Went on a training road ride yesterday with a pal who’s just bought a £3k Italian carbon fibre-framed bike and allowed me to ride part of the way on it to see the difference between it and my own £1200 aluminiumframed/carbon forked Specialized sportive.

So now I’m thinking – “Hmmm. £3k, you say?” 😯 😀

Uh-oh.

an almost religious experience ?

resurrected your love for the road ?

’tis the season

You could buy a car for that… 😉

Better than one way speaker cables then?

Well, I’m doing it to train for the London/Surrey 100, not especially because I love road riding that much although it has to be said that it would take me significantly less time to get to work and back…

Plus the bathroom needs doing!

Oops, misread the title. Anyway what was it?

It might not be the bike at all.
Could be solely the Italian influence.

You can get a nice FIAT Panda for £3000, I’d try that first.

Or a nice leather handbag.

Hmm always fatal that ….the allure of carbon….

course it won’t make you get to work faster that’s just your mind coming up with reasons to splash out…

Wilier Zero 9.

Save a fortune, get this instead:

Attempting flickr link…

<img src=”https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8820/17026913616_009728165a_s.jpg&#8221; width=”75″ height=”75″ alt=”FullSizeRender (1)”>

Oh bollocks. How does this bloody thing work again?

There you go.

Spot the loony.

#prayforwoppit

You’re not making life easy for me here. Whilst I had no difficulty convincing myself I don’t need one of these

I am having less success in actually deciding not to buy one.

Edit to add that I am, of course, very upset by this.

#prayforRiksbar, clearly.

I may forgive you seven times seventy times.

I did 40 miles in a fairly relaxed 3 hours 10 minutes so the next one will be 60 miles in hopefully 4 hours and 45 minutes or less. Just planned the route. We’ll stop at Peaslake for coffee and carbs.

My motivator is a proper shaved-leg roadie maniac and of course, I’ll be looking like one (sort of) on the day. It will be interesting to mingle with the usual crowd of Surrey Hills dirt yobs disguised as a roadie…

Dunno what Justin will make of it.

I was happy with my boardman cx for road riding until yesterday when I read a review for the canyon endurance cf 7. Sounds like a cracking bike for the money and I am very tempted.

3k frame or 3k bike? only if its the former then it’s probably a generic taiwanese and then painted in italy frame, the only thing exotic is the name.
a custom tube-to-tube jointed frame made in italy is a step up (if done right) but you are looking at £2.5k upwards.

Well, it rode like I was sitting on a feather and looked fabulous so I don’t really give a shit about that, TBH. Thanks anyway.

save yourself £600 and get a ribble then 😉