Advice on road bike purchase



Rune

New Member
Jan 26, 2004
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Hi everybody,

I hope this is the right foum for this.

I'm planning on buying a road bike to supplement my mountain bike and I've been looking at these models:

TREK 1200
Giant OCR1
Cannondale R500

Which are all pretty much in the same price range.

I was hoping some of you could comment on the models. I haven't bought a road bike before, just mountain bikes, so I'm, kinda lost ;-)

If you have any suggestions on other models in roughly the same price range, that would be great as well. Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,
Rune
 
Originally posted by Rune
Hi everybody,

I hope this is the right foum for this.

I'm planning on buying a road bike to supplement my mountain bike and I've been looking at these models:

TREK 1200
Giant OCR1
Cannondale R500

Which are all pretty much in the same price range.

I was hoping some of you could comment on the models. I haven't bought a road bike before, just mountain bikes, so I'm, kinda lost ;-)

If you have any suggestions on other models in roughly the same price range, that would be great as well. Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,
Rune


HEy! I was kinda in the same boat a year ago here is my opinion! I have a Cannondale R600 so just an upgrade to what you are looking at. Ok bottom line in my opinion if you want a trek hold out and buy one of the carbon frames ie spend an additional 2000 dollars. Trek places most of their time in TD with the carbon frames and think that carbon is best....where as Cannondale thinks that they can make a superior aluminum frame. Hence both frames are aluminum however I think Cannondale makes the superior frame.

Now with my situation I honestly rather ride the carbon frame so I plan on saving upgrading in another year or two because I like the feel alot better than aluminum. Hence in I will make the switch back to Trek.

Bottom line between the two models I feel cannondale has the superior frame if you want an aluminum bike buy a Cannondale...if you want a carbon frame buy a trek.

Hope that helps
 
The levels for road bikes are:

SIS- Kmart ****
Sora- 8 speed
Tiagra- 9 speed getting reasonable
105- 9 speed good quality for money
Ultegra- 9 speed racing quality
Dura Ace- 10 speed dream material.

For a beginer I'd say look for a Sora or Tiagra bike, maybe 105 if it will do alot of km.
Leave Trek alone they are over priced. Cannondale are serious racing bike, but you pay for the name. Giant make reasonable entry level bikes.

Gitane and Felt make good quality well priced bikes.

Hope that helps

Brian
 
Thanks for the advice.. it certainly helped!

I've decided to skip Trek. I don't want to spend the kind of money required for carbon (especially since this is my first road bike).

Thanks for the tip about Gitane and Felt models. I'll check them out.. I've never seen Gitane bikes in the LBS's around town, though, but there's plenty of Felts.

Also, my usual LBS has a road bike (Centurion Ultimate 2003, national brand/model) which costs about £140 less, weighs about 9.8 kgs and has full Ultegra. It's an aluminum frame, but not carbon fork. MSRP is £1020 and it's going for £650 now, because it's last years model.. and possibly because it's *really* red ;)

I'm just not sure about the frame.. it's more or less impossible to get any information about it, because it's a national brand which isn't too well known outside Denmark.

Argh.. this road bike buying business is a lot more time consuming than I expected :)

Any comments are still very much welcome.

Sincerely,
Rune
 
That Cannondale would be a good buy. Out of the three bikes you mention only the Cannondale has a frame worth hanging on to, which is nice - you can upgrade the parts as they break and you'll end up with a very nice bike in a few years!
 
OK, thanks. Cannondale is obviously a definite possibility. It seems like a nice bike.

I just checked out some bike shops today and looked at Specialized Allez Sport and Cube Attempt. Any opinions about those?

If you look at the reviews of Specialized Allez Sport over at roadbikereview.com, it seems like a great bike. It's a little harder to find anything about the Cube.
 
I'd never buy a Huffydale even if someone was giving me the money to do it ............. After working in shops for five years that often dealt with them as a dealer, and for warranty issues, they are horrible.

For the money, the Giant is your best buy. The compact geometry gives you a solid bike that is comfortable and reasonably light.

Plus, you would be buying the top selling bike manufacturer in the world, and you tend to get a lot more for your money when you buy from them.

Finding a close out deal on a year old model is also a good idea. You can get a lot of bike for a good price usually.
 
Originally posted by Rune
Thanks for the advice.. it certainly helped!

I've decided to skip Trek. I don't want to spend the kind of money required for carbon (especially since this is my first road bike).

Thanks for the tip about Gitane and Felt models. I'll check them out.. I've never seen Gitane bikes in the LBS's around town, though, but there's plenty of Felts.

Also, my usual LBS has a road bike (Centurion Ultimate 2003, national brand/model) which costs about £140 less, weighs about 9.8 kgs and has full Ultegra. It's an aluminum frame, but not carbon fork. MSRP is £1020 and it's going for £650 now, because it's last years model.. and possibly because it's *really* red ;)

I'm just not sure about the frame.. it's more or less impossible to get any information about it, because it's a national brand which isn't too well known outside Denmark.

Argh.. this road bike buying business is a lot more time consuming than I expected :)

Any comments are still very much welcome.

Sincerely,
Rune
 
Originally posted by Rune
Thanks for the advice.. it certainly helped!

I've decided to skip Trek. I don't want to spend the kind of money required for carbon (especially since this is my first road bike).

Thanks for the tip about Gitane and Felt models. I'll check them out.. I've never seen Gitane bikes in the LBS's around town, though, but there's plenty of Felts.

Also, my usual LBS has a road bike (Centurion Ultimate 2003, national brand/model) which costs about £140 less, weighs about 9.8 kgs and has full Ultegra. It's an aluminum frame, but not carbon fork. MSRP is £1020 and it's going for £650 now, because it's last years model.. and possibly because it's *really* red ;)

I'm just not sure about the frame.. it's more or less impossible to get any information about it, because it's a national brand which isn't too well known outside Denmark.

Argh.. this road bike buying business is a lot more time consuming than I expected :)

Any comments are still very much welcome.

Sincerely,
Rune

Hi Rune,
If it's any help, I was in the same Boat as you a few months ago, I decided to buy a Felt F85, which is now called the F90 basically...you can find Felt at feltracing.com

It was a super inexpensive Bike, US$465.00 on sale (last years model) but it does come with Tiagra...and Sora Front derailleur...

A lot of People have rightly said "Buy whatever feels right" and that's great advice...but a Road Bike feels really wierd for the first 20 or so miles after riding a MTB...in fact, it's completely different...

I agree when you say "Argh.. this road bike buying business is a lot more time consuming than I expected :)" and it only gets worse, you'll realize the more you learn about them, the less you'll know...that's what I found anyway...

:confused:

But by the time I've learned enough about Road Bikes, and what I REALLY want I'll feel more confident when I'm shopping around next time....

I must admit, I do love my Felt, especially after I got it tuned and virtually re-built by someone who really knows what he's doing...

Good luck!!!
 
Regardless on what bike you're getting make sure you look into the dependability of the bike and the warranty some makes offer only few years and others like Trek and Orbea offer life time warranty.
 
Since my last posting, I've done a little test riding of a couple of bikes: Trek 1400, Cannondale R600 and the Centurion Ultimate, the national brand which I mentioned earlier.

The Centurion Ultimate wasn't that comfortable to ride and noticeably heavier than the others, so that's out of the question.

The Cannondale R600 was a lot nicer to ride. Very lightweight and has what seems to be a nice frame. And I know color is less important.. but it looks like a million ;)

The Trek 1400 was kind of a surprise and seemed like a great bike. But some of the components other than derailleurs etc. seemed a little cheap compared to the R600. The seatpost and the handlebars for example.

Anyways, that's my initial thoughts about the bikes. I've scheduled a test ride of a Bianchi ML3 Alu next weekend and look forward to trying it out. Any thoughts on this bike?
 
Originally posted by Daremo
I'd never buy a Huffydale even if someone was giving me the money to do it ............. After working in shops for five years that often dealt with them as a dealer, and for warranty issues, they are horrible.

For the money, the Giant is your best buy. The compact geometry gives you a solid bike that is comfortable and reasonably light.

Plus, you would be buying the top selling bike manufacturer in the world, and you tend to get a lot more for your money when you buy from them.

Finding a close out deal on a year old model is also a good idea. You can get a lot of bike for a good price usually.
 
I have been riding a Specialized mountain bike with road tires and I am looking at making the change to a road bike. I do a lot of local sponsored/century rides. So far I am liking the Giant OCR line the best. Do you have any advice on the different 1-2-3 models. I can get the OCR3 here for about $600, would I get a lot more for my buck by going up to the OCR2 or 1?
Are there any good deals online? I buy a lot on ebay but i am nervous about buying a used bike without seeing it.
 
In my humble opinion (I'm brand new at this road bike stuff too), you get a lot for every extra dollar spent in that price range.

A downside to the OCR3 as far as I'm concerned, and the reason I didn't consider buying it, is that it sports the Shimano Sora grouppo, which makes it harder to upgrade to Shimano Ultegra or the likes later. The reason being that Sora is 8-speed and Shimano Tiagra and up is 9-speed.

The OCR1 has Tiagra. I test rode two bikes with Tiagra and it functions pretty fine for my needs. Test rode a bike with Ultegra and didn't feel much of a difference. Besides, OCR1 also features a carbon fork, which should dampen vibrations when riding.

Can't really see if there's any difference between the OCR2/3 frame and the one on OCR1. After all, the frame is the most important thing. OCR2 has Campagnolo components, which I'm totally clueless about.. so I'll refrain from commenting about that one.

Well, that's just my two cents.
 
Both my wife and I have Felts, we also have or have had Giants, Redlines and Treks. Of all the road bikes I've owned, the Felt is by far the best I've ever rode. They're fast and responsive, very comfortable and well priced.
 
I wouldn't worry about upgrading-- IMHO it's often a waste of time and money. If you want a better road bike, wait till the dead of winter and buy a whole new bike (last year's model-- and drive a hard bargain)

Plan on riding whatever ever bike you buy into the ground just the way it came out of the shop.
 
Like you, I started out as a mountain biker.

I started road biking as a way to get in shape. Now, I'm on my third road bike, I love it.

I just bought an Orbea. Very high quality. I got mine with Ultegra components.
 
I bought the felt f65 2003 model it has the shimano 105 components it performs very good and price wise was very good I have had this bike for 4 months and it's certainly worth it since I tried the following models and they were on the expensive side Trek, Specialize, Giant, and Cannonndale; I'm sure that if you try the felt models you will be please regarding performance and price wise.
 
Just wanted to say that I've finally decided on a bike. I'm going to purchase the Cannondale R600.

It's a little on the expensive side, but I don't mind spending the extra money. I know I'll be paying for the Cannondale name and the looks of the bike.. but it's also the bike which felt best when test riding it. Plus, I got a good offer and the owner of the shop is very knowledgeable and races himself.

I tried two more bikes after my last post: A local brand and a Felt F60. The Felt seemed nice as well, but the price wasn't that far from the R600 and the only color available was white for that model.

Tried to find a local Orbea dealer.. but I don't think there's any Orbea dealers in Denmark at all :(