Choice of 3 road bikes circa £1k

James Moore

Hi - buying my first road bike and considering the following options:

1. Boardman road team carbon - £800
2. Cannondale Synapse disc 105 - £950
3. Btwin ultra 720 AF - £1050

As I am new to this would really appreciate some advice on which might be the better option.

Cheers.

joey54321

Have you factored in prices for things like shoes, pedals, helmet, clothes, bottles, puncture repair equipment, pump, etc...? Might make the cheaper Boardman the right choice.

I'd probably go for the Boardman anyway, though with it being your first bike it's difficult to advise. I'd say buy which ever one you like the look of and see what happens.

James Moore

Yes extras not a problem. I'd rather get the best bike for my money and for me rather the cheapest out of the 3 (although the cheapest may be the best).

dj58

The Boardmon is carbon and good value with the £200 saving even if it is only 10sp. The Ultra 720 is also good value with full Ultegra 11sp, however the chainstay mounted rear brake would put me off. The Synapse gets rave reviews though has mech. disc brakes.

If it is your first road bike I would advise you to go to each shop to try them for size and to look at them "in the flesh", and don't be tempted to buy a bike that is too big, even if it seems like a really good deal.

mrb123

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... reId=10001

Can you stretch to this?

Carbon frame. 105 gears. Hydraulic disc brakes. You can get a further discount off that price if you get a British Cycling membership.

Mad_Malx

MrB123 wrote:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductMobileDisplay?catalogId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=165710&productId=1173765&storeId=10001

Can you stretch to this?

Carbon frame. 105 gears. Hydraulic disc brakes. You can get a further discount off that price if you get a British Cycling membership.

That's got a 52/36 and an 11-28 cassette. I wouldn't advise that for a noob - 52x11 will never get used, and the lowest gear (36x28) might be on the high side for hilly rides. [I know it's probably not difficult to change].

mfin

The only reason to go after disc brakes is if you are fat and heavy or if you are going to be riding a lot in the wet. If you are not, don't look at them as a "plus" as they won't be much to shout about at this kind of budget anyway.

If you have the cash, look second hand, you should be able to get a barely used £2k bike for £1k and it will be a lot lot better.

guy.spartacus

https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/ribble-r ... ulcrum-se/

Why not 4?

James Moore

Thanks all. Ribble looks good but am looking for for more of an endurance geometry.

James Moore

The £1.2k Boardman also looks good nd yes could stretch to that. Not sure what you were saying re the gears though?

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Mad_Malx wrote:

MrB123 wrote:

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductMobileDisplay?catalogId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=165710&productId=1173765&storeId=10001

Can you stretch to this?

Carbon frame. 105 gears. Hydraulic disc brakes. You can get a further discount off that price if you get a British Cycling membership.

That's got a 52/36 and an 11-28 cassette. I wouldn't advise that for a noob - 52x11 will never get used, and the lowest gear (36x28) might be on the high side for hilly rides. [I know it's probably not difficult to change].

The gearing could be tweaked, ~£30 for a 105 11-32 cassette and ~£33 for a medium cage rear mech at Wiggle for example, but the complete spec of the Boardman Road Pro Carbon with BR-505 hydraulic brakes is pretty good for £1080 including British Cycling discount.

My Cube was one of the final 2016s available, which I got for £900 in May, but I'm not convinced prices will be that good for 2017 EOL deals now with the weaker pound.

supermurph09

Have you taken a look on the Canyon website? Don't be put off by mail order, as long as you get the right size you could get a proper bike fit to get you set up on it properly.

Mad_Malx

Yeah it's easy enough to change gears if you needed to, and the Boardman's are well regarded.

My comment was more about the top end gear range. Most newbies (and many longtime riders) would seldom use a 52x12 and a 52x11 (big front smallest back) takes you into pro range, without a pro engine (your legs). The latter gear is simply too high for most of us to turn at a decent rate unless you have long flowing downhills, in which case you are going to be going pretty fast without pedalling anyway.
That means that although you have a 11 speed block you are only going to use 9 or 10 of the cogs. I don't really see the point in carrying round a bigger front ring and a small cog I will never use.

For the lowest gear (36x28) you might be ok but will likely struggle to keep turning on the steepest hills at first. As you get fitter that gear will probably get you up most stuff.

We're all different and ride different terrain but I've been riding my roadbike about 10 years and am in the top 10-15 % for most of my local Strava segments (there is a big gap though from 10-2% though). I would be ok on the lowest gear but would never use the high gear.

Someone will soon tell you that high gears are what you need and you just need to mtfu, they are more awesome than me.

dj58

James Moore wrote:

The £1.2k Boardman also looks good nd yes could stretch to that. Not sure what you were saying re the gears though?

He means if you are new to road gearing, a bottom gear of 36T front x 28T rear may not be low enough for you?

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Gearing is very personal, I typically use ~50/16 on flat terrain @ ~110rpm on my Cube and only use the 50/11-14 gears on downhill gradients.

Mad_Malx

^so that's at least 2 of us who don't need 52x11

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Mad_Malx wrote:

^so that's at least 2 of us who don't need 52x11

Back in ~2009. when I still had hopes of riding my Felt F5C again after my lower back injury, I purposely bought a bargain 16-27 cassette to use with the 50/36 chainrings to have a practical gear range that suited my needs (and was great to fine tune according to gradient and wind, when my back could cope).

kingstongraham

On rides, I've wished I had a 34x30 more often than I've wished I had a 52x11.

mrb123

James Moore wrote:

The £1.2k Boardman also looks good nd yes could stretch to that. Not sure what you were saying re the gears though?

If you live and ride somewhere relatively flat then the gears on the Boardman should be fine. If you are planning to tackle some steep hills then you may find the easiest gear of 36/28 to be a little tough.

As others have said, it's not an insurmountable problem. You can change the chainset and/or cassette in due course if you find you need some easier gears.

James Moore

Thanks. I'm using cycle2 work so unfortunately cant consider Canyon or Rose, both of which look very good.

I think I am angling away from Carbon as I feel the grade of the Boardman one will be low at this price point.

So narrowing it down to 2 - I have tried them both and they are both a good fit. Just a case of which is the best bike for the money now.

joey54321

James Moore wrote:

Thanks. I'm using cycle2 work so unfortunately cant consider Canyon or Rose, both of which look very good.

I think I am angling away from Carbon as I feel the grade of the Boardman one will be low at this price point.

So narrowing it down to 2 - I have tried them both and they are both a good fit. Just a case of which is the best bike for the money now.

Not a reason not to choose carbon IMO. Low grade carbon can be better than aluminum. It's just a material, it's how it's engineered that matters.

dj58

James Moore wrote:

Thanks. I'm using cycle2 work so unfortunately cant consider Canyon or Rose, both of which look very good.

I think I am angling away from Carbon as I feel the grade of the Boardman one will be low at this price point.

So narrowing it down to 2 - I have tried them both and they are both a good fit. Just a case of which is the best bike for the money now.

Website suggests not https://www.boardmanbikes.com/gb_en/why ... arbon.html