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  • Hello. A friend of mine has recently graduated and been given a gift by her father to buy a new bike. She's about 5'6, does a lot of cycling (about an hour each way to/from work for at least the past year) and is thinking of doing a bit of touring later this summer. However, she doesn't actually know very much about bikes and when I asked her what she was thinking of she showed me this link:

    How would you respond, and what would you recommend? The budget is around 500 quid (she's not actually in the UK, so that's a rough conversion from euros) and I guess she might buy a new lock too, but she's got lights, helmet etc so doesn't need to get all the accessories.

    Thanks!

  • Rather overpriced for what it is and not really suitable for touring. Depending upon her route it could do as a commuter, but it's more suited to popping down the shops on, rather than an hour each way.

    The dynamo is useful, but everything else is pretty budget and rather tired. Seven gears at the rear mean it has a freewheel rather than cassette and a triple chainset can be overwhelming: every time I have to work on one of these sort of bikes (town/mixte/"lifestyle"), it has only ever been ridden on one ring.

    What does she currently ride and where is she? I'm going to take a wild guess at France, in which case she should head to Decathlon: great value for money and sensible spec.

  • Hi, yes, France :) But not hard to guess if any of you have ever read anything I've posted in the last year or two (admittedly, not too much). And thanks for all your advice in the other post - she's a colleague at work so I will show her this thread tomorrow, and also have a more meaningful discussion with her.

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