Road bike upgrade - cheapo Boardman/Carrera/BTwin?

vthejk

Hello and merry belated Christmas!
After spending ages on my Raleigh Equipe refurb I'm finally letting it go. It's just taking up too much time and money to keep on the road and I have a lot of neither. While I still think it looks pretty, I just want something properly usable.

I'll post a bike sale ad properly later, but for now, let's look at replacements.

I'm looking for between £100-250 second-hand, preferably carbon forks, below 12 kg and durable enough for rough country riding and commuting.

An uncle recently found an immaculate Boardman for cheap on Gumtree.com and is pushing for me to join the family (he owns four, crikey). I'm currently torn between:
- one of these or an equivalent item, if i can find it for the price range

- A basic carrera such as this one, but I have heard of them being slow and unresponsive, precisely what I don't like about my Raleigh. I'd like one of the carbon fork Karkinos ones if I could find one.

- I'm also interested in Btwins such as this one but kind of also want a bike that practically everyone else doesn't also have.

Not sure if this post is any help but please post advice, suggestions or experiences finding similar bicycles.

drshoe

I have a 2011 carbon boardman, very happy with it, and for that kind of budget I can definitely recommend.

compuwiz_uk

again slightly over budget again but the triban 500SE from decathlon is an ok starter bike.

carbon bladed fork, a little over 10kg's but a cheap new bike that i have not seen many of while i have been out & about etc ( only seen 2 in use since i got mine & that includes a friend riding mine as a loaner lol )

YES the above linked bike does have better running gear so a better option if you prefer some better gear to start with BUT the microshift stuff on the decathlon bike is plenty functional & should last just as long as the shimano kit on the other bike & will be cheaper to replace if going like for like or will give you plenty of time to save up for your personal choice of replacement when it finally wears out.

the only thing i changed on my 500SE was the standard brake blocks after about 2 months, NOT because they were bad - alot of folks may say they are etc, but they worked & worked well enough BUT they were just too big a step down from hydro disks on the mtb so i stuck in some clarks gold pads after seeing plenty of good things said about them either on here or another forum i browsed round while looking for a cheap but good upgrade. ( still not a patch on the disks but better than they were ).

its a comfy bike ( its the one that has the most miles ridden of all mine, mainly as i use it as the all weather / commuter bike, all my other bikes are more nice day use or more off-road use types so only come out when needed normally. It also recently proved itself as a fairly strong bike too after it survived a coming together with a car as i was rounding a roundabout & was not seen by the car driver, luckily a sideswipe / drivers door cuddle for me but the bike still had damage to the non-drive side crank arm & pedal & nothing more so a relatively easy fix.

the only bad thing i have to say about mine is that full length front mudguard clearance is an issue for the smaller frames with the big wheels ( i got the 54 size which is the 1st one with 700c wheels i think ) & it needs a very low profile mudguard to slide under the brake caliper otherwise there is tyre guard contact ( with posher muguards this may not even become a problem, it may only be the cheaper items like the halfords own cheapies i fitted that have issues as they are far more chunky lol )