Cobbling together a winter bike

Anonymous

I'm having a look at my riding and what bike I ride and have decided that I want to sell the bike I have, get a crappy winter bike with guards on full time and get another bloody nice bike for the summer, which is basically what I used to have until I sold both of them and ended up with what I have now. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it, but I much much prefer riding my old Boardman, which was an ace bike.

So, first of all I need to cobble together a winter bike. Budget is £150 and I don't need that to cover wheels.
Requirements are:
55 - 58cm frame
Relatively low front (18 cm max, but preferably 17cm or below)
threaded BB
Shimano preferred (just in case I need to use other wheels).

I think I can probably get a shimano 10sp groupset for £100 so I need to sort frame and forks for £50. I have some bars and a stem and even a saddle, so seatpost and cables are a consideration, but I can probably do that on the cheap.

Any thoughts/ideas?

alan_sherman

ebay / gumtree / cycling club. Buy a complete bike with knackered wheels.

trek_dan

I won a complete entry level Raleigh road bike on Ebay a few years ago for £90. DIdn't want anything expensive as it had to be locked up outside at my old job. It was awful though

Matthewfalle

Rubble blue one. You know the one: blue steel job.

Really funky, cost nothing, last forever, brilliant to ride.

bigmat

The Ribble winter bike is aluminium I think. Pretty sure my Prorace is from the same factory (identical paint job, similar tube profiles just lacks the mudguard bosses). Its been great over the last 10 years, done thousands of commuting miles, the Alps, crits, time trials, Paris Roubaix, the Etape etc etc. Still going strong. So yes, a Ribble winter bike or probably any old aluminium frame with a decent provenance that fits you will do the job. I would look on eBay / Gumtree, or forum / club classifieds. Got my Dad an entry level Giant Defy in as new condition with new 4 Seassons tyres and Ultegra calipers for £150 a couple of years ago so there are some real bargains out there/

ddraver

You can have an alu or steel one now. I'm trying to cobble together my old frame into something useful now. The only thing I can think of for UK is that with mudguards it apparently only takes 23c tyres. I happily run 28c without though as the Dutch don't do mudguards

Anonymous

I definitely want mudguards. I already have some which are QR mounted so am not reliant on eyelets.

The trouble is trying to catch the bargains as and when they come up.

bigmitch41

I picked up a Specialized Tricross for reasonable money (£200) as a Winter bike/commuter, just fitted a set of SKS Longboards to it, seemed like a good price and work well with the 32 section rubber that the bike runs, should help keep me dry anyway and they dont look too bad...

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/sks- ... -prod68581

Anonymous

Good find.

I think ideally I want to keep it on £150 (excluding wheels as I own some already) and already have mudguards.

Matthewfalle

Dolan have loads of frames at 89.99 in their clearance if that helps.

Anonymous

That is a very good point. Just visited the site, and sadly no forks.

Am trawling ebay, it's taking a while to sort/filter as the search keeps crashing. I'm getting there!