Tell Me What Bike To Get

Tarckives Bikes
81

Definitely backing road bike cru here. A nice-ish fenderable road bike is going to be way more useful. Still kicking myself it took me so long to do it.

You don’t really need to spend custom money on a winter trainer type deal if you can find a stock frame that fits.Honky Tonk frameset from Sellwood. Smoothie with a Columbus Hiver fork, etc… Build up with components in your preferred 10 or 11 speedway.

As for a race bike I’ll defer to the racerbros/ladies here, but being able to swap the Powertap wheel between bikes sounds nice.

82

If you’re actually doing base miles and often alone then an Elephant would actually be super duper awesome. I love mine for that. Holy crap, no food stuffed in my back pockets, lights, fenders, wide-ass tires that are still fast, awesome on non-tarmac roads. And disc brakes are the future. Sorry bros. Ride a road-oriented bike with some modern discs. Try to test them. Bomb some descents (better if unpaved). They rock.

As far as what road bike to get: I mean does it really matter? You can get the same position on 99.9% of production road frames. Tire clearance for 28 and ability to mount fenders would be the only things I’d bother checking. Which one of those looks coolest? Done. I ride a $250 aluminum piece of shit I got off a domestic pro team on ebay 5 years ago and have no urge to upgrade.

83

Though tiny and all, your next cross bike will probably be disc, so it wouldn’t be a complete loss for wheels swaps down the road.

CAAD10 for road machine, no doubt.
If the comotion will do it for you over tarckee’s rec, then get it. More smiles per hour the better, especially in winter.

84

because of the price of hte comotion I don’t think you can beat it. I’d wait on disc a bit incase your next race frame does thru axle, etc. One of my coworks just got a carbon raleigh cx bike which is sick, but it uses 142x12mm on teh rear and a 15mm front thru axle. wait that shit out before you go all out.

85

This is a good point too. Once you have fenderroadbike you will end up using it a shitload, so make sure it’s something you’ll like and be stoked to ride.

86

[quote=Endpoint]tldr for the most part… but…

Whatever you do don’t get a lowmod or cheaper carbon frame as the race bike. Caad10 smokes the evo carbon as a race bike That’s not just my opinion on it either. We GAVE our elite team guys lowmod ultegra evos to race on and they pratically begged to go back to the caad10 frames they had last year. If you’re not balling with himod money stick with caad10. No better race bike for anything close to that price. Full stop. Evo carbon is great if you are non racer that needs a smaller head tube than the Synapse but race rig it is not.

For that other bike… yeah get something with 41.5cm stays, 7cm drop, room for 35s, and fender mounts and commit to the concept of a winter trainer light gravel bike or just train on the caad10 with gatorskins or something because it’s a caad10 and get a mountain bike.[/quote]

Hey, thanks for that. That’s really useful.

I could just get a new caad10 and use it for everything and get a mtb, but I think I’d rather spend the money now on bikes that will get ridden more. The idea behind getting a winter/rain bike and a race bike that I like both of is that I can hopefully distribute some of the wear. Doug spends a lot of time fixing up my current bike because that poor thing takes a beating. I feel like I’m buying new stuff for it every couple weeks (it was about to have a fall makeover as well, which meant new cables, probably new cassette, new tires, etc. I have replaced the entire drivetrain twice, had four sets of wheels for it), and while I know that having two bikes won’t totally fix this, I am hoping that it will make things a bit more manageable, in that at the very least, I won’t be having to make weekly trips to replace things and won’t need to rebuild my wheels every five months. I also do like the idea of having one bike that gets a bit less use and stays pretty.

Tarckee, unfortunately, Kona does not work for me. I’ve test ridden the Honky Tonk in the past and had a Jake cross bike. Something about their geometry just doesn’t feel good at all for me. Plus, probably not going to pay retail when I can get shopbro or team price.

Lukasz, I said it earlier, but the Elephant doesn’t come in my size, so the point is moot, but CoMotion is on the table because I get a great deal on them. I definitely see what you’re saying about things like integrated lighting, though.

87

Norwester it is then! Build with a dyno front wheel, run cheap 105 drivetrain parts into the ground and go for the stoke.

88

Not pushing the Elephant specifically but if you’re going to have more than one bike, might as well differentiate them a bit. In a race you forget what you’re riding roughly 45 seconds in anyway.

89

Admittedly I was on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, but I owned an Evo himom for a year or so in a size 60. Those things are stupid light, and stupid stiff… but not in a completely positive way. I am fairly light for my height, and this thing bucked me like no other bike I’ve ridden. Biggest issue for me was that, through corners, the thing was on absurd rails; it could lean and stick for days… but if you tried to change lines it would resist, resist, and then hop the rear wheel to the new line. Fucking terrifying at >20mph in a race situation. It was a stupid light frame and climbed like a rocket, but it was far from a comfortable bike in my experience (BMC TMR01 was much more comfy for me). Also I cracked a chainstay accelerating away from a stop sign and it took way too long to get a replacement…

Caveat: this was the first year they were out, and my fit/weight distribution is on the opposite extreme of the bell curve so not sure how valid any of this is for you, really.

If you are dead set on a cannondale, I’d vote CAAD10 + balleur wheels (I’m all about something wide, light, and tubeless for maximum crossplay)

Biggest tip I can give is ride as many as you can, see what fits the best and get that. I went from back to back top of the line frames to a “middle of the road” carbon frame that is by far the best handling and best riding bike I have ever been on. Long term ride comfort and handling is worth far more to me than a few hundred grams of weight or a few grams of drag.

Do you have a fit currently on your road bike that you’re happy with? If so, given the stack and reach of your bike vs the various options, what would the fit look like (stem length, bar position, setback, etc.)? Get what fits, it’ll be the most fun to ride and will make you faster.

90

I really liked the CAAD 10 that I rode. I think I may have liked it better than my tarmac. This is just me, but if you’re not super stoked about CX/mixed terrain, I’d stay away from a cx bike for winter. Get something alloy that wont rust or mind being wet. I’d say something aluminum with rival or force. A spooky is cool if you want something less common.

if you are itching for a CX bike, squidbikes is new and good. This is a disc model, but they have a canti model too

I only have a cross bike, and it’s what I ride, though every single one of my rides takes me on dirt at some point since it’s so plentiful here.

Have you thought about a Ti bike for winter? You want something that makes you want to ride it even when the weather sucks. Ti may be squishy for racing, but its really nice for putting in base miles on shitty pavement. I took a ti seven out during the wet TX winter and I intended to be out for a few minutes. I ended up out riding for four hours. I had just gotten to the shop to put a deposit down when work whisked me away to California forever. I still wish I’d bought that bike. I destroyed my Tarmac like a week later in LA.

Once I’m done with the god awful often depressing hell that is docschool I’m pretty bent on getting a Dogma or a Parlee Z5 depending on what they look like in a couple years. Sometimes you need something that motivates you to keep pedaling when the weather is bad up there.

CoMotion makes cool bikes. I’m tempted as the shop that does my Broakland is also selling CoMotion. I always thought of them more as a tandem company, but for short folk, the stock geometries often suck and going custom is a good choice despite the weight penalty of metal over carbon.

Ultimately the bike that motivates you to ride more is the best bike.

91

no lady of mine is gonna ride a Ti bike. gross.

92

<3

93

<3[/quote]

94

<3[/quote][/quote]

95

JP, still not solid enough on geo to suggest something firm. I’m given to taking it your definition of gravel stops at roads paved with small stones and a grader. No more mountain bike chat then.

Budget remains hidden in secrecy too. The mention of anything related to frugal or used in reference to the secondary bike has been brushed aside. So those too appears to be off the table. Focus is narrowing to having your A road bike for training(and early season racing) and your A+ road racing machine. Correct?

Leaving the rim/disk/coaster/brakeless silliness alone too. No matter which there are enough parts and support going forward it’s a nonissue. What is concerning, and hammers at the need for durability, is how in the fuck you wreck every part of your bike multiple times a year. Two bikes beat to shit one degree less is not a solution to this. Yet another mystery surrounding this situation.

Final word

Look at the new school(cough cough California sunshine and groomed courses) CX race bikes that have near road race bike dimensions, hidden fender mounts, and PNW appropriate tire clearance. All that and it’s designed for the type of hard assed destructive behavior you intimate is brought to the table every single fucking day you wage war on the faster descending hussies keeping you from dominating.

Break legs not bike parts.

96

^^^ The Finnegan’s Wake of bike advice.

Rando, please write a novel and I will buy it.

97

[quote=Endpoint]tldr for the most part… but…

Whatever you do don’t get a lowmod or cheaper carbon frame as the race bike. Caad10 smokes the evo carbon as a race bike That’s not just my opinion on it either. We GAVE our elite team guys lowmod ultegra evos to race on and they pratically begged to go back to the caad10 frames they had last year. If you’re not balling with himod money stick with caad10. No better race bike for anything close to that price. Full stop. Evo carbon is great if you are non racer that needs a smaller head tube than the Synapse but race rig it is not.[/quote]

Care to elaborate on this a bit? Deciding on this trade off now, and was getting the EVO due to lower weight and slightly better compliance. Your advice here is a bit different than I’ve heard.

98

Well the evo carbon that they use on the lower end bikes is well over a pound heavier than hi-mod and I have my suspicion that it’s actually below the first gen low-mod evo frames in carbon quality.

Basically it rides like a VERY average carbon bike. It’s smooth but kindof dead. Nothing like the hi mod which has a very pleasant ride. Same deal with the Synapse. Cheap carbon is smooth but meh. Himod feels like a race bike.

I would look at it in these terms:
EVO Himod is a carbon caad10. Everything about the caad10 is improved upon. Lighter, smoother, stiffer, blah blah better.
EVO lowmod is a carbon bike that happens to share geometry with the other two.

Caad10 has the same fork as the low mod evo from what I can tell now and the frame weights are pretty damn close if you stack the anodized caad10 frame (which now comes in the ultegra level not just black inc) against a painted low mod evo frame.

Cheap evo does give you get a bit more give in the frame in both directions. Perfect for club riders who gotta have carbon. Not worth it at all over the caad10 atmo.

At retail $2270 gets ano caad10 with Ultegra, taiwan hollowgrams, and shit wheels
At retail $2270 gets cheap evo with 105, heavy ass gossamer cranks, and shit wheels

To get the same spec as the ultegra caad10 you literally have to pay $1000 more at retail for the cheap evo.

Choice is clear to me.

99

yeah they’ve certainly pushed the normal evo towards mediocrity in the last couple iterations. my 2012 rode like a brick compared to my 2008.

i agree with the caad10 idea, especially since the geo works so well for her. however appearances are everything, and the current rage is carbon.
i don’t want her feeling left out. maybe just get the hi mod? i mean im not gonna be at the bike shop forever. this is probably the last bike she buys at EP

100

I wrote a nice response but my phone deleted it

That 1000$ gets you a set of great alloy clinchers to kings, 500$ from a ffwd f2r, or halfway to a set of ENVE 1.25’s to whatever hub you want, building up sub 1100g. It comes down to budget. If you want to balleur out, go for it