chrisboardman bikes

Gilly said:
Back off. When I was looking at bikes through cycle2work the low end boardman bikes were a rip off, and I assumed that as they were halfords only they owned the brand.

Don't brand everyone with a different opinion to you as a troll :rolleyes:
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I don't, but yours wasn't an opinion, just two incorrect facts. Boardman isn't owned by Halfords and their cheapest bike is normally around the £600 mark (and that's a hybrid), and their entire range regardless of price is generally considered good value for money.

You sure you weren't thinking of Carrera?
 
Oh no, completely agree, my girlfriend has a Carrera and it's more than enough for what was a £260 bike. I only meant he may have been thinking of them as they're Halfords' own (and only?) brand.
 
The carreras are pretty good value as well. The Subway singlespeed used to be a very popular commuter bike and you still get quite a few people who value a bike based on how many gears it has, so maybe that one seems like a rip off? :P
 
I bought a carrera in the end. IIRC the cheapest boardman was £700 and there wasn't enough difference between that and the £450 carrera hybrid.

I assume you have a boardman :)
 
My advice would be to test ride a few different brands.

The most important thing FOR ME is the groupset. Good luck!
 
My first road bike was a Carrera, and second a Boardman, both have been very very good bikes for the price. My Boardman especially, its never missed a beat and a very nice bike to ride
 
Gilly said:
I bought a carrera in the end. IIRC the cheapest boardman was £700 and there wasn't enough difference between that and the £450 carrera hybrid.

I assume you have a boardman :)
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Suppose it depends what you want, every single bike in the world rides differently, a spec list on a piece of paper only tells 50% of the story.
 
Maybe so. A bike, to me, is a way to get from A to B. It's not like a car where I can enjoy some and not others, it is just a tool to be used.

On paper it was a lot for not a lot more, and as it was 'Halfords exclusive' I didn't see much difference in brand either.
 
Gilly said:
Maybe so. A bike, to me, is a way to get from A to B. It's not like a car where I can enjoy some and not others, it is just a tool to be used.
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Thats fine, and a lot of people are the same. The boardman range is not aimed at you. It's unfair to say that they are a "rip off" just because they dont come in a spec level that suits you though.

If i have a choice between, for example, a £10k fiesta or a £50k BWM M5 just for a shopping trip once a week. I would buy the fiesta. I wouldnt call the BWM a rip off though, just because it doesnt meet my requirements
 
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Ah, but if you have a standard family hatch and then a standard family hatch with some tweaks and some stickers you wouldn't pay nearly twice the price :)
 
I dont really know which bike you are referring to, but they aren't just family hatches, the ALU ones are triple butted for example, so i guess that would be maybe an M3, no, actually an M3 CLS because of the weight saving triple but offers
 
Gilly said:
Ah, but if you have a standard family hatch and then a standard family hatch with some tweaks and some stickers you wouldn't pay nearly twice the price :)
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Let's rephrase that... If I had a standard family hatch and then a standard family hatch with some improvements that I neither needed nor understood then I wouldn't pay nearly twice the price.
 
Part of the problem may stem from Halfords themselves. My information on the Carrera and the Boardman came directly from their salesmen and a quick Google in-store.

If I didn't understand the improvements they were pitching it wrong!
 
Gilly said:
Part of the problem may stem from Halfords themselves. My information on the Carrera and the Boardman came directly from their salesmen and a quick Google in-store.

If I didn't understand the improvements they were pitching it wrong!
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Halfords are pretty notoriously useless on that front, I'll grant you.
 
You'd think that Chris Boardman and/or his team of business folks would be pretty hot on that given the exclusivity agreement.
 
All comes down to the individual "sales" rep. Some are ok, some are god awful. I had one guy who didn't even know that you could order stuff online for delivery in-store.

The majority of Boardman-buyers probably know they want it without even speaking to Halfords as bikes at their price point (or generally) aren't impulse buys. Take this thread for example, and the one or two people every week asking for advice in the road thread.
 
The quality of Halfords staff varies hugly, personally i think most people who are going to blow £700 upwards on a Boardman, are doing so because they've read many reviews and know about the bike and what it offers, not because they've rocked into the store and have no idea what to buy.

For example, i researched for many weeks before blowing 1.3k on my Boardman, the in store staff didn't play into my decision.
 
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