New road bike for old mtb'er.

Myster101

Hi all, long time mountain biker looking to also get into road cycling for extra fitness. As I know nothing about road bikes I thought I'd pop over here to the 'darkside' and see if anybody could point me in the right direction. Looking to spend around £750ish and have seen the following on Pauls Cycles. Is this a decent spec, frame, wheel set etc etc for the price? I won't be doing anything epic just rides out on local roads in the Lake District around the 50-100km mark.

Any help much appreciated.

http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/m7b0s6p552 ... RIPLE-2014

Cheers.

ai_1

Myster101 wrote:

Hi all, long time mountain biker looking to also get into road cycling for extra fitness. As I know nothing about road bikes I thought I'd pop over here to the 'darkside' and see if anybody could point me in the right direction. Looking to spend around £750ish and have seen the following on Pauls Cycles. Is this a decent spec, frame, wheel set etc etc for the price? I won't be doing anything epic just rides out on local roads in the Lake District around the 50-100km mark.

Any help much appreciated.

http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/m7b0s6p552 ... RIPLE-2014

Cheers.

Do you specifically want a triple due to hills in the area? If it's hilly and you want the range, it's not a bad idea and looks like a very good bike. Otherwise this looks a little better: http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/m7b0s6p551 ... E-GTC-2014

In general for £750 I think you should be able to get Tiagra level gears at least. Sora is a level below. Both frames are pretty good for the price I think. The Cube's Fulcrum wheels are unexciting but reliable and will do the job well. I don't know about the Syncross wheels on the Scott. They may be absolutely fine.

Myster101

Thanks mate, not too bothered about the triple as should be able to manage with a double up front (run my FS mountain bike with a 1x10 setup up some steep hills). Linked that one as it was in my size where as the compact wasn't. I'll take a look at the one you have suggested. I'm a bit clueless on the component specs on road bikes as in which is top of the shop.

ai_1

Myster101 wrote:

...I'm a bit clueless on the component specs on road bikes as in which is top of the shop.

In terms of groupsets if you're going with Shimano here's the hierarchy from top down:
Dura-Ace (11sp)
Ultegra (11sp)
105 (11sp)
Tiagra (10sp)
Sora (9sp)
2300 (8sp?)

I don't know much about 2300 but the others should all do the job fine.
The sprocket count is current spec. 105 is a recent convert to 11sp and there's lots of 10sp floating around. You may find some last generation 10sp 105 on bikes in your price range.

bob6397

2300 is now called Claris, but it is still 8 speed.

Generally, a road bike (like my MTB) has a double on the front and it is pretty rare (and often a sign of a badly specced bike) to fine a triple on there..

In terms of gears, there are 3 most common sizes of crankset size:

"Compact" - the smallest and most common on bikes full stop. 50-34.
"Semi-Compact" - the second rung up and seen to a lot of people as being the compromise between having a decent top gear and still getting up the hills. 52-36.
"Full-Sized" - the standard for many years, until someone invented the compact - most of the Pro's use it for the majority of the time. 53-39.

In terms of cassette, with 10/11 speed sets it isn't too rare to find a 11-28/12-28 or a 11-32 rather than the closer overall ratio 12-25 or 12-26 that you find more commonly on 8 or 9 speed cassettes - on the road, everything is about maintaining cadence and the small differences between gears reflect that.

Keep an eye on the ratios as well as the spec level when buying a bike - but most importantly make sure the frame is decent - similar as to when buying a MTB, frame first then spec - it is much harder to upgrade a frame (that's known as getting a new bike), whereas just upgrading spec is much easier and cheaper.

Have a look at the Felt F85 on wiggle as well - full tiagra, slightly over budget but worrth a look. Bikeradar gave it a stunning review not very long ago..

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/felt-f85-2015/

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/cate ... -15-49247/

Just an idea.. Good luck!!

bob6397

KonkyWonky

If you don't specifically want a triple then I'd advise that you avoid it altogether, it just provides a lower quality shift and gives too many overlapping ratios. It will provide more gears in theory, but you won't use half of them, better to go with a compact.

If you are looking for good value for money you will struggle to beat the B'Twin Alur 700 linked below, and it will leave a few quid over to buy some clothing or accessories.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/alur-700-road-bike-id_8290145.html

Myster101

Thanks to both of you. It's getting a bit clearer now, will carry on looking, and reading reviews, and hopefully find a decent spec bike for my money.

Basically (I think!) I should be looking for Tiagra or above, 10 or 11 speed with a double up front either compact or semi compact.............

bob6397

Sounds about right!!

Also have a look at this - I'm ordering one this week to replace my current road bike which I have grown out of.. Amazing value - complete 105, Mavic Aksium wheels for £835 once you include postage - if you are willing to spend slightly more and buy a bike online without trying it first.

http://www.rosebikes.co.uk/bike/rose-pr ... aid:745547

Myster101

Had another look and came across this:

http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/m7b0s6p526 ... MPACT-2013

Are Cube bikes similar in the road world to the mountain bike world? By that I mean you get a half decent frame and spec for decent money.

Looking a Pauls Cycles as I know we have the cycle to work scheme coming up soon, seeing as the tax man takes 40% off me I thought I'd save a bit doing it this way.

bob6397

Looks pretty good - Cube bikes tend to get good reviews, but always check on a bike-by-bike basis

I can't find any reviews for that specific bike, but the 2014 model gets pretty decent reviews around - and the peloton race 2014 is on pretty much every website's "best bike under a grand" list..

Myster101

Cheers mate, looks like it's a contender.

ai_1

Myster101 wrote:

Had another look and came across this:

http://www.paulscycles.co.uk/m7b0s6p526 ... MPACT-2013

Are Cube bikes similar in the road world to the mountain bike world? By that I mean you get a half decent frame and spec for decent money.

Looking a Pauls Cycles as I know we have the cycle to work scheme coming up soon, seeing as the tax man takes 40% off me I thought I'd save a bit doing it this way.

The Peloton looks like a good deal at that price. It's a perfectly good frame and the groupset spec is full Tiagra. The wheels should be reliable. All in all a good bike I'd say so long as it's a good fit.

I would not entirely agree with some of the comments earlier about chainring options.
50/34 chainsets are the most common
52/36 is much less common but has started to be spec'd on a lot of mid-range bikes.
53/39 is probably not the best choice unless you know it's what you want.

There are also 48/36 and similar combos which can be very suitable for road use but these are normally only spec'd as standard on touring and cyclocross bikes.

To address a couple of earlier comments: Triples have gone somewhat out of fashion but this is more due to marketing and an obsession with weight than any shortcomings of triples IMO. I have an older 9sp Tiagra 50/39/30 triple on my older bike and a current Ultegra 50/34 compact on my new one. The triple is a better all round chainset for use in the hills in my opinion although a compact can almost match the gear range now using 11sp wide range cassettes. However many people feel there's too big a gap between 34 and 50 on a compact. I do find this myself sometimes but it's not a big deal for me. Triples work well. the move away from them is based on simplification of product lines and an obsession with weight saving. I think the most arguments against them are red herrings. Especially the idea that there are wasted gears which entirely misses the point. The main reason I didn't get another is that they are no longer available on many bikes or on the higher tier groupsets. Ultegra 6800 is an excellent groupset but does not include a triple option. If the bike I got was available in a triple Ultegra 6800 build I would have seriously considered it.

Cogsy1976

Im a fellow Mtb rider (or was!) Ive just bought a Planet X Pro Carbon for £799 took 2 weeks to be built but its a brilliant bike, I started off on a Mekk Pinerolo just to see if I liked road riding and it was great, so much so I didnt waste anytime in upgrading.

You can spec it as you want as well so definitely worth considering.

passout

Whyte make some good road bikes with discs & the planet x london road looks good. Also look at GT. I'd go for discs if coming from MTB.