Post-Christmas 2nd hand road bike purchase..

[Arjimlad]

I have scraped some pocket money up together, and am contemplating my first drop-bar road-bike purchase at under £300. Rather than buy new, I expect to get a better bike second hand at this price.

I have some vague notion that in the New Year there may be a few more used bikes on the market, after those more fortunate than myself treat themselves to new bikes in the sales ?

Is this unrealistic ?

 

[Monkspeed]

I was outbid on a Giant Defy 2.5, that ended up at about ~£340 plus £30 postage. So you are not a million miles out.

Just keep in mind that you will probably have to change tyres/inner tubes/brakes etc... So take that into account as well.

 

[Arjimlad]

Thanks - good thinking.

I DO like the look of your Triban 3 but it would be a 150 mile round trip to Reading & back to pick one up, and heaven forbid anything should go wrong with it. I wish they'd open a Bristol store.

 

[Monkspeed]

You could get it delivered but as you say, who the hell is gonna drive 150miles if something goes wrong!

You could get the Raleigh Airlite 100 off wiggle, they have a good returns policy if you are not satisfied with it. http://www.wiggle.co.uk/raleigh-airlite-100-2011/
But saying that, I took the better halfs Rockrider bike back to Decathlon after a week and they didn't say anything either and gave us a full refund.

 

[Zoiders]

Avoid the Raleigh, we sell a few new stock ones at the project and we sent them back to Raleigh as the chainlines/BB are wrong on most of them meaning they wont shift properly on the front ring.

I'd go for the Decathlon, yes you don't have a dealer locally but it's not a hugely complicated bike.

 

[jowwy]

Avoid the Raleigh, we sell a few new stock ones at the project and we sent them back to Raleigh as the chainlines/BB are wrong on most of them meaning they wont shift properly on the front ring.

I'd go for the Decathlon, yes you don't have a dealer locally but it's not a hugely complicated bike.

funny you should say that zoiders - i bought a raleigh sprint about 4 months ago new off rutland cycles and the chainline was all to pot, bottom bracket was wrong too - emailed rutland about it and got no reply, also emailed raleigh and got no reply from them either - so i just got the bottom bracket changed and was out of pocket £30

Bike is all good now tho