New Road Bike

bluey1883

Hi all,

About to take the plunge and by myself a road bike and park up the MTB. As ever there is a catch and can only afford around £800.

I have looked at a whole load of bikes, but keep coming back to the Btwin 900 ultra AF, wondered if anybody had any views or other suggestions.

Thanks

Andy

bold seagull

Bluey1883 wrote:

Hi all,

About to take the plunge and by myself a road bike and park up the MTB. As ever there is a catch and can only afford around £800.

I have looked at a whole load of bikes, but keep coming back to the Btwin 900 ultra AF, wondered if anybody had any views or other suggestions.

Thanks

Andy

I just mentioned on the other thread, my wife got the B'Twin 540 for £650 https://www.decathlon.co.uk/triban-540-road-bike-105-red-blue-id_8364452.html and I've been quite impressed with it. Mavic Askium wheels, 105 mechs and shifters (BTwin own brakes that are very good imo). I had a good look at the 900 in the shop and it is a lovely bike. If your total budget is £800, just remember you'll want a set of road pedals probably with shoes, maybe some bib shorts, spare tubes etc. The 900 ultra AF with the full 105 groupset, coming in at under 9kg is going to be no slouch. If the ride on the 540 is anything to go by, it is probably well worth a look.

Just note that Decathlon Crawley was manically busy when I collected my wife's, due to lack of space and works outside I couldn't really try it, and when I got it home, the gear set up was pretty poor, as were the brakes. It didn't take much to sort it out, but someone less experienced with setting a bike up may have been left a bit frustrated.

arlowood

Don't forget that we are entering the sale season when the new 2018 models are released and shops start discounting their stocks of 2017 bikes. You can usually pick up a great bargain on a spec that would have been ouitside your budget befoire the sales.

Sites like Pauls Cycles

https://www.paulscycles.co.uk/

and Hargroves Cycles

http://www.hargrovescycles.co.uk/

are good starting points but check the other main suppliers also

londoncommuter

This comes up all the time so I guess you've thought about the usual suspects like the Boardman Team Carbon or Planet X Pro Carbon? Both around your £800 budget in the frequent sales.

Have you thought about boring things like whether mudguards are important to you?

Cyclinguphills

Have you considered the Kinesis Racelight T2 great all around bike & it takes proper mudguards for winter use! I have one as my winter bike but now selling my summer bikes & going to use it all year its that good

arlowood

As a corollary to my post above, Pauls has this on offer

https://www.paulscycles.co.uk/m7b0s6p66 ... -DISC-2016

which might be worth considering since it's available in most sizes.

bold seagull

The carbon or aluminium frame is an interesting debate as prices converge a bit. I wouldn't buy carbon if I was intending to buy 1 road bike I used all year round, and didn't really go on rides longer than 60miles or so. A really decent aluminium frame will be light enough and robust for all round use, and can be in some cases a more comfortable ride. Don't just go for a cheap offer just because its a carbon frame, as they're not all made brilliantly well, and do consider what you'll be using it for, as others have said, will you ever need mudguards or panniers for a bit of touring, might you go on slightly rougher tracks? There are some good all round options, one of the reasons we went for the B'Twin 540 was the lugs for panniers, space for mudguards, and ample room for wider tyre options.

bluey1883

Cheer's folks; some interesting stuff here to ponder. Another I have come across in the past couple of days is the Mekk Pinerola se 0.4, don't seem to be able to find any reviews, but the spec seems to be pretty good for the price, 105 group set on Ally frame and carbon fork at £650. seems to good to be true! Anybody had any experience of these?

laurentian

Bluey1883 wrote:

Cheer's folks; some interesting stuff here to ponder. Another I have come across in the past couple of days is the Mekk Pinerola se 0.4, don't seem to be able to find any reviews, but the spec seems to be pretty good for the price, 105 group set on Ally frame and carbon fork at £650. seems to good to be true! Anybody had any experience of these?

My mate has one of these. I haven't ridden it but it seems a fine bike . . . surprised they're not mentioned a little more when people ask about a "first bike"