Need road/tri bike purchase advice. Am 6’5" and 250 lbs looking for a weekend ride and occasional tri bike. Would like to spend $1,500 or less and comfort is key. Any ideas would be helpful since last road bike I owned was a 84’ Dave Scott Centurion.
At your size and that budget I’d look into Cannondale, and maybe Trek.
I’m almost 6"4 and you would be surprised, depending on the manufacturer I can ride anything from a 58 to a 63. For $1500 C’Dale and QR are great places to start. You can get a lot of bike for $1500 these days.
Dave in VA
I hope this doesn’t come off as sounding unhelpful, because that is not at all my intention. My first thought was that a tri bike ridden occaisionally on weekends isn’t going to be very comfortable.
But I agree with the Trek advice. I think Felt too should be considered in that price range.
Are you thinking of a dedicated tri bike with aerobars only or a road bike that can be ridden with drops and clip ons? The Soloist also comes to mind as being a very flexible road bike, and you can find used Soloists in that range or even new last year Soloists close to that.
I would recommend you think about a different rear wheel as a part of the bike purchase. Even with a $1500 bike, you will probably be chasing broken spokes within the first 500-1000 miles. I had a customer who was roughly your size. We finally built him a rear wheel using a tandem hub. It’s not the lightest, or inexpensive option, but he had no more wheel problems after that.
Good luck