Recommendations Please

Stephen_J

Hi,

Please excuse me if this has been covered numerous times before. I'm a complete beginner, haven't been on a bike since I was 14 and I don't think a Raleigh Grifter is going to cut it anymore.

I'm looking for a bike to commute to work a couple of days a week and use at the weekend for going round the park. My commute is roughly 11 miles each way.

I was looking at the Boardman CX Team and the Pinnacle Arkose 3.

Would anyone recommend anything else that'd be suitable or be able to offer thoughts on the above two options please?

Thnak you

Stephen_J

Thank you, very much appreciated. Noted for future posts with the links, thanks for the head-up on that

trek_dan

I don't think you can beat the value of the Boardman especially when you factor in the extra 10% off with British Cycling membership.

rokt

trek-dan is right, the Boardman is a lot of bike for the money but I found it quite heavy. I've seen a Ridley X Bow with Tiagra on offer for £900, could be worth a look.

bendertherobot

Lots of posts have gone missing here. So I’ll repost my recommendation for the Vitus Energie X at CRC/Wiggle. Particularly if you have 10%/12% off

veronese68

oxoman wrote:

why are people going for cx bikes for commuting.

I bought my Pro6 mainly for commuting, but I wanted a bike I could use for fun as well. Main reason for choosing it at the time was that I wanted drop bars and discs, there wasn't a lot of choice at the time. The good thing about a cross bike is the versatility, I also wanted a bike that I could take off road if I wanted to, but that works well on road too. Change in tyres is all that's needed and it's competent at both. Mudguards and 32mm road tyres and it's a fast and practical commuter, I could add a rack if I wanted to. Take the guards off and change the tyres and it's great off road. I did the Ride London on it they year it rained and it was probably about the best bike to use on that day, I've also ridden the London to Brighton off road on it. Most days I just ride it to work.
If I only had one bike, heaven forbid, that would be it.
Completely agree about hydraulic brakes.

tgotb

oxoman wrote:

why are people going for cx bikes for commuting

Generally, CX bikes are the ones with decent clearance for proper mudguards. A lot of road bikes built for mudguards still have quite tight clearances, meaning setting up mudguards can be a faff and limit the width of tyres you can use.

I race CX aswell, so my CX bike is set up with:
- Same geometry/position as the race bikes
- Rack and mudguards
- Disk brakes (because I got fed up wearing out rims on the previous commuter)
- Road gearing (double chainringring, relatively close ratios)
- Same pedals as the race bikes (because you get to practice your starts 50 times a day, so you want the clip-in to be the same)

In an emergency I could convert the commuter into a race bike relatively easily; in practice I'm pretty unlikely to need to do so.