DCLane
Found in the Yorkshire hills ...
- Location
- Dewsbury, West Yorkshire
@bonzobanana - that's a decent bike for the money. And for most people it's probably as much as they need.
The vast majority of aero gains are produced by altering the position and attire of the rider. But none of it really matters unless you're racing.
I obsess about the colour of my valve caps. Does that count?
I'm not a cyclist that needs a performance road bike but from all the evidence I've seen most high end bikes only have marginal gains that only benefit competitive pro cyclists. Safety is impacted when you make a bike as light as possible. Components wear out faster and are more likely to fail in use.
Looking on Halfords you can get a carbon fibre road bike with Shimano 105 that is comfortably a long way under 10kg for £1200 but Halfords rollercoaster pricing and the use of cashback sites, halfords giftcards and any other discount scheme you can make use of, might bring the price down to £900 if purchased at the optimum time.
https://www.halfords.com/bikes/road...road-bike-2021---s-m-l-xl-frames-365462.html?
Anyone who has looked at the Quest Composite site who make Canyon and Trek carbon fibre road bikes will see a very basic factory with questionable quality and worker conditions.
I admire people far more who use old bikes maximising their use and benefitting the environment rather than people who spend huge money on plastic bikes destined for landfill in a few years and adding more money to our national debt for all of us to pay back.
You use valve caps? Think of the weight and aero-savings by not having them - Marinal gains and all that you know....
Outweighed by the bling value of having valve caps that match my bar tape, bottle cages and Garmin case.
And in future my cable outers maybe ...
Your cable-outers don't match? And you call yerself a cyclist!
That's a lot of bike for the money!
A near ideal sports road bike but there's very little choice and availability for bikes of that sort of spec.
Hydraulic discs dominate for these kind of bikes - adds nearly 50% to the cost of that bike - Halfords have a disc version
Then you get Di2 if you want a "better" bike, tubeless setups, 1x groupsets, pressfit bottom brackets, cables run inside frames, much of which is almost impossible to avoid.
All of these things not merely make a bike more expensive, but actively worse for a leisure cyclist. Crazy times.
The Claris version of that bike is below £600, and has everything you need to enjoy riding a bike.
A near ideal sports road bike but there's very little choice and availability for bikes of that sort of spec.
Hydraulic discs dominate for these kind of bikes - adds nearly 50% to the cost of that bike - Halfords have a disc version
Then you get Di2 if you want a "better" bike, tubeless setups, 1x groupsets, pressfit bottom brackets, cables run inside frames, much of which is almost impossible to avoid.
All of these things not merely make a bike more expensive, but actively worse for a leisure cyclist. Crazy times.
The Claris version of that bike is below £600, and has everything you need to enjoy riding a bike.
Your cable-outers don't match? And you call yerself a cyclist!
Apart from the cables running inside frames, I'm not sure how any of those things are actively worse for a leisure cyclist
They should be black or dark grey !
Hydraulic discs are more of a faff to maintain, make forks stiffer and add weight.
Di2 requires batteries to be charged
Tubeless is a total PITA
1x increases gear spacing and/or reduces gear range, requires very expensive cassettes.
The Claris version for me then please and more cash to spend on nicer/lighter wheelies!
There are reasons why I had my Rourke made the way I did, it's really simple maintenance-wise and robust. A change of wheelset and the overall weight wouldn't be too bad either.