Need a new Road Bike for £250 to £300 MAX

There are hundreds of cheap bikes on gumtree for mostly one of two reasons:

1. They bought a bike to try cycling. They got hooked and went upgrade happy
2. They bought a bike to try cycling. They went out once, wobbled about for three miles, sweated a bit, got cut up by a minicab and put the bike straight on Gumtree.

If you look on gumtree you'll find millions of bits of entry level sports gear that people bought and didn't give a fair crack of the whip.

I bought my son a Triban 500 a few weeks ago as his Frog flat bar is too small and he wanted to try a road bike.

It got thrown on the deck about 15 times over a two hour period until he started get used to the brakes/saddle/new riding position/wobbly skinny tyres etc. After multiple tantrums and a bit of bike adjustment he finally started to relax on the bike.

This weekend we had another couple of tantrums over how to change gear using a brifter.

Last night he made me promise to take him out on it every day in the October break.

Where kids throw bikes on the deck, Adults throw bikes on gumtree.

If you are still looking for a road bike I have my Trek 1.5 Alpha for sale. 56 cm frame, Tiagra triple cranksets, tiagra rear mech all in good working order £330 ono.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/verenti-technique-tiagra-2016-ex-demo/

See if one of those is your size and pay a few quid more. Hmm, just seen your 6ft 3. These are 52 so no good for you. That said, is your current bike the right size? Looks very small.

Here's another nice one. More than you want to pay mind.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/verenti-technique-sora-2016/

Apart from potentially removing the thumb blob shifters, which I know from experience can be a pain, I can't see a replacement being a massive improvement on this, once the gears properly adjusted and potentially a new chain.  Chances are the gear cable tension needs a slight adjustment and maybe the limit screws tweaking.  A bike shop would have this done while you wait.

So yet another +1 for the service, though I 100% empathise with the burning desire to puchase a new ride.

It's a perfectly useable road bike. Take it to an independent bike shop in your area and get them to give it a service.

Should be no more than 60 quid to get what will feel like a new bike.

Go immediately to edinburghbicycle.com, where you will find something tough and handsome for similar money.  They are very, very good to deal with.

I agree to an extent. My winter bike was bought via the C2W scheme for £700. It has a very nice full chromoly frame and Sora groupset but the wheels were cheap Chinese no-name garbage and got replaced by a set of Aksiums pretty quickly. 

I've got a 105 equipped, aluminium, 9 Speed compact, large, Fausto Coppi San Remo with good Shimano wheels.  It is light years ahead of your Carerra, but it is used and while mechanically completely sound, it has the odd knock and scratch. 

I'm 6'2", so I reckon it would fit you. I've loved riding it, but it is now surplus to requirements for me since I bought a carbon bike in the spring, so it is just cluttering up the garage.  Would cost you a lot less than £300.

I'm based Berks/Surrey/Hants border area if you are interested.

Honestly, I think you're better spending that kind of money on a used bike. It'll have better components and less likely to have some of the problems mentioned above. Any bike in that price range isn't going to be the greatest of quality.

Ribble have a bike for £300 called "Prime" which I have & it hasn't given me any issues whatsoever but unfortunately it's OOS at the moment. 

"my Carrera from new has never been great, gears never felt right, kept on slipping, bit cheap and nasty maybe, although that cost me £329"

There's no fundamental reason why the gears on a Carrera should be any worse than those of a similarly-priced bike. The kit made by just a few firms - Shimano being the biggest player - not by Halfords' Saturday lads.

More expensive gears offer more ratios, be lighter in weight and feel quicker and slicker - but something like Shimano's Claris groupset - which you might find on a £329 bike - performs adequately (slipping gears are not adequate!)

If gears slipping, it's probably because they were one or more of: in need of adjustment (possibly from new), worn, or misused. Bikes differ from most consumer products in that they need more regular maintenance and adjustment, even the expensive ones. It's true that Halfords can be hit-and-miss when it comes to setting up and repairing bikes but even well-prepared gears will wear, go out of alignment and/or can be misused. 

But since we are where we are and you need a new bike, I agree with the others that the BTwins are often a very good choice. Carreras can be good too, although Halfords erratic and misleading pricing can make it harder to tell what's good value. The Vanquish and Virtuoso usually have decent specs - look for carbon forks and Shimano Claris or even part-Sora groupsets (avoid the 14 speed and steel forked models).

Looking for Claris and carbon forks is probably good general advice, as is look out for last year's models at reduced prices. Merlin's PR7 would be on my shortlist too - more exclusive than BTwin or Carrera.

It's undeniable that Tribans get great reviews - but is this your old bike - https://goo.gl/QDWDak ?

Maybe you could go for a singlespeed if it's just to go to the gym. Easier to maintain and you could get something better for the money.

I ran a B'Twin Triban for 3 years as a winter commuter. Utterly reliable and did the job. Chains, freewheels, and cassettes are consumable items, particularly if you're bashing around in winter on salty potholed roads so you should expect to replace them the same as you would tyres/exhaust on your car.

The good thing about the Tribans is that the frame is a good basis for future upgrades. Cycling on a budget really means learning something about bike maintenance (plenty of free courses around) and once you've got the basics you can easily improve the kit on your bike by sniping around the sales and eBay bargains.

My mate just got a B Twin. For the money it's a great bike, I think anyone would struggle to do much better for less than £300. Commutes and does the odd sportive on it.