Easy to get confused by expert cyclists.

[DCBassman]

And just who defines the limits of 'entry level' anyhow? Expert Schmexpert...
My Trek 800 Sport was the bottom rung of the Trek ladder. Still a good bike. 'Good' is not defined by price. For me, £1500 would be a lottery win amount to spend on a bike, so just go for what you want!

 

[T4tomo]

Strickly speaking, you've only got cassettes, chains, chainrings that need replacing.

So my Ultegra bike, did get Tiagra cassettes, until i discovered Miche ones - which are an upgrade that costs less. Ditto KMC for chains.
chain rings still fine, mechs still fine, broken shifter replaced like for like.

 

[biking_fox]

Don't be silly. Still got the same groupsets on my old road bikes. The old MTB got some XT bits over the years, and the full suspension's just had a few 'better' bits fitted !

Strickly speaking, you've only got cassettes, chains, chainrings that need replacing.

I'm not up or downgrading my Rohloff, hub gear's for the win, 12 years on it's still going very strong.

 

[Drago]

Do you take much notice of experts when you look for a new ride?

I am an expert, and I take a lot of notice.

That said, I often take serious umbrage with the magazine "experts". I think I've previously regaled you with the tale of the review I read, and it was so dripping in cliche I felt ill, so out of curiosity I googled the author - less than a year earlier he'd been writing for a model railway magazine. Expert indeed.

Imown a Strava segment on a £600 aluminium framed bike, and 11th on another. This large, hesvy, unaerodynamic, middle aged man made a lot of experts look very silly.

 

[HMS_Dave]

Nonsense. None of my bikes are worth more than 300 quid... I have a second hand, generic, heavy steel fat bike from the land of China and an Elephant Bike. If you're into racing, fine, fill ya boots on a ridiculously light, fast (expensive) bicycle. But if you just want to ride, get a bicycle and call yourself a bicyclist no matter what it is at whatever cost....

 

[HobbesOnTour]

And just who defines the limits of 'entry level' anyhow? Expert Schmexpert...
My Trek 800 Sport was the bottom rung of the Trek ladder. Still a good bike. 'Good' is not defined by price. For me, £1500 would be a lottery win amount to spend on a bike, so just go for what you want!

My Trek 800 Sport!

I'd rather spend my money taking my cheap bike to interesting places.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good evening,

Although I agree with a lot of the above, I would also warn against becoming overly cynical and "anything after 753/6 speed is pointless, rant, rant, rant".

I absolutely adore Di2.

At first glance it is impossible to argue that it's good value for money as Ultegra Di2 adds about £1k to the cost of a mechanical 105 build, but once I converted my mindset to using it as electronic shifting should be used rather than as electrically operated mechanical shifting I went from "so what" to that's really nice.

Having said that I also ride a Claris/Aluminium/CF fork as an all rounder and sub 50mile pleasure ride. So I am not of those "once you've tried Di2 you'll never go back" but it is different to a far greater degree than Claris to Ultegra or 525 to a cheaper/mid price CF frame.

This begs the question of have you considered keeping you current bike and putting Di2 onto it, the good thing is that the second hand value of Di2 stuff is quite high, so you would lose not too much if you hated it and resold it.

Bye

Ian

 

[vickster]

...

Having said that I also ride a Claris/Aluminium/CF fork as an all rounder and sub 50mile pleasure ride. So I am not of those "once you've tried Di2 you'll never go back" but it is different to a far greater degree than Claris to Ultegra or 525 to a cheaper/mid price CF frame.

This begs the question of have you considered keeping you current bike and putting Di2 onto it, the good thing is that the second hand value of Di2 stuff is quite high, so you would lose not too much if you hated it and resold it.

Bye

Ian

Surely 525 is steel not CF (presuming CF = carton fibre). Carbon and steel are chalk and cheese fir me at least in terms of ride

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good evening,

I never intended for the two sentences to be joined to such a degree.

My now deceased 531 frame and my Carbon Fibre frame do ride differently, I could tell the difference if I rode them with my eyes closed, but for me the difference doesn't really matter much, as 531 and 525 are so alike and 525 is much more available I substituted that in.

Bye

Ian

 

[gavroche]

Originally, I was after the al2 disc but for £100 more , I get Sora groupset instead of Claris and 9 speeds instead of 8 so , for the sake of £100, I think it is worth the extra money.

 

[lazybloke]

When I buy a car I expect to get 10 years out of it, so I've never been one to chase the latest technology.
Same with bikes; I value reliability over performance, so I'll stick with my steel and aluminium bikes, and manual gears.

But I'm glad others pay for the latest technology; that's what funds R&D, and ultimately those new technologies do trickle down to the benefit of us all.

 

[stoatsngroats]

No, I buy a bike if I like it, and Intry to get the best value for my money.
My Genesis was £899, and it’s great for me.
I won’t win any races, not because of my crap bike, but because I don’t enter any.

 

[bladesman73]

Such a shame that bikes are so expensive. I have a 2.5k carbon racer, 1k alu/carbon racer, then got a 2nd hand alu racer costing me 200 quid and an old dawes steel bike which I have renovated, cost me 250 inc renovation. Barely a difference between them all when riding them as i dont do races just cycle for pleasure. I know many a persom who spend 5k plus on an all singing and dancing race ready beast and they just potter around doing barely 25kph avg...may as well have saved 4k and got a 1k bike. But then if they can afford it...

 

[vickster]

25kph average...pootling?

 

[cwskas]

Do you take much notice of experts when you look for a new ride?

I find others doing the kind of riding I want to do and see what they are riding. My bank account always usually keeps me from high-end expenses. But you can save a lot by looking for used bikes that someone bought and rarely rode.

Willie