Racing Bike Buying Advice

FINNEY1973":2ycwdmjx said:

ebay - Ribble 531 / 753 with full matching groupset - there's been 3 at the size you want in the last 4-6 weeks at around the £250 mark if I recall correctly. A lot of bike for not much money and that's with the ebay 'premium' as well. Gumtree or the for sale section / wanted section on here may prove fruitful as well.

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If I'm spending £250, I will buy a modern bike. The Carrerra TDF, various Dawes Giro bikes, and in particular the red carbon forked Triban 3 are probably what I should be buying, but I have a long history of going for something a bit different. My first ever motorcycle when I was a teen was a bright orange and chrome Zundapp 50cc.

If your looking at entry level triathlons, the last thing you want is to trying to power a heavy bike bookended inbetween a swim & a run - I'd be looking at the weight of the bike - things like the Record Sprint will mean your expending energy just moving the bike never mind riding a decent lick.

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If I don't buy something else, I'll be doing a triathlon on a single speed steel commuter with sit up and beg bars. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that a Record Sprint will be a big advantage compared to that.

Edit: I've googled weights, and it seems that 11kg (24lbs) or so is not unreasonable for a steel framed racer. A Triban 3, probably the 'right' bike for me, is about 10kg (22lbs). I'm not sure that's a big difference, surely I can make up some of that by powdering my nose before a race.

An early 90's onwards bike would be the best bet - likely to be 18 gears minimum with brifters and should you ever need to, replacing parts should be simple and fairly inexpensive.

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Could you please tell me which bikes I can look for? I know some current bikes to search for. I'm finding lots of classic bikes to search for. But there's a big 90s/00s shaped gap in my knowledge. The current bikes I know of tend to sell for £200 up. The only modern aluminium bikes I know of that are cheaper are some of the Viking bikes. Having bought a Viking single-speed, I'm a bit worried about buying a more mechanically complicated bike from them.

Best of luck, and welcome aboard the good ship Retrobike

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Thanks.

Sorry, perhaps I misunderstood your post, I thought you'd intimated that £250 was your budget - if so then your newer bike option is perfectly valid (I always assume that people want an older bike as in 'retrobike').

100 for an 531 bike may be a bit ambitious? if your not looking to repair / replace / etc although they & similar do go for that price - usually as 'collection only' on ebay i.e. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Retro-Giant-P ... 19dc9d1bec

90's / 00s saw (in very basic terms), the start of the modern groupset, with 8 or 9 speed cassettes and brifters which has obviously advanced to the 11-speed & brifters that we commonly see today.

A Trek 1000 is a solid performer but you'd be between £2/300 which again goes against your modern bike school of thought.
Dozens of Raleigh's appear, perhaps not 531 but it'd be a step up from the cross-bar bike you have?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raliegh-Aquil ... 460f807a59

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RALEIGH-TEAM- ... 2ec820a1a2

Principally my thoughts would be that the less money you spend on a full bike the more problems you are likely to have just on the law of averages. Simple things like new tyres / tubes / cables / brake-pads etc and you could realistically spend another £60 - £100 just on those. A buy and ride bike would be the more expensive and as you've already said that would be a Triban unless of course your history of buying something different kicks in

There's a bike called a 'Raleigh Milk Race'? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Raleigh-Milk- ... fresh=true

Sold for £35, so doesn't look to be one of the more desirable ones.

Sorry if I'm over-bumping my own thread.

Does anyone know what this might be? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200925710394? ... 1438.l2649 The stickers on it say 'Sprint', but I am finding it difficult to google this as I come up with too many pages on other uses of the word 'sprint' in cycling.

Also, utterly independently of the above link, while Raleigh Record Sprints are not favoured here, after checking total weights etc. I'm not sure that a Record Sprint isn't the bike for me. They often come up on ebay, sometimes don't sell for all that much, and from what I've been able to find, they aren't all that many pounds heavier than (say) a Triban 3 which is what I'm using as a benchmark. And while I have to beware of parts that need replacing immediately, they seem to sometimes go for conveniently cheap prices.

Find a Record Sprint that fits and buy it then: you're unlikely to score the bargain you're chasing, so you might as well get something you like.

As I mentioned above, Raleigh often produced the same model in different grades (eg the Team Banana replicas): you should check as to whether this was the case with the Record Sprint.

ScillySuffolk":1cjgx1gd said:

Find a Record Sprint that fits and buy it then: you're unlikely to score the bargain you're chasing, so you might as well get something you like.

As I mentioned above, Raleigh often produced the same model in different grades (eg the Team Banana replicas): you should check as to whether this was the case with the Record Sprint.

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I think I'm now going to move into slow mode. There seem to be a lot of bikes around, with a couple or so of 'nearly but not quite' bikes appearing daily. I've found a few forum postings (on forums such as this one) with people saying that they like and enjoy racing their Raleigh Sprints. I haven't found anyone saying that the model in general is a POS. It's always to pay a bit more and get something a bit better, but then if you pay a bit more, you get something a bit better, and so on.

Nearly but not quite examples. There's a nice looking (to my inexperienced eyes) Rick Powell 531 tubed machine finishing in a few hours. There's someone on here collecting Rick Powell machines. At the moment it's up to a pittance in terms of price - but a lot can happen on ebay in minutes, let alone hours. But, even though it comes up in my 25 miles search, it's in Woksop. Too far. There's a 501 tubed Raleigh Pro Race in Derby, but it's a 60cm frame. Too big. and I've seen advice articles mentioning the risk of buying something that's the wrong size because you WANT it.

For the Raleigh Record Sprints, there is it seems a 'black and gold' model which is more highly prized by collectors. I haven't found anything that suggests that it's a better bike, it just seems to be more desirable because of additional rarity. (Could be wrong here of course).

Personally I think that if I'm patient and just keep on watching long enough, my OK-priced bike will come my way.

So many bargains around that are either too far away or the wrong frame size.

For the Rick Powell 531 bike (the 'too far away' one), the seller added the comment:

On 23-May-13 at 20:36:27 BST, seller added the following information:

HI SORRY BUT IF I DONT START GETTING ANY BIDS THE OLD RACE BIKES WILL BE ENDED SORRY
CAN NOT LET THEM GO FOR THIS THANKS STEVE

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one day before the end of the auction.

I hope the seller sold for the final ending price.

Still watching. Raleigh Record Ace for sale local to me, right size, and seems to be in good condition. But at £180 it's a bit rich for me. http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/ralei ... to-content

I've been keeping my eye out around town, and seen a number of interesting bikes. At work someone seems to have abandoned (flat tyres, never moves) a Raleigh Record Sprint at one of my work's bike parks. Flat handlebars in old condition. No, I'm not going to nick it

Really annoyed. This Barry Bond bike is my size. It had previously been listed at £99 and didn't sell. It came on again £60 start bid, and I thought that it was interesting, reviews of BB bikes seem to be good, and I was going to take a punt on it. As it failed to sell before I was overconfident and just watching the auction. However, as often happens with bike auctions, 'The seller ended the auction early because the item is no longer available.' I'm familiar with ebay enough to know this happens and I should have perhaps gone around there and made an offer myself. But I'd foolishly mentally banked the purchase, and was sitting their waiting for it to 'come to papa....'

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350811524165? ... 1438.l2661



Not a single thing on my watchlist I actually want now. Back to the drawing board.

Take your time. I waited 6 months for the tandem I wanted. Got it for £250 though!