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A friend is looking to get the best frame & fork on a 1k bike (Cyclescheme) and then spend another 1k on some nice wheels and a decent groupset.
Which bikes should he be looking at? Ta
If he's already planning on upgrading the wheels and the groupset, buy whatever has the best frame for the money. Problem is there's not much out there any more with really good frames for less than £1k. Maybe if Cannondale do a CAAD10 frame with low enough kit that might be a worthy investment. Or a Giant TCR with basic wheels and Sora/Tiagra.
Or there's the obvious choices of Ribble or Planet X, which are likely to be your only sub £1k bikes with a carbon frame worthy of buying, and at least you'll have some say on the spec so can put lowly kit and wheels on it on purpose.
Plenty of worthwhile £1k road bikes out there though, if not that worthwhile upgrading with expensive wheels and groupsets. And of course there's always 2012 bargains to be had from some places!
The 2013 Trek 1 series on the model above the base model has a fairly nice alloy frame, and I bet the frame on a Cannondale Synapse is worth upgrading.
Planet X do their carbon framed bikes at just under £1k.
But the cyclescheme isn't that good a deal any more so far as final ownership fees etc so why not just find something around the £1.5k mark on 0% finance which is probably better value than a £1k bike with £1k worth of wheels and groupset?