bike isn't going to be "the mother of all bikes glittering with the best kit" ... FFS - what do you expect?
Ppl who buy these sorts of bikes are not thinking of a 50 mile warmup before the race/TT - they're buying them to get from A-B economically or just to see if they like cycling ...

Before I got my two specialized bikes I bought a Halfords Hybrid - in fact, I've just sold it on ... it was heavy ... that's about as much as I can say against it ... it worked for a 3 mile each way commute and more recently for cycling with the family on trails etc ... I even managed one 35mile round trip on a trail on that ...

So - considering I've done more miles last month than I ever did on the HH - why on earth would I have wanted to spend more money on something I wouldn't get much use from?! I bought it, used it a bit, decided I (well, we - the wife has a nice bike too now) liked cycling (again) and upgraded ...

Now I'm meeting up with some friends and riding a bit with them - his bike is a cheapy secondhand bike that cost less than a set of new tyres - but it does him (for now) and it still gets us around a trail happily.

Jeeze - you guys moan when ppl buy halfords cheapies and you moan when unfit blokes splash out on £2-3k carbon bikes ... perhaps anyone who ever wants to buy a bike should get your agreement first ...

Bustacapp

Slowbike wrote:

perhaps anyone who ever wants to buy a bike should get your agreement first ...