Road bike on a budget

Pejsan wrote:

Hi all this is my first post and hoping to get a little bit of advice.

My ride to work is only 4 miles each way, but am looking at using it to go for the odd evening ride also to try and lose the belly and build up a bit of fitness.

Lets say thats 5x8=40 plus the odd ride, say, 20 miles = 60 miles a week. The first 500 miles you'll need to gain saddle comfort and a small bit of leg strength and fitness. If you've measured your belly at the beginning then when you've reached 500 miles, I think you would have found not a lot has happened. Because cycling doesn't exercise the body as other forms of exercise and dieting. To burn fat you have to do an awful lot of exercise over a long period. Anyway, I don't want you to be disappointed if you find the weight is not falling off after 2 months cycling. I have the 'T' shirt.

Firstly, welcome to the forum and good luck getting into cycling, where you will lose some weight & gain some fitness, especially if you do include those extra weekend miles and watch the calorie input. I must get round to following my own advice at some point.

I have been looking into the budget entry level bikes for my nephew. I am no great expert or officionado, but I am a few weeks ahead of you in the research stakes.

When I've found an unfamiliar bike, I've put it in the search box of this website and read up the professional reviews on bikeradar, there's nearly always an article.

IMO, of the sub-£300 bikes, the carrera TDF seems the best regarded option and very reasonably priced. If you're going to be a relatively light user, then there's no need to spend more, this will do everything you need and be a pleasant ride in the process.

Your cycle to work scheme might specify where you can source your bike, and the Carrera range are Halfords in-house brand, so if Halfords isn't on your approved supplier list, you need to look elsewhere.

There aren't many big brand options at £300 (Giant, Trek, Specialized etc all starter models from £550) but there are deals on last year's models to clear stock if you're lucky with sizing. These are mainly online, and your voucher scheme probably woon't cover online purchases. Additionally, with online buying you need to either build the bike or pay a bike shop to do it for you, so add that cost onto your budgeting.

If you can scrape £200 cash and not use the voucher scheme, I am regularly seeing Giant Defy 4 at £200 2ndhand. Good bike at a good price.

Other cheaper models are the B'twin range and Viking. They don't have any glamour and are not popular with the forum community, but people who have them swear by them.

Don't forget to add some basic safety & comfort accessories into your budgeting too: all you need is a helmet £30ish, a high-viz vest £15ish and a lock - allow a fair sum here, £40 -60-odd quid for a bronze! And check if your bike is covered under your house insurance for theft from a site not on the premises and if not, buy some bike insurance. Otherwise, if your bike is nicked you'll be paying the repayments and the buy-off price at the end of he cycle to work scheme for a bike long gone.