New bike: allez or SCR or other!

[brett pennell]

Me: 6ft 1.5 , inside leg 34", fairly fit. I want to get into road biking, am a poor stoooodent and have a budget of 500-600 quid. Im very interested in the specilized allez double/triple, the Giant SCR 2.0 (the 1.0 is just that lil bit too expensive)and the trec 1000. can anyone advise me as to if these would be suitable as a first road bike , and which of these would be the best option, or any others i should consider. Any advise greatfully accepted.CheersBrett"

[josh scott]

Go to a big bike shop and get an idea for the feel and fit of all the big brands entry level bikes e.g. spesh allez, giant scr, bianchi via nirone, cannondale caad 5, trek 1000, pinacle? work out which you like size wise in each and then hunt the internet, ebay and classifeds for your prefered options second hand. most are pretty durable alu frames so secondhand they are gonna still be in perfect working order... go see them before you buy to check but then you can buy one of these bikes for a fraction of their cost to see if you are in to the sport saving your hard earned (or borrowed) mulah to upgrade when u get hooked! I am amazed by the ammount of bikes being sold on by people who buy the bikes you are looking at and use them three times then sell them a yr later!

[JonnyBB]

i got my first bike for £50 off a mate whose brother got it free from work (?). it wasnt a fantastic standard but it persuaded me to get into cycling more, and lasted me a year before i finally relented and spent £700 on a new steed late last year. its worth spending that bit for a first try, and could give u more time to save for an even better second bike, if u decide to stick with it!