Trek Madone?

mjmottram
mjmottram Posts: 10
edited June 2014 in Road beginners
Hi,

I'm looking to buy a first road bike and am scouring 2nd hand ads to make do until I've had a bit of time to make a more informed decision. I came across an ad for a Trek Madone (image of frame attached - had to crop to get it in the forum limits). The seller claims it's a Madone 5.9 SL 2012 (and says he has a receipt stating as such) and is asking for under £500. A Madone 5.9 would be nowhere near my budget normally, and I can't see that the 5.9 SL was even a model that was sold as recently as 2 years ago, so I'm wondering if it's too good to be true. Is this just an older Madone? Any thoughts would be gratefully appreciated!

Cheers

Comments

  • bikes`n`guns
    bikes`n`guns Posts: 959
    God only knows what that is !

    Badly set up for one thing , and a 5.9 for under 500,, nope, don`t think so.
    Trek,,,, too cool for school ,, apparently
  • mjmottram
    mjmottram Posts: 10
    Thought it seemed too good to be true. I was going to check it first (and looked at at a couple of 2014 Madones earlier today) so hopefully would have sussed it. At least I don't have to waste my time heading over now though!

    You'd've thought that someone would try to scam me by claiming it was a lower end model :P
  • islandman
    islandman Posts: 73
    Gear cables have been under the bar tape for years now, hasn't got the trade mark seat post/ frame junction. Leave well alone.looks like cheap ally from here.
  • Peddle Up!
    Peddle Up! Posts: 2,040
    Too many spokes in those wheels too. Alarm bells are a-ringing. :?
    Purveyor of "up" :)
  • iron-clover
    iron-clover Posts: 737
    That is definitely not a Madone 5.2!
    For starters, the Madones all have carbon frames until the relatively recent 2 series, and you can clearly see some awful weld joins on this frame.
    The paint looks pretty bad- I would assume it's a budget basement bike that has been resprayed and Trek stickers put on. You will never find a bike worth £500 with that stem and hopefully not that saddle either.

    Avoid like the plague!
  • kajjal
    kajjal Posts: 3,380
    iron-clover wrote:
    That is definitely not a Madone 5.2!
    For starters, the Madones all have carbon frames until the relatively recent 2 series, and you can clearly see some awful weld joins on this frame.
    The paint looks pretty bad- I would assume it's a budget basement bike that has been resprayed and Trek stickers put on. You will never find a bike worth £500 with that stem and hopefully not that saddle either.

    Avoid like the plague!

    That's what it looks like to me to.
  • markhewitt1978
    markhewitt1978 Posts: 7,614
    The Trek logo looks wrong too and it's obviously not carbon.
  • Downward
    Downward Posts: 179
    markhewitt1978 wrote:
    The Trek logo looks wrong too and it's obviously not carbon.

    Yeah it is and way too far up the frame.

    Bet it's a rebanded Viking
  • patrickf
    patrickf Posts: 536
    The frame looks like it came off a hybrid bike. Even a 2011 1.5 has a pretty much horizontal top tube.
  • dj58
    dj58 Posts: 2,222
    Looks like and ABC (All Bits Combined) Frankenstein bike, give it a miss.
  • DKay
    DKay Posts: 1,652
    Send him a load of questions just for the fun of it and see what he comes back with. Then post his answers on here.

    Could be pretty amusing.
    N
    N+1
  • mjmottram
    mjmottram Posts: 10
    So I tried to bug him about the bike; after one or two questions he suddenly went very quiet. Ended up reporting to Gumtree (where the bike was advertised), though doubt it'll stop him trying to scam people.

    I have to say, buying second hand in London as a newbie to road bikes is a bit of a minefield! I've had one guy sell me a 54cm frame only to find out upon viewing that it's a 60cm. There are legions of stolen ones or overpriced many seasons old models. Now this guy advertising a clear fake (have seen a few others like it, too). There do seem to be some interesting older (normally steel) bikes, but these need viewing to check for rust and sizing.

    Think I might just go down the C2W route...
  • iron-clover
    iron-clover Posts: 737
    I would agree that buying a secondhand bike for the first time would be fairly difficult if you haven't got any experience yet. The classifieds on this forum should be fairly reliable though. If you do have a budget around £500, you can get some decent new road bikes- I love my Trek 1.1 and it came in at only £400 during the Christmas sales- at £500-600 you can get the entry level model from Trek, Specialized or Giant, each of which will be a thoroughly decent machine to cut your teeth on.

    There is of course the Wiggle route as well, as I hear that the Felt and Mekk bikes are fairly good value. I do think it's best to have a test ride before you buy to make sure it's comfortable- although if it is your first road bike a 'properly fitting' one might feel odd anyway.

    As soon as you do take the plunge and start working on the bike yourself, you'll quickly learn about all the different parts and what to look out for.

    Good luck!
  • Peanutt
    Peanutt Posts: 229
    Cheapo vinyl decals from ebay, plus they're not even the current ones, these are MTB ones for a start, Trek road logos are sans-serif nowadays.
    No matter where you are, that's where you've been

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