[Closed] I'm actually going to buy a bike now (road content)

Strugging to find definite mudguard mount bikes, but what about a large https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/CBHOLMYSRIV12/holdsworth-mystique-sram-rival-1-gravel-bike with 385mm reach and 602mm stack sound?

Presuming you were after the med SLR 8.9, that has 387/587.

Hmmmm that looks ok. I'm suspicious of PlanetX though, they seem to have issues.

Struggling to get to £1500, found this though.

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/cube-axial-ws-gtc-pro-carbon-n-coral-1011262

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/cube-attain-gtc-race-carbon-n-flashyellow-1006061

My friends and I hired bikes from Decathlon when in Italy and we were really pleased with them.

Size chart says you're a medium and there's one in stock.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/ultra-cf-105-road-bike/_/R-p-301046

And on budget

It is in stock at Halfords? https://www.halfords.com/bikes/road-bikes/boardman-slr-8.9-disc-mens-road-bike-2021---s-m-l-xl-frames-365622.html?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=adgoal_eu&utm_campaign=phgreferral# but doesn't have mudguard mounts?

You could probably get a BMC roadmachine X for £1500 if you make an offer (or find a last years model)

My friends and I hired bikes from Decathlon when in Italy and we were really pleased with them.

Size chart says you’re a medium and there’s one in stock.

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/ultra-cf-105-road-bike/_/R-p-301046
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I've got the alu version of that I keep at my holiday flat, and while I'm very happy with it and it's a great VFM bike, it's not an endurance road bike. It's quite a bit more of a stretch to get into the drops compared to the Canyon Endurace I have at home.

Why do you need mudguard mounts? Can't you just fit raceblades or whatever?

 

It is in stock at Halfords?

It says it is, then when you try to pick click and collect it says it's unavailable everywhere I might be.

Why do you need mudguard mounts? Can’t you just fit raceblades or whatever?

I've been doing that for 15 years, it's just a poor solution really, they always slip or aren't in the right place or rattle or all three. And now, with lots of companies making decent carbon bikes with mounts, there's no reason to compromise.

Oh I didn't check Canyon...

I’ve been doing that for 15 years, it’s just a poor solution really, they always slip or aren’t in the right place or rattle or all three. And now, with lots of companies making decent carbon bikes with mounts, there’s no reason to compromise.

Fair enough!

Cube make a mudguard set specific to the Attain. So it *should* fit really well! Max 28c on the Attain though but I guess I can deal with it.

Bike Discount is having a lazy Friday night though.

I've now ordered a number of Cube Attain GTC SLs between zero and about five, I kept having to hit refresh.

i fancy taking a punt on the new Boardman ADV 9.0 - looks nice and can put road tyres on. Might be just thing for the rough roads I encounter.

I guess 'endurance' road bike is a selective term, my own road bike is a Ritchey Logic so most road bikes are more 'endurance' than it.

If I was building up a road bike right now I'd probably pick a Trek Crockett frameset as I love my one that's built up for cross/gravel. It's just a truly lovely bike to ride and is no slouch on the road.

Wait for the one you want.

Ribble might be quicker than they say. Ordered a CRG SL frame the other week with an early Jan delivery date. Arrived yesterday. Admittedly without seat post, clamp and headset.. 😂.

Too late now. The Cube has Ultegra drivetrain with 105 brakes, which is a bit of an upgrade to the ones I was looking at, and it was 2k euros which was about £1800, which is better than anything I could get in the UK and it was in stock. Although just my luck there'll be some kind of delay and it'll end up sat in a lorry in Kent for 3 months and I'll have to pay duty. It's only 28c rather than 32 officially, with the mudguards, however it looks like 32 might fit in the pictures.

i fancy taking a punt on the new Boardman ADV 9.0 – looks nice and can put road tyres on. Might be just thing for the rough roads I encounter.

Very seriously thought about that one. The only difference besides coming with fatter tyres obvs is that it has a 71 degree HA which would be good for off-road but I'm not sure about it on road. And if I'm honest it's a road bike I really want, for long road rides. And to go long I need to have the best average speed I can manage. However the slack HA would probably have helped on some of the tight steep lanes I end up riding on.

But I've long eyed up Cube and their beautiful matte paintjobs in various shops so I think I'll be happy with it.

It’s only 28c rather than 32 officially, with the mudguards, however it looks like 32 might fit in the pictures.

If you're buying a road bike why do you care? Just fit 25cc like any normal rider and get on with it.

If you’re buying a road bike why do you care?

Cos I like riding on 32c. Do you live in France or something with immaculate roads? I don't.. I have either busy main roads or steep narrow messy lanes, which really benefit from larger tyres.

If you’re buying a road bike why do you care? Just fit 25cc like any normal rider and get on with it.

Get down with the kids, grandad

Isn't it just the newbs and slow guys who run wide tyres? 😉 25's and HTFU

Hope you ordered the 58cm (or maybe the 56cm if you want a racier position), that's what I have in a 2016 variant and I'm 178cm with short legs for my height.

Tyre clearance wise, without guards, the oversize 28mm Contis like GP4000S IIs (that are almost 32mm) fit no problem. With guards, they still fit the front. On the rear, I'm currently running an uncut Crud Road Racer Mk3 guard because my set of Cube guards were part of the batch that came with the wrong m5 bolt for the chainstay support bridge, which just has clearance for a 28mm Vittoria G+ (I expect my 28mm GP 4 Seasons would fit too, they're also ~29mm).

I'm probably going to order a pair of 32mm GP5000 to try, they measure ~31.8mm on 17mm rims, apparently https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/specials/grand-prix-5000-comparison

I went with 56. That's what I always thought I should ride, and it's what the size chart on cube website said. My current bike is 53 so this should be an improvement.

Did you also order from Bike Discount? How long did it take? Were the brakes the Euro way round?

I run 32s on all my road bikes. My average speed over 6000km this year is 29.8kmh. A quick 50k blast in muddy, wet lanes on Thursday was over 31kph and in the summer the same ride will be over 35kph. Bigger tyres matched to wider aero rims really do work.

I run 32s on all my road bikes. My average speed over 6000km this year is 29.8kmh. A quick 50k blast in muddy, wet lanes on Thursday was over 31kph and in the summer the same ride will be over 35kph. Bigger tyres matched to wider aero rims really do work.

#humblebrag. You could have been doing 40kph with some 25's on 😅

Were the brakes the Euro way round?

All Cubes come assembled Euro style so you have to swap them around

I'm very comfortable with MTB brakes but I've never owned road hydros. How much of a faff is it? They are 105

Very similar to MTB hydro, although you will need an adaptor for the bleed kit. For some reason I also find it a bit harder to get all of the air out of the road brakes.

#humblebrag. You could have been doing 40kph with some 25’s on

😜😜😜😜
My road bike with 25's is 1 or 2kmph faster than the gravel bike with slick 30's, how much of that is down to position as the road bike is more stretched I couldnt say. Much nice to ride with 30's on shitty winter lanes though.

Apparently the wheels on this bike are tubeless compatible but only officially with Schealbe Pro One because that's all they were tested with. I don't think the tyres are though. But I am tempted by tubeless.

I’m very comfortable with MTB brakes but I’ve never owned road hydros. How much of a faff is it? They are 105

I can only speak of GRX but they work well and feel great - I was pleasantly surprised that road discs could feel so positive. Not really any different from MTB in terms of bleeding and I can’t say I had issues with air bubbles. Internal routing is annoying but not too bad.

Mine came with the bleed adaptor in the box (which screws into the Shimano funnel I already had).

If you can go tubeless, do.

I have the new Pro One 28s tubeless and they are amazing. That was the stated max for my frame. It could probably squeeze 30s in, but I like the bike to feel as fast and racey as possible so I'm not that fussed.

My 58cm Cube Attain GTC came from Rutland Cycles in May 2017, right lever did front brake.

Reach is only 2mm shorter on the 56cm frame, while stack is 19mm lower. You will have 20mm more exposed post to flex which is something I'd thought more about, don't know if you will get a 110mm stem.

It's a nice bike albeit I'm more flexible now and wish I had something more aero, default wheels are ok, Hunt Aero Light Discs are better. I'd love to be able to afford something like those Prime 50mm Carbon Disc wheels that are currently on offer for £500 at Wiggle.

Reach is only 2mm shorter on the 56cm frame, while stack is 19mm lower.

That's something that can be changed easily enough with a new stem. Perhaps if you'd got the 56 with lower stack it'd be a bit more racey? I dunno. I am fairly flexible so I can handle a reasonable amount of tuck. My thoughts are that the hoods will be quite a bit higher than my current bike and hence more comfortable in the long run, but I can just use the drops more if I want to go fast.

So, @molgrips, now that the bike is on molgrips soil, when is my phone going to buzz with a message letting me know? 😉

I haven’t ridden since, like, forever, but you having a new road bike could inspire me to get off my a$$.

It hasn't arrived yet. Still in Germany I assume.

I will ring you though.

I bled my new GRX disc brakes using a kit off eBay. Quite easy to do.

A 10mm difference in stem length can really make a big difference in road bike fit. Maybe order a cheap stem 10mm shorter just in case.

I think I have nearly every size from 35mm to 130mm in my garage 🙂

I've never bought a whole bike mail order before. This is agony!

I found Cube’s sizing really odd. I tried a 56* Attain in a Rutland showroom when they had them at 800 quid off or something daft, but thought it was too big. Then tried a 53, the next size down in Paul’s and it was like a children’s bike! Rutland had sold out by then of course, so ended up spending an extra £200 on a not-so-hugely-discounted 56 and fitting an 80mm stem. Really nice bike though, I picked it up on the Tuesday then rode the 100 mile Suffolk Sunrise on the following Sunday, very comfy it was.

*I’m a 54 in a Spesh roadbike.

I found Cube’s sizing really odd.

Oh don't! I'm already nervous that I haven't even sat on it!

It seems to have a fairly generous stem in the pictures, so hopefully I can shorten it if needed.

Now I'm already looking at upgrades.. carbon bars for £38 on Wiggle..

I'm 178cm tall and ~82cm cycling inseam with my 58cm Attain.

110mm stem is sitting on conical spacer with all 30mm of round spacers above it (my steerer is alloy so ok, unlike your newer all carbon fork), with -ve 6 degree.

Time Xpro10 pedal top to saddle top just under 90cm for a ~30 degree leg bend at bottom dead centre.

I'm sure the 56cm will be fine, you might simply need a +10mm stem at worse.

Nice spot on those £38 ITM bars, I've been eyeing up the carbon Prime Primavera aero bars, but I'd like to get the 38cm (hood-hood, 40cm centre-centre), to go one size narrower than the supplied set.

The ITM bars look like a rubbish bend shape. There are good deals on Easton around and about the place though.

Well it's still not here. Bike Discount gave me two order packed emails, each of which contained the same two tracking links - DOD and DHL. They have both been updated with different information at different times. One of them is now in my local DPD depot but is not yet out for delivery which suggests Monday.

So, are they the same package with some sort of partnership arrangement between DHL or DPD? Or am I going to get just mudguards from DPD and the bike from DHL? Seems nuts to send two parcels from the same warehouse in two packages via different couriers.

In other news, not a week after I ordered the bike my work have increased their cycle to work voucher limit to £3k. So I could have got a £3k bike for basically the same money. But the strange thing is, I'm not sure I really care about having a more expensive model enough to bother returning this one. I'd get Ultegra brakes instead of 105, and maybe better wheels. If I were to shop around I could maybe get Di2 but is that really going to affect my riding experience that much? Not really. More aero wheels might help me cover ground a bit quicker, that's probably what I'd upgrade first tbh.

Life's too short - send it back and get the better one.

Yep
Refuse delivery, send it back. Distance selling regs etc
Every ride will be i wish i had bought xyz with C2W vouchers
And the weather is shocking so its not like you are missing out
And its nearly xmad do the standard of driving drops to near zero as everyone is stressed ovrr which drill bit set to buy awkward uncle Steve
Then we get to waste another few hours finding a better spec bike in the January sales... Yayyy

Every ride will be i wish i had bought xyz with C2W vouchers

Nah don't think so. Life is too short, yes, but it's too short to fart about returning things for the sake of 0.3kg off my frame. If I wanted an aero race bike it might be worth it but I don't.

It came!

It feels huge too. Bars higher and further away (which is what I wanted of course) and wide ish bars means it feels really different. Already removed a 10mm spacer from under the stem.

It feels huge too

Camera broken?

Come on man 😉

Lol

I spent way too long setting it up - front mech wasn't right, and new 105 is weeeird. The cable's not attached to the cage directly, but to a parallelogram thing that in turn moves the cage. Presumably this is to change the leverage ratio through the cable throw. And there's a beautiful little cable tension adjuster with a 2mm allen key on the mech itself. But the two screws I thought were the limit screws apparently aren't, since the one for the big ring labelled H does the opposite of what I thought it should! Confusing.

Bike weighs basically the same as my old one, 8.5kg (on crappy scales) without pedals, but it's bigger, has fat tyres and has discs so that's not bad going. Also the general feel of the shifters/levers is vastly superior to 15 year old Ultegra. Really is so much nicer. Chain line is quite severe in bottom gear though.

Yep the new style front mechs are a bit of a learning process. The H screw kind of adds tension, instead of being a traditional limiter.

There are three screws. H, L and the one that adds tension. H and L seem to move the cage in or out and not actually limit its movement.

A bike and a bit of Wales:

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Did you remember to pack a set of shurikens? 😉

A reference to the colour being black? I don't care for it, there's also a teal colour which I'd have loved. But having read the reports of how low stock of bikes is, I'm glad I got a good deal on something good in my size.

75psi in the tyres and they still felt pretty hard. I may go lower.

The paint job on the cube looks good but who ever designed the bar tape and decals should be sacked on the spot

Nice one,looks good.

EXCELLENT, @MOLGRIPS!!! I am inspired enough to return to the road myself now!

All we need to do now is remove that peak from your helmet... 😉

Peak stays. I am a mountain biker.

Sod the colour and the bar tape*, is it comfy and nice to ride?

*change it.

I commend the Torq bottle
I condemn that bar tape.
Its pretty bad. Bit stealthy if you are out in low light too.
Rest of the set up looks bob on though tbh
Are you sure that's Wales? Its. Not. Raining.

is it comfy and nice to ride?

Well. I put 75psi in the tyres, and to be honest it was not as smooth riding as I expected. My commuter had drops on it for a long while, and 32s, and that seemed more supple. It's as if the Contis on the Cube are a little firmer somehow. Still much better than the old bike of course with its 23s at 95psi, and on the really rough bits of road I could plough through at more or less normal speed.

The bars are much higher and further away which felt weird at first but it's definitely something I had identified as a want or a need. And after a few miles it felt fine. The hoods and levers are a much much better shape which adds to the comfort. And somehow my hip angle makes my original saddle (that I swapped over) feel much better. However, I don't much care for the bars. I had to tilt them forward a bit to get the drop section at a usable angle and I felt like I was sliding forward on the hoods. However I was wearing soft gloves rather than traditional mitts which I normally go with, and that has always been slidey. I have some tweaking to do perhaps. I did find the tops in a really good useful position for climbing, whereas previously they were always too close.

The handling is far far better, of course, cos it's my size, but I'm not sure if geo has changed in 15 years or not. Now I'm a competent and confident bike handler on my MTBs; I don't get descent KOMs because I value my corporeal integrity and that of others, however when I do push it I do ok. But on my old bike the front felt too low and the wheel too close, which meant that I was always insecure descending on lanes and basically minced everything. On the Cube though it's bang on, and I carved up the lanes much more quickly. Of course there's new bike syndrome, but I did today's ride in 1h17 instead of 1h28 last time out. And I got a long string of PRs and 2nds.

The frame I think is a bit stiffer in the BB area - which is huge, so it stands to reason. Despite that it's missing a bit of snap, feels like the wheels are heavier overall, but I'm not bothered as it's no racing bike. Proper brakes are sublime, however I got a bit of flutter from the cheap Shimano discs which I also experienced on my MTB with the same discs and it disappeared when I got Ice Tech ones.

Overall, it's much as I thought (and hoped) it would be although not quite as smooth riding. Bigger tyres, decent brakes, the right size, and a whole host of incremental small improvements make it a much better experience than my old bike. My next task is to take it for a 4 hour ride and see how I feel.

Oh, and whilst I am neutral on the bar tape I may change it soon as I do like gel pads. I have also ordered two new (matching) bottle cages in black with white detail. The original saddle had a white hull which puts me of trying it out a bit. Also, what's with stubby saddles, they are a thing apparently?

Well the Cube mudguards are a decent design very poorly executed. The chainstay clamp you need to hold the middle of the rear guard off the tyre has these rubber pads to protect the stay, and they are held on with sticky tape which just smears so the pads slide off and the clamp moves. And one of the bolts in the box is too short. The front guard doesn't really fit properly at all - if you tighten the crown bolt it pushes the guard into an angled position so that the back section rubs the tyre. I had to bodge a piece of rubber in there to bend it back into position. Did no-one try these things out before taking them to market?

I've glued the pads on and bodged the front, and they are impressively secure and rattle-free. But they should work out of the box really.

The modified v2 Cube Attain Disc guards finally got released a year or two after I bought the bike and back then, there were loads of reports of the bolt not being long enough for the chainstay bridge. I had a Halfords £10 bargain basement set of Crud Road V3 Guards, so I ended up using the rear on the Cube.

Yep the new style front mechs are a bit of a learning process. The H screw kind of adds tension, instead of being a traditional limiter.

I do like the plastic top cap, which keeps the cable tidy - a very neat design feature. 105 also shifts so well, probably better than 10 year old DA was when it was new.

Well. I put 75psi in the tyres, and to be honest it was not as smooth riding as I expected. My commuter had drops on it for a long while, and 32s, and that seemed more supple.

I run 50 psi in 28mm GP500s at 80kg. I find latex inner tubes make a noticeable difference in smoothness esp over the default inner tubes bikes come with, which are often super cheap thick things which really deaden the ride.

Do you find 50 slows you down at all? Do you even care (bro) ?

I'm not performance obsessed, but I do like going fast on road simply because that's pretty much all there is to it.

The pointing on your castle wants looking at

Are you sure that’s Wales? Its. Not. Raining.

It's raining now you'll be pleased to know.

The pointing on your castle wants looking at

Bit big for a DIY job that.

Do you find 50 slows you down at all? Do you even care (bro) ?

My understanding is that on typical rough UK road surfaces it's actually faster as you're minimising energy lost to vibrating the frame + rider up and down and trading it off against energy lost is sidewall flex. The former being a higher loss than the latter (with decent tyres).

Takes a bit of getting used to, esp when you stand up and see the front tyre splay out quite a bit, but I won all the hill sprints on today's winter group ride, so it can't be that slow....

I definitely recommend decent inner tubes, super thin butyl or latex - they do make quite a noticeable difference. I can't be arsed with tubeless and puncture roughly once every 6000km, so it doesn't really offer much. Plus of the two punctures I've has in the last 12,000km, one completely slashed the tyre, so tubeless wouldn't have worked, took two tyre boots to get it up again.

I'm invested in tubeless so it holds no fear for me. I will do at some point. In the mean time I might try light tubes.

Pro Ones and Stan's Race ordered (already, it's only been 2 rides!)

I put the stem back up to the top of the steerer which is where it came - and the stem is still -ve rise. It's better, and makes the stretch more comfortable for me. And the drops are now much more usable. I'm dead pleased.

A quick 1hr spin today using a new road that links up two areas, and I realised I was late for the online shopping delivery so I had to smash it back home. The slightly higher bars than last ride meant I was more comfortable in the drops so I was able to stay there for much longer. That's what I wanted from a new bike.