THE SEARCH FOR SPEED
The days of buying bikes based purely upon word of mouth or the recommendation of your local bike shop have mostly passed. Hours spent perusing catalogues or cupping your hands to better glimpse the most exotic Italian trinketry through the shop window have also been consigned to a simpler past.
Today’s fast-moving bike market is beyond recognition, with dozens more brands, countless new configurations and endless options. The technology used to design the next big thing is literally space age, and so are some of the materials used. But possibly the greatest tool any customer has these days is the internet. Every new bike worth its cranks will be found online and often comes with a marketing push of lifestyle imagery, rider endorsements and detailed information. If you want to know its geometry to the millimetre, frame construction or its component minutiae, it’s all there.
Coupled with the information that the average intended spend on a next bike for 220 Triathlon readers is £2,139, we asked our colleagues at BikeRadar to compile a list of the 10 most searched-for road bikes for around £2,000 from the previous 18 months. Some have been updated, replaced or are no longer available, but we pulled together the three most relevant models – from Canyon, Giant and Ribble – and spent some stormy off-season days ploughing our way around our local loops to see which one most deserves your cash
