Hi all

I’ve got a “reef” carbon framed road bike, tiagra equipped that cost £699 in 2002. I’m considering a new road bike at up to £1500, but the rational side of my brain is telling me there’s nothing wrong with the current bike. Help the spendthrift new toy side of my brain by convincing me what benefits I’ll get from a new road bike!

Once you’ve done that, any praise or horror stories for planet x/ribble/merlin etc vs lbs Cube/Trek?spesh etc?

Cheers

Tom

If your bike has STI levers (1990?) and decent wheels, I’d suggest there would not be a great deal of difference in feel and performance. Road bikes are fairly simple beasts, and many of the smaller pro teams are still riding aluminium frames.

Modern frame will have more gears but you won’t get any extra range of ratios, so that’s pointless. BB flex is made up nonsense.

A new bike will be a whole heap better than your old one, for one major reason, its a new bike 🙂

Get spending

Steve, that won’t convince SWMBO, need some guff about lighter, more efficient, more fun etc! She needs to understand the value of buying this new bike….

I had a 2008 Focus Cayo and very nice it was too. Cost me £1,000 at the time. It did some Sportives and some long-ish 100+ mile days. Last year, I had to test-ride a customers £1,400 Cube GTC Agree. I was absolutely stunned at the difference. I was sort of hoping there would be some left over at the end of the year and I’d do some sort of deal with the distributors, but they’d all gone. So, I made sure I got in early this year. Trust me – things have moved on a lot in frame design and material application.

That Cube is high on the short list, cheers for the reassurance that I might notice a difference!