bang for your buck $1000-$1200 road bike.
- Thread starter blah blah
- Start date
if you can handle wrench and time, I'd recommend reading up. ebaying the frame and most of the parts seperately.
Here is my bike:
old nashbar race SIS, 61cm, 58 top tube.
-double butted steel, surprisingly good ride.
ultegra BB with dura-ace 177.5 53/39 cranks,
SRAM chain, ultegra 7spd cassette 13-21, 105 cassette 13-26 for hilly rides
105 rear and front derailer
shimano 105 hubs, mavic reflex tubulars, 36x 15-16 DT spokes front and rear
tufo s33 pro tires,
cinelli bar and stem with indexed downtube shifters and aero brakes.
look pedals, pp256
total cost: about 700 including all necessary tools to assemble, clean and maintain, weight: about 18-19, dont have a good scale for measuring it.
Durable, repairable, and it rides good. dont like steel, throw in another couple hundred and you can get pretty name on the frame.
Oh yeah and I have a whole nother bike for commuting for the next $300...
buy something classic, lightweight 20 or under steel bike, if cant ride on that and enjoy it
Here is my bike:
old nashbar race SIS, 61cm, 58 top tube.
-double butted steel, surprisingly good ride.
ultegra BB with dura-ace 177.5 53/39 cranks,
SRAM chain, ultegra 7spd cassette 13-21, 105 cassette 13-26 for hilly rides
105 rear and front derailer
shimano 105 hubs, mavic reflex tubulars, 36x 15-16 DT spokes front and rear
tufo s33 pro tires,
cinelli bar and stem with indexed downtube shifters and aero brakes.
look pedals, pp256
total cost: about 700 including all necessary tools to assemble, clean and maintain, weight: about 18-19, dont have a good scale for measuring it.
Durable, repairable, and it rides good. dont like steel, throw in another couple hundred and you can get pretty name on the frame.
Oh yeah and I have a whole nother bike for commuting for the next $300...
buy something classic, lightweight 20 or under steel bike, if cant ride on that and enjoy it
Rominger said:
The 2004 1500 has a mish mash of tiagra, 105, and ultegra, while the 2005 has 105, 105, and ultegra, which is nice.
I would say that the best ones to choose from are the
Trek 1500 (Some Ultegra)
Specialized Allez Elite (All 105) (I own it
)Lemond Tourmalet (All 105)
Felt F60 (Some Ultegra)
Cannondale R600 (nicer frame, some tiagra componentry)
Those would be the ones to pick from by size, and how it fits you, and of course color.
I would look into building your own custom bike. You could find nicer parts if you look hard enough for 1000-1200 than if you were to buy a 'from factory' bike.
Brian
Brian
Look at Leader Bike as well. If you're going budget, don't go name brand. You're getting worse components and frame you can't do anything with. Later on, if you do decide to upgrade, having chosen the non-name brand will at least have given you good components to put on the next frame. Rest assured that with the non-name brand bike you won't lose any money on the purchase. The components are usually worth the purchase price, and you won't be paying sales tax.
I'll add this in here as a discussion. Although it retails for $900 when you include shipping it is close to $1000. So what about the Iron Horse Glory?
Alloy front triangle, threadless carbon blade fork w/ alloy steerer and crown. FSA handlebar. FSA 3D Forged road stem, FSA Orbit IS-2 headset. FSA ISIS bottom bracket. FSA Gossamer Triple crank 52/42/30T. Wellgo clipless pedals. HG 73 chain. San Marco ODS Race Gel saddle. Alloy micro adjust, 27.2mm seatpost. Alex paired spokes, front 20h, rear 24h w/ Alex rims. Shimano Ultegra shifters/levers. Sram PG 950, 12/26T cassette. Tektro dual pivot w/quick release brakes w/ cartridge pads. Hutchinson Excel 700c x 23 tires. Ultegra rear Derailleur, 105 Front Derailleur.
Alloy front triangle, threadless carbon blade fork w/ alloy steerer and crown. FSA handlebar. FSA 3D Forged road stem, FSA Orbit IS-2 headset. FSA ISIS bottom bracket. FSA Gossamer Triple crank 52/42/30T. Wellgo clipless pedals. HG 73 chain. San Marco ODS Race Gel saddle. Alloy micro adjust, 27.2mm seatpost. Alex paired spokes, front 20h, rear 24h w/ Alex rims. Shimano Ultegra shifters/levers. Sram PG 950, 12/26T cassette. Tektro dual pivot w/quick release brakes w/ cartridge pads. Hutchinson Excel 700c x 23 tires. Ultegra rear Derailleur, 105 Front Derailleur.
Does anyone here have experience with the Ibex Aprisa Team Pro available from ibexbikes.com for $1299.00 American?.......It's got alloy frame w/ carbon fiber forks and seat stays, full Ultegra with Dura-Ace rear deralleuer.
Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, I'm considering it but would sure like to hear from someone who's got experience with that model.
Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, I'm considering it but would sure like to hear from someone who's got experience with that model.
Scattante R650
Ultegra group, Easton Al frame. My frame weight is 1330 grams in 51 cm size. The bare frame costs $200 and its equivalent in weight to frames costing 10 times as much.
My only complaint is all the friggin' decals. So I stripped my bike down to the frame and did a silver to blue fade paint job.
http://www.supergo.com/profile.cfm?LPROD_ID=24415&lsubcat_id=7618&lcat_id=7604&referpage=
Ultegra group, Easton Al frame. My frame weight is 1330 grams in 51 cm size. The bare frame costs $200 and its equivalent in weight to frames costing 10 times as much.
My only complaint is all the friggin' decals. So I stripped my bike down to the frame and did a silver to blue fade paint job.
http://www.supergo.com/profile.cfm?LPROD_ID=24415&lsubcat_id=7618&lcat_id=7604&referpage=
I think my new bike qualifies for a good bang for the buck $1000 - $1200 road bike. Just scored a new 2004 Raleigh Supercourse on ebay for $600 + shipping. Not too shabby for a mostly 105/Ritchey bike. I bet they put a Tiagra cassette and bottom bracket on her though. That's where they cut costs and save money - where you can't see what's on the bike! Other than that it looks like a decent bike. Too bad the components are black instead of the brushed aluminum.
Specs here:
http://www.raleighusa.com/items.asp?deptid=5&itemid=198&va=0
Just scored some new SPD-M505 pedals for $10.50 + shipping also. All I need now is another cyclometer and a couple of bottle cages and I'll be set.
I bet they put a Tiagra cassette and bottom bracket on her though. That's where they cut costs and save money - where you can't see what's on the bike! Other than that it looks like a decent bike. Too bad the components are black instead of the brushed aluminum. Specs here:
http://www.raleighusa.com/items.asp?deptid=5&itemid=198&va=0
Just scored some new SPD-M505 pedals for $10.50 + shipping also. All I need now is another cyclometer and a couple of bottle cages and I'll be set.
Well sitting here in Ireland I can only drool at the prices listed above.
Here, a Specialised Allez Elite retails at the equivalent of $2000 while a Giant OCR3 with Sora and sub-Sora components will set you back about $1000. I've never even seen a Felt, apart from online.
Luckily we have ebay and a number of very good UK-based mail order and internet shops.
I built my new bike from a steel frame which was lying in the corner of my LBS gathering dust and marked down to 30% of the original sticker price and bought all the rest of the components online.
Adding in labour for things like the headset and bottom bracket (for which I didn't have the tools), I have a beautifully painted Olmo, handmade with Columbus tubing, brand new Mirage groupset, Mavic Cosmos wheels, decent tyres, bars, stem and saddle (won't bore you with a full spec) all for the same price as that OCR3 I mentioned.....
Here, a Specialised Allez Elite retails at the equivalent of $2000 while a Giant OCR3 with Sora and sub-Sora components will set you back about $1000. I've never even seen a Felt, apart from online.
Luckily we have ebay and a number of very good UK-based mail order and internet shops.
I built my new bike from a steel frame which was lying in the corner of my LBS gathering dust and marked down to 30% of the original sticker price and bought all the rest of the components online.
Adding in labour for things like the headset and bottom bracket (for which I didn't have the tools), I have a beautifully painted Olmo, handmade with Columbus tubing, brand new Mirage groupset, Mavic Cosmos wheels, decent tyres, bars, stem and saddle (won't bore you with a full spec) all for the same price as that OCR3 I mentioned.....
where's the Trek 1500? it's not full ultegra, but I think it's worth mentioning since it's the best of anything i test rode.
