So my gf is down to buy a roadie, and i want to help.
We’ve toyed with building one, or ebaying one, but think maybe that a complete might be a good option for getting one sooner rather than later.
Anyone have any ideas on value and what’s good for ladies? Around $7-800 i think, but not super hard on that number.
Cheers.
What kind of height/bike size is she? If she is short it’s worth considering women’s specific road bikes, but if she is a bit taller you can definitely go down the men’s road bike path.
about a 49-50cm, so the men’s ones are an option, but get a bit weird looking down in that range.
older one’s seem to look ok in that size more than the new ones from what i can tell (though all options are open really).
heading around the local shops on the weekend to get a feel for some.
Cannondale Synapse
Specialized Secteur/Dolce
Kinesis road/CX frameset + your own groupset?
Agreed with the Specialized recommendation. They put a lot of thought in to their geometry so even the tiny sizes in the women’s range handle nicely.
You can come and talk to me with her about bicycles if you like.
I always get way stoked on getting ladies into riding bikes more.
We have the Dolce at the store I work at - she’d be more than welcome to come and try one out or hire one from the hire bikes for the weekend or something.
Woo! Bikes!
the commute might be a little far.
Think Trek also make women specific models…WSD
thanks guys.
went and had a look at some.
the Trek Lexa range seems to be winning in her eyes…the Specialized Dolce didn’t feel as comfortable.
Gonna try find a Felt locally too
650c options?
we didn’t see any in the shops we looked at; not against the idea.
must say the trek and specialized look fine at 48/47cm frame size.
the slope on the spec makes it look a little weird … probably has a lower stand-over for it, but it looks a little sillyish.
they put her on a trek madone (carbon) for a test ride to figure out “size”…(upsell another $1000 out of us)…of course she thought that felt really nice and shifted good.
seems at $7-800 range you only get shimano base-line 8sp stuff…a couple extra hundred gets a carbon fork and sora.
ultimately probably go with the bottle of wine from the restaurant approach (one up from the cheapest)…just depends on which brand she likes best.
was nice to walk into a few shops and talk to people with real intent on buying a bike. can’t say i’ve ever done it for myself.
A little suggestion from me regarding the groupset:
If you end up with a low-end Shimano 8 speed, get a set of Campag 10 speed shifters from Wiggle (about $100) and swap them in. The shifting and ergonomics are about a million times better (not exaggerating) and you don’t have the ugly shifter cable sticking out the side of the hoods.
I did this swap on my commuter recently. It’s all 8 speed Sora except for the shifters, which are Veloce 10 speed. The only slight issue I had was that the front shifting for the double crank only worked well with a triple derailleur.
thanks for the tip^
the shifting is clunky on the ones she tried so that would be a nice upgrade to get started.
^ sell 8 speed group, buy 10 speed veloce from ribble, go the whole shebang!
edit just realised veloce has gone up $50 in the last 3 weeks or so, used to be $450 shipped, now 5hunge.
Would blow the budget. And you’ve still gotta get compatible wheels.
After I bought the Veloce levers and sold the Sora levers, the whole swap only cost me about $35.
that’s good to hear.
seems like a sora option will be the one she goes with; so upgrading shifting for under $50 all up is a good deal.
so she went with this one…
on sale and on a tax-free weekend thingy…so for the price of base-line specialized/trek with sora.
she liked the frame the most too.
the men’s/ravenio unfortunately didn’t come in the smallest size she needed…but the silver actually looks pretty good.
That looks pretty good. With 105 too, nice buying.