I know nothing about road bikes but would like to get into to help my marathon training and overall fitness. Is this bike a good choice? I’m 5’11 male.
by PitifulTwist5018
I know nothing about road bikes but would like to get into to help my marathon training and overall fitness. Is this bike a good choice? I’m 5’11 male.
by PitifulTwist5018
3 Comments
If it’s 399 that’s a good deal. 56cm at 5’11 is pretty ok, maybe a bit big if you wanna race it but otherwise it should be fine. At your budget, this is on the “newer but lower end” side of the spectrum, you could get something faster and older but this bike will be more reliable, less worn out and have a nicer user experience than those options.
That Claris groupset is better than anything you’d get on a brand new $600 bike, and it’s about as low end as you should go imo. The shifting is very solid and the brakes are ok.
Over all a pretty ideal first road bike. I’d think about putting on better tires (I like conti ultrasport iiis as a high TPI budget option) and tpu tubes (ridenow from AliExpress are cheap and have served me well). That’ll win you a bunch of weight, you’ll drop potentially 20 watts in rolling resistance and they’ll feel gripper and more supple. Tires+tubes/tubeles is 100 percent the best bang for buck upgrade for a bike line this, necessary in my opinion.
I also recommend you try cleats at some point. It can be intimidating and the benefits aren’t easy to imagine if you haven’t tried them, but it makes a huge difference in control, comfort, confidence and power when you get used to it.
Most pros/enthusiasts today probably started on a bike half as nice as that, I think it’ll serve you really well and hopefully give you the roady bug 🙂
Enjoy
Here, for 400, you’d want to make sure that the group set is 105 or ultegra, and that the front fork is carbon. Assuming everything is straight, clean and working 300 for 105 and 400 for ultegra is about market for where I am. It looks like an aluminum frame. Your market may differ. The other poster mentioned Claris, in my market that drops it to 200-250.
5’11 – 56 I think is about right. Maybe a little big. I’m 6’1 and 58 is my size.
For reference I got offered a slightly older carbon roubaix with 105 for 500 recently but that might be a little under market.
Roubaix is an endurance bike and is specialized is a recognized brand so they hold their resale value ok.
Road bikes are pretty fast. You will need to hover well above 20 mph to get any benefits other than cardio endurance training.
I would rather recommend you a trekking bike with more wide tyres. That extra air drag will make you really train for each extra mile per hour.
Also road bike handlebars are not beginner friendly as they are a bit hard to master, yet also on a trekking bike the flat bars will gonna kill your hands and wrists yet will feel better at handling.