B’Twin Triban 500

My first ever road bike was a B’Twin Triban 3, the red model, and I was very impressed by it. So much so, that little over a year later, when I got another bike, I ordered the Triban 500, again from Decathlon.

Now you may ask yourself why, if the Triban 3 impressed me that much, I went for a different bike, and that would be a fair question. The answer is quite simple: effectively I didn’t go for a different bike – I got the same bike, but with upgraded components.

Allow me to explain: The Triban 3 that I still have, and the Triban 500 have exactly the same aluminium frame and carbon forks. By the time I got the Triban 500, Decathlon had discontinued the Triban 3. In it’s place was the Triban 300, which had steel forks along the same aluminium frame. The gear shifters were of a lower spec too than the original Triban 3, while the Triban 500 had upgraded components, from gear shifters to crankset, brakes and derailleurs.

It was a no-brainer, really.

Both the Triban 3 and Triban 500 has Shimano shifters, but the Triban 3’s shifters are 2300’s, with the little thumb lever, while the Triban 500 has Sora shifters, with the paddle behind the brake lever.
The Triban 500 also has Sora brakes and crankset. Finally, the colour scheme is completely different.

Aside from these differences, it is essentially exactly the same bike, and sadly suffers from the same flaw: the stock B’Twin wheels really are only good for stopping the sharper bits of the bike making marks on Dacthlon’s nice showroom floors.

I cannot stress enough how poor the stock B’Twin wheels are. Expect the bearings on the rear wheel to go after between 700 to 1000 miles, with the front wheel typically lasting to around 2 500 miles. The only guarantee that you’ll get with those wheels is that they will have bearings that fail.

Once you have better wheels on the bike, it really is superb value for money. The carbon fork helps ease out annoying road buzz that aluminium frames sometimes suffer and I’ve never seen any reason to change the stock saddle. Bear in mind that I average around 7 000 miles per year – that’s a long time on a bike saddle.

Like the Triban 3, the Triban 500 can take a rack and also mudguards, making it more of a commuter than a racer. Having said that, I’ve done the Dartmoor Classic on mine and it was faster up the hills than a fair few expensive carbon bikes.

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