The impossible
rob chalmers
Posts: 113
in General Chat
I have an awkward question to ask.
I need a new road bike, one that will do
Duathlon in March
Sportive in April
Sprint Tri in May
A Cyclo Cross event in June,
But I only have a £350 budget (not including tri bars and Cyclocross tyres)
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.
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What should I get?? (points deducted for answers including 'more money' or words to that effect)
p.s. I dion't want anything with butterfly shifters'
p.p.s yes I did say "Three Hundred and Fifty pounds"
0
Comments
can you get access to the cyclescheme through your work?
do you know what sort of bike size/fit would suit you? if you have a good idea then you could try second hand.
how much cyclocross do you think you'll be doing beyond june?
To be honest the Sportive and the CycloX are part of a bet with a friend - infact it all is really.
I'm skint and sick of hearing from people say I need to spend 1500+ on a bike. Back in'09 I did the 215 mile Trans Pennine in under 36hrs on a £350 mtb. I stupidly said to a friends that you could buy a new bike for the same amount now-a-days that could not only do the Triathlons that I need it for but Duathlons, Sportives and CX, I'm not planning on doing ANY CX after this bet is won.
Frame Size is 56/57
Current Options are
I already have a set of Tri Bars and getting hold of am extra set of wheels, tubes and tyres for CX is already in progress too.
No Perfomance criteria or finishing position has been set, it just has to survive all four events and Training without spending a tonne on it in spares or fixes.
the main reason why i wondered about the CX is that the conditions (mainly for brakes) could be tricky with a cantilever braked bike, which would be most suitable for the other things you are planning.
if you are happy to slack off the cali's and give it a really good clean then you might be ok with a road bike rather than a crosser.
For the Sake of having to find a frame/fork with ISO disc mounts, I'll slacken the calipers off!
If it wasnt for your CX event you would have no difficulty in finding a road bike within budget for your selected events If your CX event is muddy and you are on a road bike the mud could clog up around the top and bottom of the rear stays which would mean you keep stopping and clearing by hand, if its not muddy then this would obviously not be a problem.
Out of my own curiosity I put onto my road bike my front wheel off my CX bike, (it as a 32mm tyre on Fulcrum rim) whilst I eventually got the wheel in, there is no clearance within the road forks to let the CX wheel turn at all due to tyre jamming in at the top of the forks.
The other option is to go for a CX bike which could be used for all of your chosen events. CX bikes usually come with a smaller chainring set up than road bike set up, the largest chainring size being anything between 46-50 teeth. My CX bike which I sometimes use for training has 48/32 front chain rings, I don't find this any problem even though I have a 51/39 and 53/39 set up on my TT bikes.
Doing a quick goggle search showed up Halfords selling a Carrera CX bike normal price £659 but on offer at £250 I've never ridden a Carrera bike so I cant comment on the ride/quality etc but it does meet all your original criteria.
http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/road-bikes/carrera-crixus-limited-edition-cyclocross-bike-2015
Best of luck in choosing your bike and Good Luck in your selected events
TBH the CX is the only leg that I have serious concerns over. I haven't picked an event yet but I'll probably do more research on that than buying the bike!
Last update. I've bought a bike AND I'm ditching the CX event on safety grounds (as I'd probably kill myself)
I've gone for the B'twin Triban 500SE.
After reading through review and trying to find local dealers for the others I had to rule out a couple. Then I had trouble finding dealerships who had the right size frame in for me to test. On the weekend I went to buy there was only the Boardman and the Triban that i could actually try out.
Both a 57cm Triban and 55.5cm Boardman were a bit of a reach for me to the handle bars and the smaller versions felt cramped and that my knees were going into my gut.
Apart from the token spec positive of the SE having carbon forks, it just felt a nicer bike to me. The absolute deal breaker was that Decathlon, happily spend 10-15mins setting the bike up to me seat height and position fore/aft and changing the stem.... all included in the original price where Halfords wanted me to pay for the new stem on top of the price of the bike. I know throwing £15 on top of a £350 bike seem like peanuts to some of you, but to get the stem included in the £330 decathlon bike and the pure customer service PoV of spending time and making sure I was happy won me over. Some brand snobs may see it as the Dacia of road bike but Frankly I don't care!!!
lets see how it gets on in the events!