We Bought The Best Road Bike We Could For £400

We Bought The Best Road Bike We Could For £400
How good are entry-level bikes in 2024? What can you get for your money at this £400, or $500, price point? In this video, we explore the strategies for buying discounted bikes, share why we selected our particular bike, and delve into all the components of a bike in this price range!

Intro 0:00
What can you get for this price? 0:21
Why did we choose this specific bike? 0:57
Buying reduced bikes 1:32
What features come with this price range? 2:12
Groupset and Gears 3:28
How do these features compare to higher-priced bikes? 5:27
What are the drawbacks of this bike? 6:16
Brakes 6:53
Tyres 7:19
Enjoyment above all else! 8:12
How could we improve this bike further? 8:52

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I bought the best bike I could find for 450 bucks nice now I’ve done this because I want to see what you can get for your money around this price point and see how good bikes are at the entry level in 2024 so this is the bike I’ve bought it’s a bardman SLR 8.6 and I paid £450 for this but it was reduced down from 650 fargan I’ve got this bike so that I can use it as an example to show you what you can get for this sort of

Money and also go through the things that you should look for and explain what’s good about it and what’s less good about it but before I do that I think I should explain why I chose this and not other things that are available at the moment I shopped around and other

Things I looked at were specialized entry-level bike but I could only find the same spec for another 100 quid or so entry-level tracks as well and the cathon tri bands which have long been really great bikes in terms of the spec that you can get for the price but the

RC 120 is the comparable bike in the price range for 500 sort of 450 but it has lower speec components in that it has micr shift gears on it rather than the Shimano Claris I’ve got here Now The crucial thing here was that this bike was reduced and therefore that

Made it the best bike I could get for for the price and you might be thinking well you know I probably won’t be able to find a A reduced bike or that’s unfair to then pick it but I would argue it’s not because we’ve done shows on the

Tech Show recently about how the bike industry is in a bit of turmoil at the moment and there are a lot of brands that are sat on lots of unsold stock and so right now is a great time to be a consumer because you can take advantage

Of that and a lot of items all sorts of things not just bikes are being reduced and I think this is a sign of the times at this sort of price point you’re looking at an aluminium frame and a carbon Fork which is what we have here

The bars and stamman saddle known as the finishing kit they’re all sort of standard by OEM bits nothing fancy nothing special but they get the job done and it perfectly fine you’ve also got Rim brakes on here and that again helps keep the price down on an entry-level bike hydraulic disc

Brakes have much greater stopping power and much greater feel and modulation but they’re far more expensive and so on lower-end bikes you’ll typically find Rim brakes a disadvantage of Rim brakes as well is they don’t allow you to fit usually bigger tires and the trend is towards fitting bigger tries for more

Comfort and rolling resistance but quite a nice little spec Det detail on these Rim brakes are these are deep drop Rim brakes so they actually have a bit more clearance in them than you know some Rim brakes and so you can fit bigger tires they actually rate these to 28 mm tires

The bike comes with 25 but I mean that’s quite conservative looking at the clearance in there I think you could get bigger than than 28 in there the group set is mainly Shimano Claris which is shimano’s entry level lowest tier road bike group set above that you have Sora and then tiagra then

105 groups of the people but what it does benefit from is is trickle down Tech so so back in 2010 I had a a bike with 10-speed Shimano 105 on it and those shifters are almost the same as these shifters now so you have the fully integrated cables that go down rooted by

The Handlebar on Lower spec levers in the past used to have the cable sticking out of the the side but this is something that originally came from from J Ace before that but it’s really great to see and the shape of the levers is really good and yeah the the gears work

Great the thing you have here is eight speeds uh on the back now sometimes you might be able to find a bike with Sora on which is the group set above this and that has nine speeds but more often than not you’re going to be looking at something around this

Level in terms of gearing we’ve got a 5034 compact chain set and an 1132 cassette which is a big range of gears and great on a bike like this it’s a much bigger range than you got on bikes say 10 years ago and the advantage of it

Means that it’s good for descents but also whenever you start going uphill like I am now you can just keep spinning that bit longer and it just makes it easier we haven’t got the full Claris group set though you got the shifters and the deras and this is a common thing that

Bike brands do we’ve got an FSA chain set in place of the Shimano one this is a a cost-saving measure but I wouldn’t worry about it too much because well it does the job it gets it done it’s okay but it’s just good to know when you’re

Buying a bike what you’re getting for your money when you move up to the the £600 Euros or dollars sort price point you do see some bikes with nine-speed Sora gears on the group set tier above and at a th000 you tend to start seeing Hydro disc brakes and even some entry-level

Carbon aluminium frames and and entry-level Wheels like this are noticeably less stiff compared to the super high-end bikes that I get to ride but unless you’re Mark cendes trying to win a Sprint on the Shan in the Tor France it’s not hugely important I have to be

Honest with you like you can still go out and enjoy amazing epic rides in cool beautiful places on stunning roads as much on this bike as you can on on a super expensive bike and that’s something that I really want to stress so overall you know a bikes like this

Are great but what’s not so good well the weight is noticeable and you’re going to feel that when you ride uphill but a lot of that weight’s in the wheels which you could potentially upgrade but let’s check out the freehub freehub sound check time hang on it’s not too bad it’s not too

Bad there we go um but the wheels do have a lot of spokes which suggests to me sturdy something else I’ve noticed they’ve done to keep the the price down is the brake blocks are just solid blocks rather than the separate shoes that come out so if if you know it were

Me what I would do is once these have worn down I’d I’d swap them out and replace them they are a consumable part I’d swap them out and replace them for some proper dedicated brake shoes that go in there properly just to help improve the brakes a little bit and the

Other thing that stands out to me is the tires so these Victoria zeros they’re like a good quality tire but they’re kind of a bit more of a a sort of winter tire they’re very robust and independent rolling resistance data has been published on pretty much every Tire on

The market these are about five watts per tire slower than something like a Performance Tire like a plli P0 28 mm and so if you upgraded those and the standard butti tubes that again can save you around five watts per per tire you’ve got a huge performance upgrade

And that’s why you know I always bang on about this Alex does too that the first upgrade you should do to any bike that gives you the most bam for your book TI and tubes and upgrading your tires would also allow you to switch to something

Wider so 28s or you know I think you could get 30s in here no problem there’s loads of clearance and and that’s going to give you more comfort and grip as well this bike is very similar in terms of spec to my first ever road bike and

It’s great I’m really enjoying riding it and that’s really important because for many people a bike like this will be their entry point into cycle and this is something I’m really passionate about because you know I I want more people to discover the sport that I love and for that to happen there

Has to be good bikes that people can afford and the key thing to remember is it doesn’t matter what bike you’re on The View doesn’t change but I want to see how much better I can make this bike with some well simple and just cost effective modifications so that’s that’s exactly

What I’m going to do I’m going to change the tires and tubes as previously mentioned I’m going to tweak and improve the brakes I’m going to wax the chain and I’m also going to pop on some clipon try bars on here uh which I’ve actually managed to already buy for a very good

Price used on an online Marketplace and I think by doing these modifications this bike will well I well I want to see how well it can compete against a top-of the range 10 grand super B that would be the equivalent Speck as what’s ridden in the Tor France

How much it’ll close the gap doing those modifications well I want to find out and if you want to see that too well that’s what I’m going to do next so make sure you subscribe so that you don’t miss that one we’ll be doing it soon

Right I’m going to go now hope you found this useful love you bye