Setting myself for first time in my life road bike

[marslo911]

Good afternoon everyone and warm welcome from Tamworth.

I never thought i will be turning my head around a Road bikes, grown and raised in rural area with post comunist country with little to no decent road to ride anything else than BMX type buldge tyres. Few years ago my choice went to second hand Trek Fuel EX5. Perfect for sunday ride with music. However our recent journey to Calella turn my eyes to Ironman Calella Barcelona - where as engineer i could indulge mysefl watching these roadbikes soaking up with carbon and recent areo features. I was inspired by speed and agility and littlebit curious about experience riding these bikes, so i started searching. My First choice was Halfords where one of the gentlemans put me on Boardman SLR 8.9 Carbon - which turned to be a perfect riding position for me (at least what he said) and the size S is the bike size i should go after.

My question would be, where to start:

1) I don't have a budget, as grown adult - we can spend on hobbys from as little as £100 up to £6000 if you are lucky, Wife won't ask the questions.
2) Is buying a used second hand bike on ebay, without trying it (long distance test drive ? ) Will make any sense ? I will underline that i don't know what is comfortable postion to me as i never rode one before
3) I want to have the best possible machine for future use (as my experience and full grow) - but without spending £6K on Canyon bike at the beginning. My budget is from £800 starting, and i am happy with second hand bikes in good condition of course.

Thank you for your time in advance and have a great afternoon.

 

[DCLane]

Welcome to the forum. Boardman bikes tend to be good value. They're not the latest spec but generally ride well, although the wheels usually benefit from being upgraded.

Second-hand gets you into a market where there's lots of choice, with some absolute bargains but also pretty bad buys as well. For those it helps to know the basic mechanics.

An £800 budget should get you enough to start with, where you find out whether you like road bikes or not. Enjoy the journey and you may end up with a stack of bikes like @biggs682 , myself and quite a few others on here.

 

[cyberknight]

Ay up from Swad
I have a couple of boardmans and they are cracking bikes, if you join british cycling you get a discount at halfords if you still are looking at a new boardman , there are always a few knocking about for sale on facefluff marketplace and ebay if you are prepared to shop around and get a good deal.

 

[FrankCrank]

Could try a perusal at Decathlon, the Triban gets good revues and is in your price range, may have autumn sale now as well.

 

[marslo911]

Good morning Guys, and thank you for repsponse! Boardman got my attention - im not gonna lie.
I have also seen some of the second hand Canyon Aeroad (earliest edition) for relatively good money. Would it be worth to explore some of these as second hand option ?
Is there anything specific too focus on when purchasing a second hand road bike (except the obvious one as general rule of purchasing any second hand bike).
Thanks again!

 

[biggs682]

Welcome @marslo911
Before you spend £800 why not buy a decent second hand road loads around the £100-200 mark to see how you get on would be my advice.

 

[Punkawallah]

Hi there! Logically, if you buy new and it works - great. If you buy new and it doesn’t work, the money you ‘lose’ on re- selling it is probably no more than you’d pay to find out the second hand one doesn’t work.

 

[DCLane]

+1 to @Punkawallah

And if you find you like riding a road bike it's well worth getting a toolkit. You may then find yourself getting a second-hand bike as a 'winter' bike to learn maintainance on, and to protect the 'best' bike from the worst of winter.

At that point your wife loses all hope ...

 

[roubaixtuesday]

If you're confident in your mechanical ability and assessment, then 2nd hand is a good place to go.

Otherwise, Boardman and Decathlon have a good reputation for value.

Modern road bikes are a money sink without impacting performance much (Di2, hydaulics and carbon are all very expensive, but none of them will make much of a difference to you).

£800 new will get you a decent machine without frills. A quick glance at the Boardman site shows the 8.6 at £650 which I'd be very happy to ride. Replacing the tyres would be the only upgrade I'd advise (cheaper bikes come with awful tyres normally)

Most branded bikes will be a little bit more than halfords or decathlon. There's basically nothing to choose between the many different brands at a given price point; choosing based on a shop you can trust to give you good advice and service rather than the specific model would be my advice if buying new.

Enjoy the ride!

 

[marslo911]

If you're confident in your mechanical ability and assessment, then 2nd hand is a good place to go.

Otherwise, Boardman and Decathlon have a good reputation for value.

Modern road bikes are a money sink without impacting performance much (Di2, hydaulics and carbon are all very expensive, but none of them will make much of a difference to you).

£800 new will get you a decent machine without frills. A quick glance at the Boardman site shows the 8.6 at £650 which I'd be very happy to ride. Replacing the tyres would be the only upgrade I'd advise (cheaper bikes come with awful tyres normally)

Most branded bikes will be a little bit more than halfords or decathlon. There's basically nothing to choose between the many different brands at a given price point; choosing based on a shop you can trust to give you good advice and service rather than the specific model would be my advice if buying new.

Enjoy the ride!

Thank you for broad response. You are right, in almost every category there is a market for these things which are just a cherry on top of the cake. With only few of users benefiting from it.
I will visit local halfords what bikes they have in stock now, returning back to boardman i believe.

 

[ianrauk]

returning back to boardman

Not a bad choice that. The only caveat is having to deal with Halfords. Hopefully you get someone who knows what they are talking about and an instore mechanic who can set bikes up properly.
Otherwise, not sure if anyone has mentioned, Decathlon do a great range of road bikes.

 

[IanSmithCSE]

Good morning,

Whilst I certainly agree that Di2, hydraulic discs etc are a long way from essential I am also not convinced by going too far down market either.

I have a current model Carrera Vanquish as my pub bike, this has the current generation Claris gears and shifters, economy chainset and brakes and they are a quite a lot less pleasant to use than my commute bike that has Tiagra parts.

For me Claris hasn't moved too far on from it's origins as the unnamed 2000 series which got a name to make it seem more upmarket than it really was as brands like Specialized were fitting it to save the costs of using Sora.

When Boardman bike first came out they where the obvious choice, it appeared to me that at the time they spec'ed a bike and worked out the selling price, now it seems they have worked out the selling price and spec the bike to meet that price.

Don't forget Chris Boardman started Boardman bikes but it was bought by Halfords in 2014 and the £650 8.6 is something that I would have reservations about, I don't really see the advantage over a Carrera Vanquish other that the Boardman brand.

By the way I have tried an 8 speed 11-32 cassette and hated it, too large a gap between sprockets, I would much rather have 11-25 and change chain rings.

So it may be worth looking around for a well balanced spec at around the Tiagra level and just riding it, rather than feeling yes that was cheap but that bit really does feel a bit naff and being 10 speed a Tiagra cassette can usefully be 11-32

Bye

Ian

 

[midlandsgrimpeur]

Good morning Guys, and thank you for repsponse! Boardman got my attention - im not gonna lie.
I have also seen some of the second hand Canyon Aeroad (earliest edition) for relatively good money. Would it be worth to explore some of these as second hand option ?
Is there anything specific too focus on when purchasing a second hand road bike (except the obvious one as general rule of purchasing any second hand bike).
Thanks again!

The main one is people fibbing about the general state of the bike and components i.e. claiming it has had far less use than it actually has. It is usually fairly obvious when you see a bike up close, but there are things like wear to bearings, cables etc. that you can only ascertain from inspecting the bike up close. It may sound like scaremongering but some people will lie about anything, I regularly see bikes on ebay that have clearly suffered crash damage and/or carbon fibre that is cracked or has visible damage that would render the bike completely unsafe and the seller referring to it as 'scuff marks' or 'superficial'.