Best 2009 road bike for under £1,000

**Will Renwick** · 11th February 2009

Hi,  I'm hoping you can help me choose my new road bike.  Being a mountain biker I'm overwhelmed with the choice!  I'm 6'4"  and just under 16 stone.  The bike will be purchased under my companies cycle to work scheme so can't cost any more than £1,000 and should be a 2009 model.  The bike will be used for cycling 50-100 miles a week.I think I would like a Specialized Allez Elite (I'm familiar with their mountain bikes), but I'm swayed by these other bikes:Ribble Carbon Sportive Racing Centaur 10 DoubleBianchi Nirone 7 Veloce 2009Wilier la Triestina Mirage 2009 Your advice on which of these bikes (or another bike I haven't thought of) would be best will be very much appreciated.Many thanks for your time and effort Will

**Steve Bolt** · 14th February 2009

I have just taken delivery of a new 2009 Bianchi Via Nirone (as above) at £685 so well within your budget...Can't speak highly enough of it, but I'm sure with £1k to spend you have plenty of alternatives as well..Happy Hunting.Steve

**John Bradshaw 2** · 14th February 2009

This is something I'm thinking off as I'm going for a new C2W bike in April, the Ribble looks good, also the following three look very strong

olan MythosBoardman Carbon TeamViner Gladius special editionFocus Cayo 105Kiron ScandiumTo be honest, I think the Specialized looks very average alongside all of these bikes, but at the end of the day whatever bike you like is the bike you like and the opinion of others is a bit irrelevant.

**Greg Quinn** · 14th February 2009

The Ribble looks like a cracking bike. I've not seen any reviews on it yet though. Are you restricted to the £1k through C2W or can you add to it to get a better groupset?I would also say the Cayo and the Boardman are very good.

**Paul Carter, Devon** · 14th February 2009

 I think the Kiron Scandium is the best bet - its got better kit than the cayo and has had consistently good write ups in the magazines and on on-line forumsWiggle are also a great company to deal with - good turnaround times and now you can try the bike for 2 weeks, which they did not do when I bought my cayo 18 months ago! 

**John Bradshaw 2** · 14th February 2009

The spec of the Kiron Scandium is amazing, and it is even more of an incredible bargain when you consider that all that good gear is fitted to a top hole frame set, the overall package is outstanding value. I'd love it, but my C2W scheme is Halfords and I don't think they deal with Wiggle. I really like the look of that new Ribble but the £999 version has Campag which I can't use and Ultegra is £1100, over my C2W £1000 budget, so I'm looking at a choice between Boardman and Dolan really, although I had a look at the Ribble website and they do some nice sounding Deda EM2 bikes within my budget (I'm no material obsessive and have no issues with Aluminium instead of Carbon, in fact if anything my preference remains with good steel, but good steel bikes all seem to be well over £1000). Another option is last years Boardman pro, that is a Aluminium frame with carbon rear end and forks, Dura Ace gears, Truvative carbon chainset and Ritchey WCS wheels and finishing kit, for £999 at the end of line clearance price that's a very high spec for the price, OK it's last years stuff but last years Dura Ace gearing is still a fantastic set up.

**Jersey Ninja** · 16th February 2009

I got a Bianchi Via Nirone at the start of 2008 - and it is a fantastic bike.Even though I now have a much more expensive "best bike", I keep going back to the Bianchi (which is now my training / winter bike) as it is such a joy to ride. I upgraded the wheels - still with change out of £1000.Cannot recommend highly enough.Enjoy.

**ALMAC** · 16th February 2009

ANYTHING carbon that is under £1300 is not worthy of the name carbon.For £1K look at the Spesh Allez Trek 1.7 Cube Peloton These are the pick of the bunch

**Jersey Ninja** · 16th February 2009

Agree with Almac about cheap carbon - that's why I'd go for the Bianch. Alu frame with carbon forks. Who wants a mass produced Spesh or a dull Cube when you can have the real deal - an Italian thoroughbred Bianchi? IMHO etc.