It would seem I simply just can’t help myself. Literally as soon as I’ve got a little bit of spare cash I’m straight on the internet looking for another ‘bargain’ buy that I just have to impulsively purchase straight away. You see after the great mountain bike swapathon a few months back when the dust had settled and my poor old unloved Cotic had been unceremoniously loaded into the boot of a car and driven away by its new owner I was left somehow with a small pot of cash tucked away at the back of a drawer. Now this is most unusual, the normal way of things after one of my ‘chance of a lifetime’ bike swaps or builds is that I’m left with a bit of a fiscal shortfall which leaves me hoping the rest of the family don’t check the banking app too diligently and start asking awkward questions before I’ve had a chance to sneak in a bit of overtime at work to craftily replenish the family coffers before I get into trouble.

This time however when the music stopped I had a bundle of crisp £20 notes left in my sweaty little hand. What I should have done was pay them straight into our bank account and used them for something sensible like the rapidly approaching large scary invoice for our youngest sons university accommodation, but no my mind immediately started mentally wondering what cycling related follies I could afford with my minor windfall. I suspect like quite a lot of mildly tech and gear obsessed cyclists I’ve got a little laundry list of potential bikes and upgrades I’d like to be able to afford at any one time tucked away in the back of my mind ready to deploy the moment I think I can afford something, and that little bundle of bank notes just seemed to keep calling to me every time I walked past my sock drawer……….

There were a couple of options I was seriously considering. First option was very middle aged man cliché worthy – buy and restore a classic road bike from my golden years of the mid 1980’s. I started browsing eBay listings for classic frames from the likes of Colnago and Vitus and thinking about wasting hours of my life hand polishing obsolete Campagnolo derailleurs and chainsets. Then I started to wonder what I’d actually do with the bike once I’d finished obsessively building it. I certainly wouldn’t want to ride it very much, the thought of going back to downtube shifters, a 11-23t cassette and 20c wide tyres did not greatly appeal. I did moot the idea of hanging ‘a really nice shiny classy looking bike’ up on the wall as an object d’art in our back room but that idea was firmly vetoed by the rest of the family who strangely enough don’t share my views on the simplistic beauty of a thin walled lugged steel frame.

The second option was looking for a more modern road frame that would accept Di2 and disc brakes because much as I love my Ti Sabbath it is a bit retro and I was a bit curious about how a more modern carbon road bike with all the bells and whistles would ride. Delving back into the internet there appeared to be plenty of frames available which fitted the bill and more importantly were within my budget either secondhand or on the sale pages of some of the big online retailers. the trouble was that when I factored in buying a new set of disc wheels and a lightly used Di2 groupset the costs started to spiral alarmingly quickly.

Feeling a bit discouraged I decided to expand my search parameters and look at complete bikes which were a few years older and found to my surprise that a 5 – 7 year old machine with everything that I wanted was actually attainable on my budget. Ok, I wouldn’t be getting the latest 12 speed Di2 or the now almost obligatory integrated bar/stem combo’s with totally concealed cables, but I could live with that.

Anyway you probably don’t really want to hear about the hours I spent trawling Facebook Marketplace, eBay and Gumtree, or all the time I invested in ferreting out old bike reviews for various bike brands and their discontinued ranges, so the bike on the right next to my faithful Sabbath is what I ended up with.

It’s a 2018 Giant TCR Advanced Pro Disc – 11spd Ultegra Di2, Disc brakes, carbon frame and carbon wheels. I’d seen the bike advertised on ebay fairly locally at the start of my search but had ruled it out because it was significantly out of budget. When it didn’t sell for the initial asking price I kept an eye on the sellers listings and sure enough a few days later it was back up for sale with a price tag I could almost reach. I messaged the seller and arranged to view the bike hoping my cash buyer status might induce him to bring the price down just a little bit further. By the end of the day the TCR was clamped into my workstand. As I’d hoped the lure of cold hard dirty cash and a couple of obvious issues with the bike had brought the price down just enough for a hand shake and deal which left both parties reasonably happy, I had the bike that I wanted and the seller who had bought the bike himself recently only to find it didn’t really fit him had the cash to move on and buy something more suitable.

With the bike home and with time to inspect it at my leisure under the the harsh lights of my garage I could get a good close look at my new steed and assess exactly what it needed to bring it back to full health because this is a bike that’s most definitely seen some hard use and was looking a little sorry for itself, but hey if it was in absolutely mint condition I wouldn’t have been able to afford it, but more on that next time – have I managed to buy a total money pit or have I managed to snag a bit of a bargain? well the jury’s still out on that one but stay tuned for more.