Has anyone any experience of Mango bikes?

Junglist · 26 Feb 2020 at 16:48

Due to the house move my electronic unicycle is just a bit too slow to cover the distance i'll soon be having and rather than buy the next model up for £1500 I figured I should make use of my work's cycle to work scheme.

I currently have a Hoy Shizuoka 003 from about 2014 which was decent enough at the time but nothing special. I could continue to ride that but I hated the handle bars on it as they're very wide and I was thinking of moving towards a road bike rather than hybrid.

Looking for something cheap and cheerful I came across Mango bikes specifically the Point Black single speed/fixed gear bike. £550 normally but £625 with carbon forks which i would upgrade to as I am used to them on my current bike

Is it too good to be true? I'm not expecting anything amazing but I'd want it to be able to last a few years at least. Open to other suggestions around the same price ideally no more than £640 but if I manage to sell my EUC and my old bike I could probably buy a bike outright rather than use the scheme but then I'd have a budget of about £900 (had my eyes on a Cinelli Tipo Pista but that's pushing the budget)

So, TLDR, Mango Bikes? Go for it or avoid?

mattyfez · 2 Mar 2020 at 09:20

You could always get the bars trimmed a bit of they are too wide.
Is it for commuting? Surely a few gears would be more versatile than a fixie?

Junglist · 3 Mar 2020 at 15:23

mattyfez said:
You could always get the bars trimmed a bit of they are too wide.
Is it for commuting? Surely a few gears would be more versatile than a fixie?

I suppose that is always an option but I can't lie and say a new toy does tempt me! For the last few years I've had my eyes on a BMC roadbike but after trying my friends fixie and seeing him move from roadbikes to a fixie for all his travelling has started to convert me. I also like how simple they are so not much can go wrong with them. Even this morning cycling to work it wouldn't shift gears properly which makes me think just be done with it. Most of my commute is flat as well so no hills or the hills that are there are basically non existent

Agent_Smith357 · 3 Mar 2020 at 20:22

I'm impressed you've found somewhere to live and work in Bristol that doesn't involve hills!

Junglist · 4 Mar 2020 at 09:58

Agent_Smith357 said:
I'm impressed you've found somewhere to live and work in Bristol that doesn't involve hills!

Haha well I commute from just before Staple Hill/Downend to Bedminster and I can go along the cycle track which is pretty much flat. Very slight incline on the way back (which I feel!) but it's not big enough that gears help much. When we move to our new house there will be a hill but again, it's not huge. Unless I opt to ride up Blackberry hill which would be a massive hill! To be honest, until I had got my current bike I had always ridden BMXs so gears are still relatively new to me