After 7 years living in East Anglia I have finally come to the conclusion a road bike is needed.

I’ve tried adapting a couple of offroad bikes but they have always felt too much of a compromise.

I’ve no experience of road bikes bar a 5 minute pootle around the block on a mates.

I’m guessing more gets you more with regards to ££.

I’m a steel Luddite at heart with all of my offroad bikes being made of the stuff but appreciate in the road bike world alloy and carbon are king(s).

So where to start?

Budget is TBC based upon whether its worth buying a good one from the off that won’t need a huge amount of upgrading etc.

Happy to go down the second hand route/ self build especially as I already have some midge bars 😉

Second hand all the way.

^ as above or do what I did and get a cheap bike (eg lower end components) but with a good frame which will last on 0% finance. Mine is now a year old so paid off, and once the parts start to wear out I can upgrade. So went for a bottom of the range Spec Allez with Sora and will upgrade next year with 105 11 speed. Have already upgraded the wheels which has really helped.

Worth demo’ing road bikes as the position and comfort varies alot between bikes unlike MTB’s.

Genesis make some nice steel road bikes. From £900 to 😯 😯 😯 HOW MUCH!
To be honest you’ll get much higher spec/price from an aluminium or carbon bike, but I know exactly what you mean about steel push rods. I’m really fond of my DayOne. Below is that 😯 😯 😯 bike.

Make sure it fits properly and take the time to get your position right.

I have a cheap (£600) bianchi which is much improved for £200 worth of better wheels and £50 worth of tyres.

Make of that what you will…

Giant Defy is where you start. Adjust parameters from Cannondale CAAD8 through to Dawes Galaxy according to taste and budget.

Under a £1000, Alloy, above £2000, Carbon. In between CAAD10 😉

I too have a thing for steel so I bought a Salsa Vaya. It’s been a great commuter and long distance rider. I took it around the blue run at Llandegla today and it was ace. If it fits in your budget I would certainly recommend it. Although it’s not meant to be a fast bike, I have no problems keeping up with my University cycling group of carbon/alloy regular road bikes

I would think carefully about how you intend to use it. Are you going to actually race, or pootle, or tour? What are the road surfaces in your local area like? Are some loops part road, part unsurfaced. I have great network around me and mixing road, track, cyclepath and singletrack gives an amazing variety of options for all conditions and all seasons.

However, my Giant OCR just wasnt up to it. Tyres too narrow and no clearance for suitably wide ones. I sold it for £265 and bought a second hand Boardman CX Comp (the cheapy one) for £388. The best £123 I ever spent, as I can pootle away on everything that is available. For me, a roadbike just wasn’t ideal, and the CX trend threw up a cheap second hand bike from a Londoner who boughtit in November and sold it in February.

I bought the Genesis Volare 00 from Evans for £1079 sale price on 12 month 0% finance. It’s made from Reynolds 631, has full tiagra groupset and (heavy but bulletproof) Shimano R501 wheels. I absolutely love it, it rides like a dream and looks the absolute business.
I use it for commuting, weekend rides and general pootling, cannot recommend it highly enough, unless you want rack and guard mounts, then buy the Croix de fer…

Around £1k will get you a good alloy frame with tiagra/105 or possibly a carbon frame (eg Planet-X) with normally a slightly lesser groupset.

Having ridden light road bkes and more utilitarian ones, I find there’s more fun to be had the lighter you go. They just feel zippier, more nimble. Whilst the likes of the Croix de Fer and other cross style bikes are more practical, to me it just drains the speed element out of road riding.

Oh and ditto the Giant OCR not being up to it. Thankfully they don’t do them any more. My Giant TCR SL (alloy) is fantastic!

It took you 7 years of living here! Even though I’m not far from Thetford it took me about 2 months to realise that East Anglia is about road.

My road bike is posh steel but if you’re just starting out and don’t want to spend thousands you’re much better off getting a bike with a decent alu frame such as a Giant Defy. Just make sure it fits as fot is far more important that MTB.

Agree with the poster above, for me anyway the fun in a road bike ( racer ) is in speed. Lightweight nimble handling every time 😀

Here’s a couple of steel one’s you may not have considered for the commute:

http://www.bikeSwanky.co.uk/bike/2014-roux-etape-250-demo

http://www.bikeSwanky.co.uk/bike/2014-roux-menthe-demo

A lighter sub-£1000 option that’s got an Al frame and Carbon fork with full Tiagra is this one: http://www.bikeSwanky.co.uk/bike/2014-roux-vercors-r9-demo

Come and have a go on them if you want.

Anything below £700 I would go with a B’Twin (Decathlon). Anything more and I would go for a Planet X. Planet X customer service can be somewhat inconsistent, but the value for money with them is worth putting up with in my opinion.

You will get a far better bike for the money with both of these, compared to say a Giant, Trek, Specialized …etc!

Ribble are worth a look to for a cheap/decent Alloy or Carbon framed bike.

The Planet X RT-58 looks pretty hard to beat from a lot of angles…

If only it had mudguard eyelets 😆 … for out and out value for money though does anything come close?

8.8KG and Tiagra for 599…

Yes theres lots of things lighter. But to go sub 8/8.5 KG seems to require quite a lot of extra cash

Start with getting measured up proper at you local proper roadie shop, get the wrong size and you’ll get aches were you didn’t know you had places

Light and fast is what Road riding is all about, so go carbon and rag the nuts off it. A bit over a grand should get you a decent frame with okay bits on.

IMO Planet-x aren’t as good value as they look as they prioritise parts over the frame, when common wisdom says it’s better to spend money on quality frame and forks first.

Full Ultegra 11spd groupset
Good wheels
Proven carbon frame.. PlanetX. Big brands insult with poverty builds.

1k

Why would you buy a lesser bike?

Carbon if over 1K, Alu if below, not too much in steel now, unless you pay lots for the really good stuff.

What ever you look at, if possible would try to get one which has a rear hub can take an 11 speed cassette for future proofing.

From where you live would look at a standard crank (53/39) you won’t need a compact in East Anglia but most sub 1K bikes seem to be spec’d with compacts. And avoid triples, too much trouble for so little gain in gears, and not needed in East Anglia.

For 2nd hand vs new, there are some good 2nd hand bikes out there, but you will have to search, as you are close, would be worth looking at Pauls Cycles, as they have a lot of closeout models at deep discounts

Here’s a couple of steel one’s you may not have considered for the commute:

Those are not road bikes, they look like dull retirement gifts.

Big brands insult with poverty builds.

And proper Research and Development. A bike is more than the sum of the components.

Change your road bike budget to a petrol budget and go ride your MTB somewhere fun

Giant Defy is where you start. Adjust parameters from Cannondale CAAD8 through to Dawes Galaxy according to taste and budget.

Under a £1000, Alloy, above £2000, Carbon. In between CAAD10

Giant Defy is a lovely bike. Had a long spin on the demo one at the LBS when checking out Giant sizing and I was surprised at how nice a ride it was. I think it was about 700 quid. If I had a grand to spend on a first road bike that’s probably where my money would go (well the best Defy I could get for a grand anyway.)

As for components, don’t be put off by, say, Tiagra over 105 or Ultegra. I have Tiagra, 105 and Ultegra on various bikes. Tiagra’s on my winter bike and it works well, feel no need to upgrade it.

Best advice is to go to your LBS, get fitted, ride a few models, see what you like best.

I can vouch for the Genesis steel bikes, we run a fleet of the Equilibrium 20s and I’ve spent a fair amount of time riding one.

As others have said, the headline spec won’t stand up against a carbon/alloy bike in comparison, and certainly not with what you’d get in terms of shiny bits from Planet X or whoever. But they are nice, well made bikes, and ride very nicely indeed. Plus you can get one from your LBS which might be a benefit.

I did the same as you and had my old Rockhopper kitted out as best I could for the road, but it just didn’t work.

After a bit of research, I just decided to buy a new Maven from Merlin Cycles. It’s by no means a fancy bike, but to give myself a taste of road riding, it’s not a lot of money to spend if I don’t enjoy it. I could probably sell it on for not much less than I paid for it.

I had to put proper tyres on it (Vittoria Rubino Pro3), a shorter stem, compact bars and some spd pedals to go with my MTB shoes, but it rides a hell of a lot quicker than the Rockhopper!

If you take to road riding and really enjoy it, then either sell your first one or keep it as a winter/commuter. Then open your wallet and pick whichever fancy carbon dura ace kitted blast machine you desire!

I bought a MEKK Potenza SL 5.0 as my first road bike.
Managed to snap the frame in February this yr so replaced the frame with a carbon l’etape frame from Dolan for £400. Then i replaced the wheels with some Cero AR30’s for £350 & along with the existing 105 groupset i now have the bike i should have bought all along.

The l’etape frame is lovely, a joy to ride even to this novice. Might be worth looking at the Dolan website bikebuilder & see what you can get for your budget.

And proper Research and Development.

How much research really is being spent now? On carbon. ‘We’ve laid it this way, lets make this bit slimmer as we know from years of experience it makes the rear smoother’.

Bar the next big leap – its plateau’d IMO. Anything 1k+ I bet you’d walk happily into any main stream or mid-table brand/bike as an average Joe. Its the level of kit that I think is key for us too.

When I started out about 18 months or so ago I tried a few ‘budget’ bikes including the Defy, Speedster, Allez and CAAD 8. Whilst very similar on paper I found that minor differences were actually very noticeable on them with the CAAD 8 being the most stable feeling of the bunch. I know it’s not everyone’s priority but hitting the road after 20+ years on mtbs was a bit of a shock to my system.

Have moved on to something carbon now but if I’d started out on the current bike I’m not sure I’d have built the confidence I now have.

Bar the next big leap – its plateau’d IMO. Anything 1k+ I bet you’d walk happily into any main stream or mid-table brand/bike as an average Joe. Its the level of kit that I think is key for us too.

Depends what you mean by “kit” really. We do tend to get a bit hung up on the shiny bits, though even the lower end group sets work really well these days. It’s things like saddle, bars, seatpost, and especially wheels, that can make a big difference but is where most manufacturers try and cut costs (instead spending the budget on something shiny that makes little difference like upgrading the rear mech) but then these are the things that tend to get swapped out pretty soon anyway. I’d much rather a lower spec group and better wheels.

Road bikes are basically simple machines, built to pretty well understood requirements… Which adds up to being able to get good things for not much money. Decathlon would get my first visit, yes a more expensive bike will be lighter and the step up in shifters and wheels is nice but you can get out and riding and trying it out for a couple of hundred quid.

Alternatively, used, because so many people buy a £1000 road bike and ride it twice.

Road bikes are basically simple machines, built to pretty well understood requirements..

This is what I thought (but then I’m a newbie back after a very long break away. A mountain bike from a unknown/low-volume brand can ride like shit due to bad/ill thought out collection of angles. This is my only fear that I’m being naive in my comments further up^

Alternatively, used, because so many people buy a £1000 road bike and ride it twice.

+1 I guess. This is why I bought a decent, old steel road bike to try a few rides first. I’d hate to spend 1k and let it gather dust, wasting my money.

This is what I thought (but then I’m a newbie back after a very long break away. A mountain bike from a unknown/low-volume brand can ride like shit due to bad/ill thought out collection of angles. This is my only fear that I’m being naive in my comments further up^

This is why for most riders new to the road I’d suggest going for something that’s really tried and tested like the Defy. You’re very unlikely to go wrong with it.

Alternatively, used, because so many people buy a £1000 road bike and ride it twice.

Usually complaining that they can’t get on with it when really all it needs are the contact points sorting.

Thinking about it, as you’re in East Anglia you may be near(ish) Paul’s Cycles – always seems to have a few bargains on the website.

Before you even look at road bikes you need to make sure you’ve got all the right clothes. If you’ve got the wrong shoes, helmet, jersey, shorts or socks, you’ve failed. 😉

I bought a Defy 1 this Saturday and did a 120 mile ride on Sunday. It seemed to do everything well. My LBS let me try a few for size.

Hi OP, whereabouts are you in East Anglia?

Welcome to try my Giant Defy, i’m in North West Norfolk, as above try Pauls Cycles in Dereham, he is a grumpy bugger, but they have Giant Defy/ TCR carbon frame bikes from £800+.