Easy to ride road bike for training and DD next year

In my experience, when ever you buy a bike 2nd hand you usually need to spend £100 more on tyres, tubes , a chain and a block.

Then there are cables, and brake blocks....

Often the best place to pick stuff up at is a jumble. The next one in London is at Herne Hill on the 1st of January

I d also suggest going for friction, 7-8 speed cassettes and not worrying too much about matching group sets....

I have been riding the old bike with friction shifters for a while and did not like it very much - I can find what I want one or two cogs at a time, but I like to knock it down a few as I come into traffic lights - ready to go on green. Invariably I was getting it wrong and going crunchy crunchy when I should have been going zoom. I am going to stay with downtube, but indexed shifters. I fitted them last night.

Definitely know what you mean re. cost. Certainly cheaper to buy a whole bike. Particularly if you waste the money I have on dead ends. Hopefully eBay will come to the rescue there, I have quite a few surplus bits to get rid of...