Road bike for teenager

tomsimmonds

Hi i am look for a bike for my friends son.

He is about 5ft 5 with a budget of £500.

Any ideas?

cheers

Tom

smoggysteve

Most people on here would agree that for that price a BTWIN (Look at www.decathlon.co.uk) is your best option. I would go for a 50cm or as close as possible frame size as he may grow some but not much as a teen and this would cover him until he stops growing.

IrishMac

If Decathlon isn't an option, take a look at Halfords Carreras, forget about what others would say, there's nothing wrong with them, (bar that half yellow TDF minger ) Just take it home yourself and set it up, takes 30mins and that way you don't have to go back to store over some eejit 'mechanic,' setting it up wrong etc
You'll save a bit, as he's young he doesn't need 11 gears on the back etc plus he's liable to completely blow up and be 6foot this time next year (I've seen it happen,) in which case he'll be happy he didn't go mad spending.
i.e. this model: http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_888023_langId_-1_categoryId_165710
My brother has the Junior version of this and it's spot on, not a thing wrong with it
There's a special offer at the mo so he could get a turbo too
Have a look at what's going around 2nd hand, there's always a good bargain to be got


I know it won't factor in here but tell him not to buy a carbon bike until he can afford to replace one unexpectedly, I'm 16 and spend the the majority of the time paranoid over wrecking the frame :P

IrishMac

Oh, when your sizing him on a bike, go as big a size as you can, my sister has a 60/70mm stem on her Carrera Virtuouso and it does the job a treat, and the handling hasn't been compromised etc as some would have you believe.

dork_knight

Noticed the following on Wiggle yesterday which seems fairly decent for the money;
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/felt-f95-sora-wiggle-exclusive/