im a mountain bike rider but looking at buying my first ever road bike and have no idea what to look for.should i buy new or second hand,my budget is around 250 pounds.i know this is not muck but i dont want to spend more and then endup not using it much.any help much appreciated cheers

As always Decathlon Triban 3

As always Decathlon Triban 3

My mate has just brought one of these. A lot of bike for not a lot of money.

We had a lad join our road ride on Saturday on one of those Viking bikes. £250 I believe it was new. The difference in the two is not £50 it is priceless IMO. Leagues apart. The Triban is up-gradable where as the Viking is just colour coordinated tat.

A few months back I was in the same boat. Choice new was a Carrera or Triban 3. I got the triban as :
– it’s got a carbon fork
– looks a LOT nicer
– the branches cant get enough stock so they must be doing something right.

The tyres arent great though and the saddle is just plain bad. Overall I’m well happy with it considering I’ve spent nearly as much on a seatpost for my MTB!

Overall it’s just good VFM.

On the used front I was on the lookout for something like a Spec Allez but none came up nearby within budget.

Saddles are a personal thing. Tyres are the only thing that needs swapping out after one of my mates had issues and got some Schwalbes from merlins for £25 . lighter and better tyres. Still cant get close for the money.

That budget will not get you any sort of a reasonable road bike; sorry, but it just true. You’d be much better off buying 2nd hand from ebay, The Gum Tree or Craigslist; albeit some of those bikes are surely nicked.

For £250 go for second hand, no question.
I bought a winter road bike last November, a 2007 Claude Butler Roubaix which looked like it had hardly been used.
2×8 speed Sora group set, carbon forks and a set of wheels off the previous owner’s Spec Allez which looked like they were almost new. All for the princely sum of £235, had to fit a shorter stem and it’s been used for the last 5 months, around 7k miles. BB now shot but otherwie fine.
.
Look for STI shifters, you will find all kinds of wierd stuff at the budget end, down-tube shifters, some with levers near the stems and some with grip-shift-tpe things. Nothing like STIs though.

Ignore those saying you won’t get a good bike at that price, I have the BTwin, as do a number of my friends, and we all think it is great. One of the cycling magazines rated it above a number of £500 bikes in a group test. Try googling triban 3 reviews.

It’s nonsense to say you won’t get anything for that money; either buy second-hand or buy a Triban 3 (if you can get one!) which is an exceptionally good bike for £299.99. Only the wheels are poor and you can always upgrade them later with some entry-level Shimano wheels.

That’s the only thing with the triban. It’s the best bike by a mile at £300 but the wheels and tyres are still very heavy and poor quality. So £150 Min to upgrade these and you’re at the 450-500 mark. A cannondale caad 9 with 105 group went on eBay for £420 this week in great condition.

Surely the best option

It’s the best bike by a mile at £300 but the wheels and tyres are still very heavy and poor quality. So £150 Min to upgrade these and you’re at the 450-500 mark

They’re not so bad that you can’t get reasonable use out of them till they wear out. With the bad weather recently I’ve been using my commuter triban on club runs, and had no problems keeping up on the stock wheels and tyres and only had my first puncture last week and that was a pinch cuased by a pothole

The wheels and tyres aren’t terrible really. No, they’re not brilliant but they’ll do the job whilst you save up for something better.

£100 for Shimano wheels.

If you want a cheap road bike, does it not suggest that you don’t want to spend anymore upgrading once you’ve bought it?

The wheels/tyres on any £300 bike won’t be great, but they will be serviceable and functional, so I don’t see what the issue is. No one is expecting race quality wheels surely??!!

I wouldn’t trust that the gear train on a second hand bike wouldn’t be shagged, even if it looked clean / well maintained. And gears skipping under load is not necessarily something you’d find out on a spin round the car park.

I have to say I was quite impressed with the Viking Roma that one of the guys I used to ride with had. They’re £250 on Amazon and ebay etc.

Alu frame with a quite in vogue baby blue paint job, Shimano Sora STI….not quite as good a Triban, but again, perfectly serviceable.

Dont need hi viz riding that !!

It looks brighter than it actually is in real life.

Alternately, the Merlin S2200 for £330 looks good for the price. (Just seen one when I went into the shop)

I picked up a Triban 3 a fortnight ago. It’s a proper working road bike with STIs and a decent spread of gears.

The wheels and brakes could be a bit better, but any £300 bike will be compromised somewhere.

Those Vikings got a shocking write up in one of the comics recently FWIW.

Another vote for the Triban 3 here. Had mine since last summer and really can’t fault it for 300 quid. Spec, quality of frame and ride just as good as something twice the price, but with a ‘better’ brand on the downtube. Was considering a basic Trek/Specialized, but as far as I can tell they are no better than the Triban.

I have a Triban 5 and it’s very nice indeed. Yeah the wheels and tyres weigh a ton but they roll well: tyres wear out and will need replacing at some point if you ride enough. The Triban 3 is the same without the carbon stays and cheaper drivetrain. Absolute bargain at £300. Highly recommended.