UKC

Anybody any experence with the B-Twin range of road bikes??
My parter has just bought a lovely looking road bike for just £299 and it even has carbon forks!!!!

In reply to PaulHermes:

I've got one of the same bikes. I have precisely zero experience of riding anything more expensive, but i can't really fault it on anything.

In reply to PaulHermes:
Generally have a very good rep for the price.

However it won't be as nice as a £1500 road bike :p

In reply to PaulHermes:
Bought one for my wife. Cannot fault it for the money. The gears are a wee bit tinkly despite fiddling, but that's due to the triple chainset if you ask me, and not an issue.
I would have one to replace my bike, let's put it that way.

In reply to PaulHermes: Thanks for that, looks like a bargain compared to my Specialized!!!

In reply to PaulHermes:

I've got the Triban 3 (c/w carbon forks) and it's a dream to ride.

It's my first road bike and besides minor tweaks to the gears I've had no issues with it. I've taken it out on a few 50 milers, a couple of 60s and even the Bath to Bournemouth 80 miler (with chuff off hills!).

B-twin realised they were giving it away at that price so they changed the forks to steel and still charge the same!

In reply to PaulHermes:

My sister has a the basic one- Triban 3? It's a nice wee bike (hers is a 650b one). She's had zero issues with it and used it on the recent Glasgow to Edinburgh 110 mile Sportive with me. If I hadn't got my bike (a Specialized Allez) second hand I might well have got one myself.

My wife started her road biking on a just under £1000 Aluminium framed Bianchi - she bought a Triban 3 for use during the winter and has done about 1000 miles on it. In both of our opinions the Triban 3 is a better bike than the Bianchi!

In reply to PaulHermes:
I was looking at cheap road bikes recently and ended buying a Forme Longcliffe 5.0 from Rutland Cycling for £329 (although they've since dropped to £299). The alternative I was considering was Halford/Carrera TDF which was £250.

The Forme is fine as a trashable winter bike, but the MicroShift shifters are grim - honestly, it's like operating a piece of agricultural machinery from the Soviet era. I had a Specialized Allez some time back with Shimano's low-end 2300 - they were silken by comparison!

Looking at the Triban spec on their website, they're describing the white version as using MicroShift, and the red one as Shimano 2300. I would definitely double check in store which you are getting and if it's the latter, try it out first to make sure you're happy with it.

In reply to PaulHermes:

The newer white ones are a much lower spec than the older red ones...You're best bet is to try and track down a 2nd hand red one, they're an absolute steal!

In reply to PaulHermes: I took a group cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End, and number of who were riding the Triban 3. So in 1067 miles on the trip, and a good 600 miles training beforehand, we had no problems whatsoever, cracking bike for the money, you would struggle to get anything as good for the price unless you went secons hand.

In reply to PaulHermes: I really like my Triban 3. No experience of more expensive bikes but I don't really care!

In reply to PaulHermes:

My daughter has recently got one of the last of the red models, it seems fine.
Though her husband got a Triban 5 at the same time; for £130 more you get a full latest 9 speed Sora groupset, which doesn't now have the little thumb levers on the shifters. The frame & wheels & finishing kit seem better and IMO all worth paying the extra for.

In reply to PaulHermes:

They're not bad value. There are some well spec'd parts on the bike- eg shimano bits, but then some of the non branded parts are very poor- eg cables, and you'll end up replacing them.

In reply to Hat Dude:

There are several versions of the Triban range going round. Not all of them include Shimano bits- some have 'micro shift' bits. I've seen microshift on Triban 3 and Triban 5.

I'm not familiar with the microshift range, so not sure whether they were identical on the two models, or different quality, or for that matter how they compare to the Shimano.

In reply to PaulHermes:

Triban 3 is an excellent bike for the money, even the blokes at Decathlon told me they are sure they make a loss on them. We had one for a couple of years; the wheels are terrible and you might need to replace them with some basic Shimano wheels. Also the rear derailleur is mounted a tiny bit too far forward, making it very awkward to get the rear wheel axle and skewer out of the dropout if you've fitted deeper tyres, which come up against the chainstay bridge preventing the wheel from going forwards.

Minor criticisms though. It's a great bike and rides very nicely.

In reply to PaulHermes:

Completely unfounded, but I always feel with Decathlon stuff that it must be made by enslaved monkeys who get no toilet breaks, and is probably made from pure crushed rainforest powder or something. It's good quality and unbelievably cheap, so if the quality of the end product is good, where are they cutting costs compared to their competitors?

In reply to PM: Just re-reading what I wrote, it's a little disingenuous. I have, and no doubt will again, bought stuff from Decathlon, and it's been great, just I sometimes wonder: what's the catch. Probably just means I need to get out more!