Question is in the title! Is eBay my best bet? Thinking about buying a road bike at some point, but not in a rush so willing to wait and keep my eyes open. I also have limited knowledge about what I am looking for… I was thinking that £650 should get me something well worth keeping for a good few years.

Thoughts?

Put up a wanted in the classifeds…? You have nothing to lose (except £650 😉 )

Ebay probably your best bet, but the classifieds here or bikeradar often have good stuff. You can get a lot of bike for 650, but I’d research a little into what you want first though so you don’t buy a dog and regret it later!

my Trek 5900 came from British Cycling a number of years ago – they sell off the team bikes every year.

Buy The Comic..- There are loads of adverts every week for decent road bikes at the back…

personally i would look to buy in parts as it would give more flexibility and chance of a bargain or two, but keep an eye on completes as you never know what will come along. 650 would easily buy a nice decent brand later model ultegra equipped bike – maybe even a new ribble roubaix frameset (440quid) and used 105/older ultegra if you shopped hard.

an advanced search within so many miles of your home is always a good call on ebay, if something is pick up only you can get some real bargains.

my advice would be to look around at new stuff and figure out what you would like, then go after it used – but be prepared to be flexible and google for overviews.

I just bought a Cycleops Indoor Club Pro 300PT on ebay for only £389 – which is an absolute bargain. The seller wasn’t prepared to ship which I guess kept the other bidders out, so I bid on shipley http://www.shiply.com to get it shipped for a further £40 from Essex to Edinburgh. If you are prepared to take the risk then there are similar bike bargains out there! Just saw a specialized bike with 9 speed Ultegra group set in good condition go for £340. Oh and if you are going that way use a snipper agent such as http://www.ezsnipper.com to get a late bid in!

it doesn’t matter how cheap it is or how much of a bargain it is if it doesn’t fit you properly, unless you know your perfect effective top tube length and stem length be prepared to buy something that doesn’t fit and/or spend money and time getting it to fit properly.

Cycling Weekly or through a club. Generally the people selling in CW are just moving stuff on and the prices are fair, compared to more profit orientated sites like Ebay.

Cheers guys, plenty of food for thought. Whatever did I do before the internet? Work, probably…