The Raleigh Cadent 1 Urban Fitness Bike is a nice looking bike with pretty good quality components to go with it. It feels a little bit more basic in terms of the extra’s i.e. there’s no mud guards or carrier but it’s aimed more at being a fitness bike. So you can use it for commuting without the big price tag of a road bike and you’ll be at work quicker than most people but potentially with a wet backside!! It’s designed to be sporty with a bit of a different look and keeps maintenance to an absolute minimum with none of the comforts such as disc brakes or shocks. The price is set at a value which is a bit more than some of the other bikes reviewed but still not expensive.

The price for the Raleigh Cadent 1 Urban Fitness Bike is quite good. It’s a little more than some of the other bikes reviewed and perhaps with the lesser number of components, doesn’t quite justify the slightly dearer price. Having said that, adding mud guards is not a big deal and the extra speed can be a real advantage of you’re late for work!!

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The Raleigh Cadent 1 Urban Fitness bike components can be broken down into various areas that determine the quality. Each of these components can in isolation drop the overall rating for a bike review, simply because the weakest part may be the area which causes the bike overall to be lower quality, i.e. a low quality seat isn’t really an area for concern as opposed to low quality brakes or gears which make a bike unsafe or hard to use.

Frame: Light weight aluminium frame, 6061 non-corrosive and tough with a front fork that is steel.

Seat: Racing seat.

Pedals: Basic pedals.

Brakes: Standard linear pull brakes (clincher style). Nice and simple, just be careful if you’re riding downhill to keep your speed under control as you won’t be able to stop in a hurry with this brake configuration as opposed to other bikes with disc brakes.

Gears: Shimano Tourney 21 Speed – 3 by 7, gives you plenty of gear options depending on what your terrain is.

Wheel set: 29 Inch wheels – standard 700c size, Kenda Kwik Tendril, good brand.

Weight: 27lbs or 12 kgs for the medium size

If you use the bike a lot, you’re bound to need to do maintenance at some point. That might be as simple as fixing a flat tyre, adjusting the gears or changing brake pads.

The Raleigh Cadent 1 Urban Fitness bike gets a good mark for ease and cost of maintenance. This is due to the fact that you’ll be able to do a lot of the work yourself. The bike can be assembled from the delivery in between 1 to 2 hours too and includes a Raleigh Warranty to cover any issues.

If any of the work is outside of your comfort zone, any bike shop will be able to do the maintenance for you due to the very common nature of the components and easy access to parts.

The bike gets an OK rating for comfort. The seat is more race bike styled so you might need bike pants with padding (the joys of lycra!!) if you plan on being on the bike for a while.

One other factor to consider is the lack of fenders. If you bike to work in wet weather or on wet roads, you’re going to get a very wet backside. This is easily resolved with a low cost bike fender available from Amazon.