New rider with a familiar question.

[Jonjay]

Hi everyone, appologies in advance for asking a question that is often asked on here, but it has a very slight twist to it. Promise.

Im back on pedal power after a long absence, since selling my motorbike. My current steed is a very old very rickety mountain bike. My aim is to get in to a bit of road riding, probably nothing to serious, not racing just leisure rides and probably only up to about 20 miles to start with, maybe building up to about 50, but doubt I'll go much beyond (but who knows).

I am on a tight budget and after much internet searching and forum reading it seems pretty clear that for a real tight budget the best bike out there is the Triban 3. I had almost decided this was the one, until I started seeing 0% finance, and cycle to work options.

So the question is. If by using 0% or cycle to work, I could stretch my budget to say £500-£600. Would I be getting a significantly better bike than the Triban? You would think that by doubling the budget this would be a no brainer, but by looking at specs alone I'm not so sure, as the Triban seems up there with things like the Specialized Alez Compact or the Giant Defy 5 or Trek 1.1.

Any advice is more than welcome.

Cheers

 

[defy-one]

The main thing that will change is the gear changers. You will be looking at Tiagra STI levers over Sora which has a thumb shift. Bikes in the £600 mark will probably be lighter aswell. Horses for courses

 

[Dave 123]

This time last year I got a Trek 1.5 for £700 as they were clearing stock, that was Ben Haywards in Cambridge. It was Trek that had lowered the price, BH don't do discounts.....

 

[Cyclist33]

The main thing that will change is the gear changers. You will be looking at Tiagra STI levers over Sora which has a thumb shift. Bikes in the £600 mark will probably be lighter aswell. Horses for courses

I think the baseline Allen and trek 1.1 have sora?