Looking to buy my first road bike and not sure if this is a good deal. It’s only had 1 owner, been stored inside a garage and hasn’t seen much action. Was told the chain is a couple years old. What’s a good price range for this? Is it a good 1st road bike? Any things I should look out for? All responses are appreciate, thanks yall!
by NecessaryReception96
1 Comment
In general yes, if you want to be the coolest person in a 5 mile radius wherever you ride. I would maybe haggle down to $750-850 depending on condition and how much work it needs.
Some thoughts:
– For a 2015 Cannondale, you’ll need to service the bottom bracket if it hasn’t been done already. Since the crank is BB30-specific (and you’ll want to keep it since it’s rad), it’ll be a bit annoying but worth it to get it checked out if (rather when) it starts creaking.
– The wheels are heavy AF. These are oldish-school Aluminum aero wheels. Used lighter wheels should cost ~300-400 (HED Ardennes etc). Tough and good if you’re heavy, but otherwise boat anchors. Regardless, I’d recommend DT swiss 9mm skewers so you can really crank on the wheels since 9mm QR + disc was a bad idea (traditional skewers don’t clamp down as hard so the wheels tend to shift in place).
– This is a cyclocross bike, so the bottom bracket is a bit higher (and so is standover). A 54cm cross bike will probably fit closer to a 55/56 road bike. You’ll also have more twitchy steering, so descents will be a bit more scary at first. You can’t fit monster 29er MTB tires on it, but you’ll be fine with 38c ish if you want to go on trails.
– The seatpost kind of looks like one of those knockoff ec90 carbon posts all over alixpress/ebay: [https://www.ebay.com/itm/192623260746?chn=ps&var=492762607280&com_cvv=8fb3d522dc163aeadb66e08cd7450cbbdddc64c6cf2e8891f6d48747c6d56d2c](https://www.ebay.com/itm/192623260746?chn=ps&var=492762607280&com_cvv=8fb3d522dc163aeadb66e08cd7450cbbdddc64c6cf2e8891f6d48747c6d56d2c) . It’s probably OK, but I’d swap it out. Seatpost failure 50 miles in on a ride is pretty annoying.
– Budget another ~$150 for tires and pedals. $200 if you need someone to install. Maybe another $100 if you need someone to do a basic tune up on gears and brake bleed.
Overall it’s super cool and I would get it.