
Winter
Road Bikes
Winter Road Bikes are the noble chariots of the ‘off months’ of the UK road bike season. These bikes are designed to be a reliable and hardy way of getting yourself some decent winter training miles, so you are heading towards the good weather months of spring and summer, with decent levels of cycling fitness.
The phrase ‘winter miles makes for summer smiles’ rings true here, and hard work in the winter allows you to really make the most of the summer.
It’s actually quite refreshing when choosing a winter bike to run and maintain. There’s no carbon fibre to worry about, there’s no ultra lightweight cassettes. Instead, a winter road bike is a bike that needs to simply ride along the road, reliably. The miles spent on a winter road bike do not even need to be fast miles - slow miles in inclement weather is the road cycling puritans winter training.
A Winter Road Bike does also not need to have any high end components, entry level components are fine - most road bikes have hydraulic disc brakes as standard, these are pretty much essential for winter riding.
Ideally, the bike will be made from tough alumnium/alloy mix - as above, we would not recommend carbon fibre for a winter road bike, when alloy does a good enough job and is incredibly tough.
Many people ask why they would need a winter road bike, why spend hard earnt money on a bike which is not as good as their summer/everyday bike? The reason is exactly that, winter road bikes do a great job in protecting your main spring/summer road bike. A winter road bike allows you to tuck up your ultra lightweight and aero road bike for the winter months, meaning that the bike that you love does not ever need to see road grime and salt.
Don’t worry too much about race geometry and aero on your winter road bike either, comfort is key here - look for a bike which can accommodate wide tyres and mudguards, gravel bikes make perfect winter hacks and are well worth considering. On the subject of tyres, british roads in winter are pretty terrible - so look to upgrade to a set of either 32mm or 34mm tyres.
Of course, you do not have to buy a new winter road bike - if you have an older road bike sitting in the garage, it may be that with a service and a few upgraded components, you have the perfect winter hack.
These winter road bikes are all priced below the £1,000 mark, as that’s all we think you really need to spend on a winter road bike, to strike the right balance between performance and value for money. These bikes do not need to have a race geometry, and a flat bar road bike can make the perfect winter steed.