Just seen this for £700 (holdworth trentino) looks like a bit of a bargain. Anyone know much about them? Very little info via google searches.

Watching this with interest. I spotted this the other day too, and it looks like a great deal. Interesting colours scheme..!

Seen this?

and this?

and this?

Brand is owned these days by the Tandem group who also own Falcon.

Its Bad, but the “Holdsworth” Brand has been devalued in my head by years of Catalogue BSO tat…

However the Price and spec’ on that look very good VFM to me.
PX are probably aiming to “low ball” the likes of Ribble in the Sub £1K weekend roadie stakes/Winterbikes, this probably has a fair bit of appeal to those looking to buy something on C2W schemes right now…

bro in law just got one, he’s not been on a big ride yet yet but he’s happy so far

I spotted this and despite having no need for a new bike was very tempted.

That looks like the same bike that is rrp’d at £1400 in the bikeradar review. Sounds like a good deal!!

Hmmm. There’s no such thing as a free lunch IMHO.
Perhaps a little tale from the world of Sports and Leisure to illustrate my point. Some of you may be aware of a fine upstanding citizen called Mike Ashley. Particularly if you hail from the North East. Anyway, he has built a veritable empire (and a sizeable fortune) from his Sports Direct shops and online outfit. So far, so what? Well one key aspect of his success has been to buy up well known, usually reasonable quality, brands that have fallen on hard times, for peanuts. He then ships all the manufacturing to the Far East and uses the brand equity to sell a product that is in many cases, allegedly, massively inferior to the original. Some of these brands include the likes of Karrimor, Dunlop (in most markets), Slazenger, Donnay, Kangol and Lonsdale to name a few.

My concern would be that in this situation, what you’re looking at is a classic premium brand that has had the same done to it. At that price you’re looking at cheap pre-designed carbon frames (after all they’re having to save the money somewhere) bought off the shelf from a factory in the Far East. That being the case there will be compromises in terms of the build quality, the type of carbon fibre used, the ratio of carbon to resin etc. This has consequences in terms of ride quality and feel as well as (potentially) in terms of the overall strength of the frame in the long term. Most of the cycling magazines seem to be coming round to the idea that at the £1k price point (let alone below that), you’re at least as well off (if not better off) with a good aluminium frame.

The rule on road bikes is generally pretty much the same as with mountain bikes. Much better to get a good frame and forks and upgrade that, than get a cheap frame/forks combo at the outset. On that note I recently bought a Kinesis Racelight frame and forks for £380 and the winter build kit from Chain Reaction for £360. Got a mate to help me build it up and got an ace bike for about the same price as the Holdsworth. Alright it doesn’t have as blingy kit on it but that can be upgraded over time (starting with the wheels which you would want to upgrade on the Holdsworth anyway) and I’m riding a bike that many of the serious roadies I know use as their default training/winter bike and that takes mudguards and a rack to boot.

Not saying that there is anything wrong with the Holdsworth mind, I certainly haven’t ridden it. Sure there are lots of happy owners, but my advice would be to look at a bike such as the Kinesis, or the Cannondale CAAD8 (which I also owned and was great, but less flexible than the Kinesis) 🙂

shermer75 – Member

That looks like the same bike that is rrp’d at £1400 in the bikeradar review. Sounds like a good deal!!

That would make me even more wary tbh. Looks similar to the supermarkets pricing cheap wine at £12 a bottle in a store in Scunthorpe (or somesuch) for a month, so that they can then offer it for £7.20 at an amazing 40% reduction deal everywhere else!

Of course said bottle of wine is actually worth no more than £5… 😉

Just saying, like..

At £700 that’s a good buy, based on spec. Irrelevant of what the original RRP was.

SD is a good example of licensing brand names. Airwalk trainers are another brand – utter tat from SD, and completely different to the original Airwalk (which is still, and only, available in the US). Its a common practice, Argos have licensed “Hitachi” name for their own-brand kit, and the Blaupunkt name is owned by Slovakian electrical giant UMC who make Tesco’s “technika” TVs.

Whether the holdsworth is a generic “open mould” frame and whether that is a problem is up to the buyer, as long as its an ‘eyes-open’ purchase. I’d say its a comparable frame to Ribble’s budget carbon offering, but with faux heritage.

include the likes of Karrimor

I’ve bought a pair of waterproof walking boots from SD, cost about £35 (no doubt 70% off), and they’re the SD ones, not the nice official gore-tex licenced, leather outer, actual Karrimor ones. Haven’t falen appart or started leaking yet (unlike some gore-tex boots I bought for £160 from another brand that wasn’t Regatta/Karrimor).

I’m down with the SD bashing, but they do sell some genuine (adicrap, nikke aasics etc) for some pretty good discount.
But then I like Planet X, and think the Holdsworths are fairly good too!

Jay

interesting. doubt I will actually buy one as after something different but seem pretty good value. Even if it is just a generic frame as long as it rides well….and the spec is pretty reasonable it seems like a better deal than any other company is doing. If I was looking at a first road bike again I think for the money it would be very appealing.

Not sure it matters that there using an old school brand name
Sure lots of people that see it will never have heard of holdsworth

Sub 1000 does not get you much from a main stream brand
And it’s not like it will be a bike for life

Anyone else a bit put off by Planet X’s determination to stock at least 30 brands of road frame/bike at any one time?

How am I supposed to know which one I need for a winter road bike (ie. taking full mudguards) if they’re not going to tell me on the website?

Are they really “doing a sports direct” and re-launching lots of bankrupt old brands on a shoestring or are they buying up a load of cheap stock?

Either way, why not concentrate on doing a smaller more focused range and offering an alu CX disc frame, proper winter roadie etc?

Sorry didn’t mean to rant, just bothered me a bit when bike shopping recently (and I bought elsewhere in the end).

I’m incandescent – someones actually made a bike with an uglier colour scheme than my Fondriest. It’s an outrage.

Are they really “doing a sports direct” and re-launching lots of bankrupt old brands on a shoestring or are they buying up a load of cheap stock?

YES.

That bike looks utter tat IMO. Looks identical to the Ribble so probably come from some generic factory. Geometry looks iffy to say the least, clearly designed to minimise costs and weight at expense of good fit. Also note the spec clearly has worse wheels than those in mentioned in the details or in the Bikeradar review.

Wouldn’t recommend anything from Planet X at the moment. Ordered a Ti frame, only to be told over a week later they didn’t have any in stock. Still waiting for a refund, as well as some communication from them!

Very poor customer service throughout the whole debacle.

👿

ultimately, it’s a £700 road bike. it’s an entry-level road bike that I don’t think is pretending to be anything it isn’t.

cyrilswan – Member

Wouldn’t recommend anything from Planet X at the moment. Ordered a Ti frame, only to be told over a week later they didn’t have any in stock. Still waiting for a refund, as well as some communication from them!

Very poor customer service throughout the whole debacle.

To balance that: I bought my son a bike from them before Christmas and it turned up on time and as described. I had several calls from them after placing the order updating me on the progress.