Northwest Marketplace

Aye, my girlfriend has one, although for her performance is not a consideration. Well made bike that would be a great starter road bike for anyone. You wouldn't be limited in performance by the bike. Downsides are as stated, bit of extra weight and the wheels are pretty shit. The STI's shift well, but the thumb shifter can not be accessed from the drops, only a problem if you spend a lot of time in the drops. The setup/assembly can be a bit hit and miss too, we had an extra spoke nipple floating around inside the box section of the rim, needed a spoke taking off to extract it and the front mech was too far up the seat tube making it impossible to eliminate chain rub in normal operating ranges. All issues now resolved with a bit of fettling and it is running nice and smooth.

It's good to get the details, but here in lies the problem. These are all things I would personally resent having to touch if I was spending my own money. It is a lot of package but I'd expect it to be at least reasonably set-up out of the store. It's annoying he needs a new one really. His current rig is a 20 year old lugged frame with 600AX, Mavic rims and Dura Ace cranks. It's just all shot to hell having been badly stored and not serviced in something like 10 years. The hubs are gone and the rims are battered. The cranks could be polished up but I seem to remember bad wear on them when I did the minimum to get it running some months back. The frame has been welded twice and need painting, it's also to big for him. Everything else is just worn to hell with bad surface corrosion. I think I'll turn him upside down and see if any more change falls out of his pockets before I get him to make a decision. I know he'll get back into riding and worry that the basic £300 bargains will quickly get out