Grand budget, first 100 miler. Advice please????
Jcjblackwood
Posts: 24
Been riding a Spec Tricross for a year, and love my road biking!! Have entered the June 2014 Dragon Ride (100) and Father Christmas has bumped up my budget to £1000 (and no more). Have looked at Ribble, Spec, Trek and Giant bikes but don't know which to go for, though I see there are some bargains to be had this time of year. Am 43 yo and looking at the trade off between saddle time (comfort) and performance. Reviews are sometimes conflicting and don't know where to go. Any advice would be v. much appreciated!!! (And as a relative newbie pls dont beat me up for asking or if anything in this post doesn't make sense :?
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I bought this as my first road bike about a year ago for £1500. Now up for £999.99!
Merida Ride Carbon
I've used it on several long rides, and one of 100 miles. Comfortable as far as bikes go, it was more me that was the limitation (my legs really suffered, also it was really really hot - approx 35 degrees)0 -
Look at Dolan Etape.0
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Visit some bike shops and try out some bikes. For something like the Dragon Ride you want a bike that fits and is comfortable as you could be looking at upwards of 8 hours in the saddle. Different brands have different geometry so for example a 54cm bike from Trek, Specialized, Ribble, Bianchi etc will all feel and fit different. I was in the exact same position as you 7 years ago, and looked at Bianchi and Lemond (both bikes reduced at Evans from 1600 to 1000). I have a longish torso vs leg length and found the Bianchi felt cramped. Lemond felt much better - Trek I believe have similar geometry. I rode the Dragon that year and every year since, along with the "easy" Etape in '08. Only things I changed were the wheels and handlebars (to slightly narrower carbon Eastons). The bike is now perfect for me and I won't change it til it breaks.
A lot of the shops have sales on now so you should be able to pick up something decent, and as you already like your Spesh TriCross maybe start looking at their specific road range?
Btw you'll love the Dragon - it's actually closer to 125 miles but last year once we'd climbed Bwlch, 10 miles after the Rhigos summit feedstop, it was a near 25 mile downhill to the finish. Absolutely brilliant and worth it for that bit alone!0 -
Have you tried looking at the btwin facet?0
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Great advice, thanks chaps. Sometimes you can have too much choice!!!!!0
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Ribble 872 Special Edition for £999 would get my vote.0
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Very happy with my Planet X Pro Carbon for exactly a grand!0
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TFC1 wrote:Very happy with my Planet X Pro Carbon for exactly a grand!
This does seem the best value for that budget!0 -
Great frame for fast sportive type riding, you might compromise on groupset compared to the big brands but comes highly recommended by me.diamonddog wrote:Look at Dolan Etape.0 -
I've been riding a 2009 model Specialised Tricross Sport for the last 3 years. Got it second hand in perfect condition and set up stock for a great price before I'd decided what type of riding I wanted to do. After 6 months of mostly road use with the occassional trip down a canal tow path I decided to switch the 34mm Borough semi-offroad tyres for a set of 28mm Gatorskin slicks (the original wide rims made this the minimum safe size). The difference in both comfort and speed was huge. Later I also switched the cassette to a closer ratio and replaced the VERY heavy original wheels for a set of Fulcrum racing 7 wheels with 25mm Conti 4 seasons tyres. I've also changed the original stem for a -20deg stem to get the bars down a bit lower.Jcjblackwood wrote:Been riding a Spec Tricross for a year, and love my road biking!! Have entered the June 2014 Dragon Ride (100) and Father Christmas has bumped up my budget to £1000 (and no more). Have looked at Ribble, Spec, Trek and Giant bikes but don't know which to go for, though I see there are some bargains to be had this time of year. Am 43 yo and looking at the trade off between saddle time (comfort) and performance. Reviews are sometimes conflicting and don't know where to go. Any advice would be v. much appreciated!!! (And as a relative newbie pls dont beat me up for asking or if anything in this post doesn't make sense :?
None of these changes were overly expensive. About €150 in a sale for the wheels, €40 for the stem and €25 for a cassette (mine's 9 speed).
These changes essentially make the tricross into a road bike. It's not the perfect road bike but it's not at all bad. It is a little heavy but only a little. The high original weight was largely due to the stock wheels and tyres.
I've been riding a bit over 5000km per year and have done many events on this bike over the last couple of years including hilly sportives of up to 200km and several duathlons and adventure races. I've hired good carbon road bikes while away on cycling holidays (Focus Cayo EVO and Ridley Orion) so I do have a basis for comparison. Admittedly these were more fun to ride and significantly lighter but they're €2k - €2.5k bikes. I considered upgrading to a road bike at the start of both 2012 and 2013 but couldn't justify it. Personally, I didn't feel it was worth replacing the Tricross with a €1000 to €1300 road bike since I didn't think the improvement would be very significant. However, it's now time for a change as I plan to take things a little more seriously this year. I'm looking at spending €2.5k - €3k on my new bike.
I'm not trying to talk you out of a new bike. Just pointing out that if you're riding the Tricross in it's original configuration there's a huge amount of performance gain to be had for relatively little expense.
If you were to make just one change, make it the tyres as this is the biggest performance gain and completely changes the feel of the bike. It's also fairly cheap and very easy. Just a pair of slicks will make the Tricross a decent sportive bike.
If you are changing bikes I'd suggest taking a look at Canyon's offerings.
Their Roadlite AL can be bought with either Shimano 105 or SRAM Apex groupset and Mavic Aksium wheels for £899. Weight is 8.25kg/8.3kg. If you decided to up your budget to £1200 you can get the same frame with Shimano Ultegra or Campagnolo Athena. These builds are listed at under 8kg.0 -
Ai_1 wrote:Jcjblackwood wrote:If you are changing bikes I'd suggest taking a look at Canyon's offerings.
Their Roadlite AL can be bought with either Shimano 105 or SRAM Apex groupset and Mavic Aksium wheels for £899. Weight is 8.25kg/8.3kg. If you decided to up your budget to £1200 you can get the same frame with Shimano Ultegra or Campagnolo Athena. These builds are listed at under 8kg.
ROSE Bikes also do a similar AL setup. + They tend to be a lot faster getting the bike to you than Canyon and a tad lighter.
http://www.rosebikes.co.uk/bike/rose-pr ... aid:666623
Ultegra 6800 and only 7.75kg (Alu) for £100 over the budget ...... http://www.rosebikes.co.uk/bike/rose-pr ... tchanged=1 :P0 -
As long as you get the right size bike it can be adjusted to fit you accurately by moving the saddle height position, the reach / drop to the bars and other things like tyres. On my bike the saddle was too narrow for me and after an hour it was painful. Measured myself and bought a wider cutaway saddle which I can now ride for hours with no problems.
That is the key to riding for longer , you need a more accurate bike fit / setup. As you up your distances increase you may find pains / strains start appearing which often can be fixed by minor adjustments to the bike setup. I had my saddle a bit too far back and only noticed on rides of over two hours. Again it is now fine for several hours.
Just take your time and for most bike setup / fit is easy to do. For buying a bike think about the gearing you use, the terrain you will ride on and do some test rides. There are plenty of road bikes which have a more upright less head down riding position without compromising performance that much.0
