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Cheap bike for winter commute

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  • 25-09-2019 1:14pm
    #1
    doxy79
    Registered Users Posts: 84 ✭✭


    My old bike is pretty beat up and probably not the safest thing to be cycling for the winter. I cannot avail of the cycle to work scheme until next year, so I would rather buy something cheap now and save the grant money to buy something nicer later when I will go for some longer cycles in the summer.

    It's a 4 mile long quite hilly commute. Was looking at a few options:
    Carerra Vengeance
    Carerra Subway
    BTWIN Riverside 120
    Pinnacle Lithium

    Am really looking for spend sub €300 if possible. Any opinions on the above, or the best options for that kind of money?


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    #2
    Cee-Jay-Cee
    Registered Users Posts: 12,235 ✭✭✭✭Cee-Jay-Cee


    Second hand is your best option...check out donedeal and Adverts.

    I bought a 2018 Cube Attain a few months ago for €240. Sold by someone who bought it on the BTW scheme, cycled it once, decided cycling wasn't for him and parked it up. He gave me the original receipt with it and it cost him €780 last October from a local LBS. He also threw in a set of lights, bottle cages, mini pump and saddle pouch with spare tube, tyre levers, mini tool and patch kit. The bike is like brand new without a single blemish anywhere. It now lives on my turbo trainer.

    There are bargains out there and especially at this time of year when cycling season is over (for many leisure cyclists) and new 2020 bikes are coming out and people are looking to off load their older bikes.


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    #3
    doxy79
    Registered Users Posts: 84 ✭✭doxy79


    I've been looking around adverts.ie and donedeal, but haven't really found much. Seems to be plenty if you're in Dublin, but not much in some other parts. I'll keep looking anyway.

    Out of interest, are there any precautions someone should take when buying off these sites? Is there anyway to protect against buying a stolen bike, for instance?


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    #4
    8valve
    Registered Users Posts: 976 ✭✭✭8valve


    doxy79 wrote: »
    I've been looking around adverts.ie and donedeal, but haven't really found much. Seems to be plenty if you're in Dublin, but not much in some other parts. I'll keep looking anyway.

    Out of interest, are there any precautions someone should take when buying off these sites? Is there anyway to protect against buying a stolen bike, for instance?


    Common sense would be the best approach, I suppose. If the seller can produce an original invoice or receipt, as a previous poster experienced, you'll have piece of mind.


    Badly written ads, with a bike seriously below market value, would give a good indication, I think....as the old saying goes, ''if it seems too good to be true, it usually is!''


    I had a bike stolen once, and a guy cycled past me a couple of months later on it. I contacted the guards and he admitted buying it in the pub for 40 quid....a 500 quid bike. He couldn't (or wouldn't) name or identify the seller, so they threw the book at him in court for receiving stolen goods. If there's no market for stolen bikes, they won't get stolen. But there is, and a ridiculous amount of bikes are stolen every year and unrecovered.


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