If you're keen to get into road cycling, for the fun of zooming round the lanes, for fitness or as a quick and cheap way to get to work, it is possible to decent road bikes under £500. In fact, we've found a few bargains starting from around £250, proving you really don't need to spend a fortune to get a good road bike these days.
Features to look for include an aluminium frame and carbon fibre fork, wide-range gears and tyres at least 25mm wide
Steer clear of any bike you have to assemble yourself; get the dealer to do it
This is a price range where bike quality improves dramatically with price; a £400 is far more than twice as good as a £200 bike
The Covid-19 lockdown has caused a run on budget bikes, but we've found a few that are still available
9 of the best road bikes under £500 for 2020
- Triban RC100 — £279.99
- Triban RC120 — £379.99
- Merlin PR7 Claris — £399.95
- Pinnacle Laterite 1 Women's — £420
- Voodoo Limba — £450
- Merlin PR7 Sora — £475
- Brand-X road bike — NA
- Carrera Zelos — NA
It’s quite likely that if you’re reading this you’re looking at buying your first road bike. You’ll probably have a lot of questions. A good place to start is always a well stocked bike shop where you can view the bikes in your budget and get a good idea of what is offered.
Road bikes under £500 often feature light and stiff aluminium or steel frames with good quality gears and brakes. Japanese firm Shimano is the predominant component choice at this end of the market, and the good news is that a lot of the technology seen higher up the ladder eventually trickles down to the entry level.
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Weight is the main area where entry-level bikes suffer. However, with compact or triple chainsets, and the wider range of gears they offer, getting up steep hills is made easier. As a general rule, the more you spend the lighter the bike will be. Closer to £500 and you can expect a carbon fibre fork which saves weight and offers improved performance over the steel and aluminium forks on cheaper bikes.
It's slim pickings out there at the moment though. The Covid-19 lockdown sent people scurrying to bikes as a way to exploit the quiet roads to get a bit of exercise. People who didn't have a bike in the shed — or discovered they'd neglected it to death — bought new ones. As a result the bike industry is running out of bikes, especially at the cheaper end.
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£200 to £300
You can get bikes cheaper than this, but they are — frankly — not very good. If your budget is so tight this is beyond your range then should seriously consider looking for a second hand bargain (head over to eBay or our own classifieds for a look), but if it has to be new you might find something if you shop around for discount bargains during the winter.
Spend just a bit more and you get a whole lot more bike. Lighter, better equipped, and we're willing to bet nicer to ride too. This is a price point where the big specialist retailers are really able to flex their buying muscle for your benefit, and combine it with design knowledge to deliver the maximum bang for your buck.
It's no coincidence that both Decathlon and Halfords in-house brands figure strongly here. This is also a price point at which you can pick up a really good discount bargain at the right time of the year, something we've reflected in our pick of bikes here.
Triban RC100 — £279.99
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Introduced back in 2017 by French-based sports superstore chain Decathlon, the Triban RC100 has an aluminium frame and seven-speed gears with 32mm tyres so it can tackle the odd dirt track or towpath without any fuss. It'll take mudguards and a rack so will make a serviceable commuter that can take you pootling round the lanes at the weekend.
Read our review of the B'Twin Triban 100
£300 to £500
Step up to this price bracket and the choice suddenly increases, with some of the bigger manufacturers now coming into contention, especially the more you approach the £500 mark. Most of the bikes at this price, though not all, will feature an aluminium frame, which makes for a lighter bike. Get closer to £500 and you can expect to see the fork upgraded to carbon fibre, saving weight and improving the ride.
Triban RC120 — £379.99
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A new model from Decathlon, this is the cheapest bike in the Triban RC range, with an easy-handling aluminium frame and wide-range Microshift 8-speed gears. You also get puncture-resistant tyres and a fork with carbon fibre legs that improves comfort.
Spend a little more on the £429.99 Triban RC120 Disc and you get the all-weather stopping reassurance of disc brakes.
Merlin PR7 Claris — £399.95
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A shade under 400 quid is a very good price for a sporty road bike with a good-quality aluminium frame, Shimano's very functional 8-speed Claris components and Mavic wheels.
The frame is the same as the Merlin PR7 Sora, below, and it wouldn't be silly to upgrade the components down the track
Pinnacle Laterite 1 Women's — £420
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For this price you might expect a women's bike to be the men's frame with a shorter stem and a woman's saddle. That's not the case here. There's a female-specific frame at the heart of this version of the Laterite 1, with a shorter reach for any given size, and a size range that goes down further too. There's a men's version too and for just £360 the Laterite 0 is worth a look.
Voodoo Limba — £450
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With fatter tyres than most of the bikes here, the Limba looks like a good entry to the gravel bike genre: a bike that can take you along dirt roads and easier trails as well as being comfortably pothole-proof for the office dash. As is common at this price range, it has Tektro brakes and Shimano's Claris gears. We've seen the Limba as low as £360, so it might be worth waiting to see if the price drops.
Merlin PR7 Sora — £475
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Merlin Cycles is always worth a look for great-value bikes, and for a shade under £500, this edition of the PR7 is amazing value with a Shimano Sora nine-speed groupset. For another £35 Merlin will throw in a pair of Shimano R540 clipless pedals and Diadora Phantom II shoes.
Read our review of the Merlin PR7
Brand-X road bike — NA
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At its typical price of £250-£300 this is great value for a bike with a 14-speed Shimano transmission, aluminium frame and a choice of five sizes. Both Wiggle and Chain Reaction currently show it out of stock, but if it comes back it should show up at the link above, and given it's been a fixture of the range for three or four years now under a couple of different names, we'd be surprised if it doesn't return this summer.
Carrera Zelos — NA
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There are plenty of bikes costing under £500 at Halfords, and pick of the bunch is this Carrera Zelos. It features an aluminium frame built up with a 14-speed Shimano groupset and Tektro dual pivot brakes. There's a women's version too, and it's still available.
Like the Brand X, the Zelos has been a range fixture for long enough that we'd be very surprised if it doesn't return when Halfords is able to get fresh stock.
Explore the complete archive of reviews of road bikes on road.cc