Carrera Virtuoso , how good?

Hi,

Sorry to dig up an old thread, I am looking at purchasing one of these but unsure about the size, halfords are useless and only have one size bike set up and tell you to try other bikes for size.
I was wondering if you think the Medium would suite me with a height of 174cm (around 5ft8) with a leg of 79cm (31"😉

Many thanks for your time

Ste

After looking up the size on Halford's website, it appears that the frame size is 21-22 inches? What, they don't know? Anyway, I have a 32" inseam and a 22 inch bike fits me. Therefore, as far as the seat tube length goes, the medium at 21-1/2 inches should be OK for you. If you are 5'8" though and your inseam is 31 inches, you have really long legs in comparisson to your upper body, so you might be a little stretched out on this bike. So you might want to budget for a shorter stem or go down one size as long as it is not more than 2" smaller and still has enough seat post to adjust it up to the saddle height that you need.

Thanks for the info, I think halfords have there info mixed up, as its says 21 - 22 inches for both. I think this is the size for the Large, the medium is 48.5 which equals around 19".

On the site they also state Medium bottom bracket to top tube = 48.5cm which is equivalent to our standard 54cm frame
Large bottom bracket to top tube = 51cm which is equivalent to our standard 58cm frame.

They are such a hard place to deal with, went into one store and could only try the large, sat on this and could reach everything, but felt a little stretched and they suggested shorting the handlebar stem. All they had set up was large frame bikes, which is just about as useful as a chocolate tea pot. Drove to the halfords in the next store and they had a medium set up, this looked really small at 1st, but once the seat was set up it felt fine, although I felt a little cramped it seems this is normal, ( when I pedal, my kness come up close to my arms). They also put me on another model, of the same make in large, they said it was way to big for me, but when I got home I noticed the large in this model was 2cm bigger than the other large models !!!.

From the look of things it looks like medium is going to be the way to go. This is my 1st road bike, in fact not owned any bike for over 15 years, but cant wait to get out riding.

Thanks for you advise.

Ste