Carrera TDF £199 today

[jamiebae]

So the next installment of Halfords trying to shift a load of excess entry level road bikes after a (from a British general public perspective) damp squib of a Tour is on

http://l.mail.halfords.com/rts/go2.aspx?h=54319&am...

Website seems not to work properly right now, but if you want a cheap commuter/pub bike, or have something with 8 speed Shimano 2300 bits and want to swap the shifters and sell it on for what you paid then it's worth a look.

[jamiebae]

This is the email I got from them...

http://f.mail.halfords.com/ats/msg.aspx?sg1=bce024...

I had a TDF for a few weeks, bought to swap the Claris shifters onto my Genesis Volant before selling it on. The tyres are catastrophically awful and are fit only for the bin, but with some £15-20 per wheel replacements it makes a perfectly respectable bike. In an ideal world you'd want to upgrade the wheels but at the price they're OK. The bar tape is horrid too, but that's less than a tenner for a decent replacement so not really an issue.

I'm seriously thinking about buying one to keep in the UK actually, I missed having a bike there in the sunshine at the start of the week.

[jamiebae]

Hmmm, now the website is up and running it appears the reason the bike is cheap is because they've downgraded the groupset since last year!

Instead of a Tourney front mech, Claris rear mech and shifters and an 8 speed block it now comes with full Tourney 7 speed, complete with horrid thumb operated shifters (basically the old 2300 ones but 7 speed). At least it looks like you get a Shimano compact chainset this year rather than the old unbranded non-compact one, but it's not enough to make up for the Tourney bits.

So I won't be ordering one after all!

[jamiebae]

D1bram said:

Did wonder why folks were suggesting swapping the shifters onto an 8 speeder

Would this be significantly better for the Mrs you think?

http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bikes/road-bikes/b...

Yes, that's a much better bike.

Take a look at Decathlon as well, you can get a Triban 500 with Sora bits for £450 which is better still

[jamiebae]

D1bram said:

Good old budget creep

Was going to buy her one recently, but she decided to stick to the MTB for now. Was just thinking the carrera at sub £200 was worth taking a punt on. However I don't want to plumb for something crap which will actually discourage her.

Im new to roadbiking and buying something half decent I think is a big part of why I've enjoyed it so much.

This isn't bad, probably worth £100 over the TDF

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/triban-3-road-bike-whit...

This is better still, but over twice the price of the Halfords option but would be my choice. Reasonable spec straight from the box and well designed by all accounts.

http://www.decathlon.co.uk/triban-500-road-bike-id...

[jamiebae]

Fair enough, for the money it's perfectly reasonable and certainly shouldn't put her off riding.

[jamiebae]

Type R Tom said:

So what’s the general consensus, this at £211 or sticking that money on a second hand bike on Ebay for the GF?

Probably this (it's £199 as you get 10% Off at the checkout) as a £200 bike on eBay will probably be fairly tired and shabby.

[jamiebae]

TheLemming said:

80sMatchbox said:

Those Sora shifters aren't that bad. I've read it so often that people don't like them.

I recently did a 180km ride on my Allez with said shifters due to having a problem with my 105 equipped SuperSix. Granted they aren't 105 smooth, but they do the job quite well. I hadn't used that bike for about 6 months but after a few miles and a few missed shifts, I soon got used to the thumb shifters.

Unfortunately the TDF Limited edition on sale isn't the same as the regular TDF. It's Shimano Tourney 7 speed...

They're the same shifters as Sora was a few years ago though (and 2300 was last year), just 7 speed not 8 or 9. Personally I don't like them but they're not totally horrible.

[jamiebae]

The cheap one has worse bits, but a compact chainset. The normal version has Claris shifters (much better) but a rubbish non-compact chainset so I'd say it isn't worth the extra. For £300 buy a Triban from Decathlon instead.

[jamiebae]

I'm not sure it's a massive downgrade in return for the lower price, and the addition of a compact chainset is a big plus in favour of the Ltd version. For £200 I'd say it's OK but would agree that the upgrade path is wheels, then buy something else to swap the wheels on to.