buying cheap bikes

[domtyler]

yeah yeah yeah course there is steve. WHAT difference. and why

To someone with little experience, or interest, then the amount of difference is very small, negligible.

BTW, I agree with your OP, but I have always advised to go for decent quality anyway. I would only advise spending a very small amount of money if it was not possible to store in a safe place for instance.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

well i did the "buy a budget bike just in case" thing. the carrera virtuoso was perfectly adequate, but i've spent plenty upgrading (carbon forks, tiagra groupset), and for that money i could possibly have got something better in the first place. however, had i not got the cycling bug back, i would have wasted the £250 the bike cost in the first place. and i now have a decent (albeit not top spec) bike which has cost whatever over several years. in fact, the bike sat in the shed for over a year without being ridden, taking a change of job to get me back on it.

 

[domtyler]

well i did the "buy a budget bike just in case" thing. the carrera virtuoso was perfectly adequate, but i've spent plenty upgrading (carbon forks, tiagra groupset), and for that money i could possibly have got something better in the first place. however, had i not got the cycling bug back, i would have wasted the £250 the bike cost in the first place. and i now have a decent (albeit not top spec) bike which has cost whatever over several years. in fact, the bike sat in the shed for over a year without being ridden, taking a change of job to get me back on it.

Hmm, this is not the normal philosophy of a Mac user. I thought you would have just gone for the one that cost the most, looked the prettiest but performance was sluggish and kept crashing?

 

[fossyant]

Hmm, everyone's opinion is likely to be a little different..... you need to spend a reasonable amount to get a good bike - say £500.

But what price do you tell people - get a £5k one then...? There are very noticable differences in quality, finish and seals as you move up the range, and whilst it may not look too different (e.g. Tiagra through to Dura-Ace chainsets look similar) they will be stiffer, lighter and better sealed.

My old 7400 Dura-Ace groupset is fantastic, and has been a worthwhile purchase - 16 years no components ever broken - only wear and tear items replaced....

I wouldn't recommend a £200-£300 bike if someone wanted to do it seriously - I'd say minimum of say £500 and Tiagra groupset

 

[alecstilleyedye]

Hmm, this is not the normal philosophy of a Mac user. I thought you would have just gone for the one that cost the most, looked the prettiest but performance was sluggish and kept crashing?

well, like most macs i have used (especially the osx ones), i find crashes to be extremely rare, even though the speed can be high at times. the fact that some things are cooler than others, i couldn't care less about. my carrera and my mac both do what i require of them, i don't give a flying one about whether they are cool in the eyes of others or not.

 

[PrettyboyTim]

Well, when I bought my bike I tried out several bikes first. To be honest at the time I couldn't make out a big difference between the £400-£500 bikes I tried and the £200 one I finally bought. The cheap bike was obviously heavier but at the time not noticeably less fun to ride around.

Do I wish I'd bought a more expensive bike now? Maybe - but at the time it allowed me some more money for other bike bits - a child trailer, panniers etc.

Also, my experience on a cheap bike has helped me know what to look for if I get a secondhand bike next, which I'd quite like to do.

 

[col]

I agree with PPBT here,2 to 300 hundred is plenty to get a decent commute to and from work,and the weekend ride.The only time i would go dearer,is if i was into more cycling than that,and doing a lot more milage than just a short commute each day.Saying that,years ago,i was never off my bike,and the cheaper model i bought,a coup de mond if i remember rightly,did me well,with no problems,for years.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

I either buy my bikes secondhand for under £200 or fish them out of skips and build them up with whatever I've got in the bits box. It's much more fun than actually riding them. I'd never buy a new bike.

 

[Eat MY Dust]

What's a "cheap" bike? When I gave up my car around 3 years ago I bought a Claud Butler Stoneriver (MTB) which was £250. I hadn't bought or rode a bike in around 12 years and was gobsmacked by how good the bike was in both build and new technology (trigger gears!). True enough I bought a more expensive road bike about 12 months later, but never for a moment did I regret buying the "cheap" MTB. In fact if I had spent more money on a better MTB to start off with, I woulf have been reluctant to go and spend money on a road bike.

 

[P.H]

What's a "cheap" bike?

Exactly, unless you define cheap the question is nonsense.
Buy a bike that's fit for purpose, it's that simple. Sometimes that'll cost £200 other times it'll cost £3,000. But it dosen't always follow that spending more will allow you to do more on it and not having the right bike is always a poor excuse for not doing a ride.

 

[Ludwig]

It's more fun bringing back and old wreck that has been sat in a shed for years. You can drop a a real classic lightweight for very little money and the build quality and craftsmanship is far better that most modern bikes. There are the cycling nerds who will pay silly money for a bike but the cheapo bikes these days are very good.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

A bit OT, but it's not just bikes. When I started to play the guitar twenty five years ago, you could either buy cheap crap copies or horribly expensive Fenders and Gibsons. Now, my main stage guitar is a two hundred quid job which is the equivalent of the "cheap crap" from all those years ago (in that a beginner could buy it), but much, much better in every way. Bikes (barring the truly awful sub - rubbish £75.99 full sussers) have gone much the same way.

 

[Smokin Joe]

It's more fun bringing back and old wreck that has been sat in a shed for years. You can drop a a real classic lightweight for very little money and the build quality and craftsmanship is far better that most modern bikes. There are the cycling nerds who will pay silly money for a bike but the cheapo bikes these days are very good.

Having been cycling since the sixties, i definately would not agree with that.

 

[bonj2]

I wouldn't recommend a £200-£300 bike if someone wanted to do it seriously - I'd say minimum of say £500 and Tiagra groupset

in what way does tiagra shift better than sora?
cos i don't buy it does.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

in what way does tiagra shift better than sora?
cos i don't buy it does.

my summer bike (see sig) has tiagra, the winter bike has sora. the tiagra does shift better, the sora usually requires two flicks of the lever to change down on the rear mech, although the sora does allow for a bit of "feathering" of the front mech.

of course it could be that the cables etc have a bearing in all this.