Ribble Gran Fondo

seanorawe

This bike has been tickling my urge to consider having a fair weather bike, and making my London Road a winter bike. THe reviews seem good and the newer models have internal cabling which I like in sloped top tubes. Im hoping to keep the cost to a grand to avail of the C2W scheme, however, its proving difficult.

If I go for 105 i can stay within 1k as long as I get a 11-28 cassette. (ill see if I can haggle a 11-32 so as not to go over 1k by two pound) However, if I go 105 ill have to take their rodi airline wheels which I know nothing about and cant find a decent review on them.

So do I go with tiagra and get better wheels? or can someone vouch for the rodi wheels and I can go with 105?

trek_dan

Rodi Airline wheels came on my winter trainer and are pretty shocking. Over 2kg in weight makes them feel mega sluggish. The own brand 'Yaw' tyres you'd get on that build are awful too.

super_davo

Email Ribble, they used to allow a degree of overpayment so you might be able to spend £1300 and get the spec you really want.

Else just get the cheap wheels and flog on eBay before you've used them and buy whatever you want, much easier to do that than change a groupset.

If you can't afford to do that now, most people always say wheels are the most important component on a bike. They are, but they are also the easiest bit to change. So if you can put up with a poor wheelset for 6 months until you can afford something good, you might end up with a better final bike.

seanorawe

In fairness Tiagra has come along and looks eally good, but I know the new 105 group is awesome and its 11 speed

dinyull

Why is 11 speed so good? I have 105 11 speed and it is really nice, but if the Tiagra shifting is as good I'd happily ride a bike with that.

If I had a grand for a new bike, I'd probably get the best alu frame I could, something like a CAAD 10/12 or Synapse.

drlodge

I've used Sora 8 speed shifters on a 7 speed bike and it shifted just fine. I think its in the way its setup.

super_davo

I'm sure the latest Tiagra is great. But it's only an extra £60 for 105 which isn't much in the scheme of a £1k bike. I'm positive that if you didn't spend it, at some point you'd wish you did (probably when you're going up a 20% hill and wanted a 32 tooth bail out gear).

FWIW I'm still on 10 speed 6700 and it's fine, however I regularly swap my cassettes depending on where I'm riding, and one of the main advantages of the new ratios on the 11 speeds is you can have a semi compact chainset and a fairly wide range cassette and leave as is.