About Road Bikes & Buying a Road Bike
· I do enjoy finesse at times. And for me anyhow, it's hard to be finessing a mountain bike bounding down a steeply angle dirt cliff with tree roots on it and drops. Some can...but not me. I just hold on for the ride <grin>. I do love the raw speed you get with every pedal stroke in a road bike. I love their tight frame angles, their high-pressure, skinny tires, and the way your body melts into the bike like it's a pricey Italian suit. It's no secret -- a road bike lets you go further faster than any other bike out there.
· Buying the right road bike starts by determining your proper frame size. Some bike shops ofer the Fit Kit bike fit system to help compute your ideal frame size. But it's not rocket science. You can figure out your frame size by testing a number of bikes and listening to what various bike experts tell you. Be aware that each manufacturer, like clothing manufacturers, seem to have a different view of what a particular frame size is. And even once you've identified the frame size, there are still more variations...top tube length, seat post angle, fork rake angle etc. Buying the correct size frame and fit for you is an absolutely critical part of the road bike buying process. There are aftermarket stems and items to fine tune it to you though. Unlike a mountain bike, where you'll slide your body around and shift your weight constantly throughout a ride, your body position on a road bike is far more fixed. Because your position is static, you need to make sure it's right.
· Once we know the right size, you need to choose the frame material. You have four basic choices: steel, aluminum, carbon fiber, and titanium.
Fifteen years ago, steel was your only choice. Nowadays you rarely see a steel frame on a bike shop's sales floor. Why? Aluminum frames are cheaper to produce, and they're lighter. Why would you want to buy steel nowadays?
You want a frame built in a time-honored fashion lugged and silver brazed. In this case, you're basically buying a piece of art as much as a bike. Steel is the only metal that can economically and technically be used with lugs. These simple -- and often beautiful -- sockets at each frame tube joint reinforce the joint to improve strength, reliability and (fatigue) life. Silver or brass brazing completes the structure with minimal metallurgical damage (unlike welding which must melt the metal under essentially uncontrolled conditions). If you're interested in a classically-styled bike, you owe it to yourself to check out the Serotta CSI. It's unquestionably the most lovingly-constructed, best-engineered steel frame in the bike industry.
Fact is, steel tubing has evolved over the last few years as much as aluminum as titanium. The tensile strengths of steel bicycle tubing have doubled in the last few years, leading to lighter and livelier, and most importantly, more comfortable frames. The ride of a top-notch steel bike is unique. Steel has a higher density than other frame materials, so it provides a more lively ride and better feedback when riding at close to the limit of traction.
Aluminum is the most popular frame material by a mile. Why? It's outlandishly light, extremely durable, and more affordable than any other material out there. 90% of the road bikes sold are aluminum. Cannondale is well known for it's aluminum frames and I think pretty much only makes aluminum frames.
Aluminum frames are made for climbing. No other frame feels quite as nice when you're heading uphill the side-to-side stiffness of a high quality aluminum frame like Cannondale's CAAD4 frame feels magical when you stand up out of the saddle and accelerate up a steep grade.
Carbon Fiber is a frame material that gained a degree of popularity in the late 80's and early 90's. You'll still see some exotic professional race bikes made out of carbon. The old carbon frames have long-term durability problems. They were carbon frames that were basically glued together, and these bonds have a nasty habit of loosening then breaking over time. To make matters worse, carbon fiber molds are so expensive to manufacture that you can't get a custom geometry frame if you need one. Carbon frames are light, carbon frames look cool. Some of the latest carbon frames have made vast improvements and are definitely worth a look. I have two carbon frame bikes myself. They are not cheap, but they are light.
Titanium is the most highly regarded frame material in the world. It's impressively light, it's the most resistant to fatigue and corrosion, and it delivers the most cushy ride quality of any material. It has lateral stiffness near that of an aluminum bike, and it feels magically shock absorbent between your body and the road. When you buy a titanium bike, you're truly buying a bike for a lifetime. The titanium tubing won't fatigue during a lifetime of riding. Yes, it's expensive, but you'll never regret it unless you just have the wrong bike. I will buy a Ti bike...once I'm really set on which one I want. Serotta's Legend Ti, Concours, and Classique Ti frames have all stood the test of time and remain as the benchmarks for quality in the titanium frame market.
· Once you've chosen your frame, you need to decide the componentry you'll use on the bike. The most popular manufacturer of road bike components is Shimano. There's a hierarchy to their five component lines: Dura-Ace, Ultegra, 105, Tiagra, Sora. (For some reason, they seem to change the names of their component lines so in past years, you'll find different names.) As you spend more money your shifting will get crisper, the parts will get lighter and more durable, your bearing quality will improve. The connoisseur's choice is Dura-Ace. Owning a Dura-Ace-equipped bike is like having a Formula 1 Ferrari parked in your garage. But like that Ferrari...are you the driver for it? I think that Dura-Ace is some really good stuff. But it is really expensive too. Ultegra is very very good also. A few grams in weight difference will help Lance Armstrong win a sprint. Will it help me ride better? Is my bike the limiting factor in my racing or is my bike? These are good questions to ask yourself when considering the ultra high end components. Will it make you feel better about your bike? Yes, it will. <grin> It's strangely reassuring to know that your bike is equipped identically to the ones being raced in the Tour de France. It's really, really nice stuff. If you're trying to get the most value for your money, Ultegra and 105 are both high-performance groups that forgo some of the costly bells & whistles of Dura-Ace. Tiagra and Sora are the groups you'll find on entry-level road bikes. One important consideration is whether you'll want a "double" or "triple" bike in other words, whether you want the traditional setup of two chainrings on your crankset, or if you'll want three chainrings (like a mountain bike). If you're in Texas, I think a double front chainring is fine. Some newbies will want a triple at first, because they are not used to riding and really go hunting for that lower gear (granny gear) when climbing up some of our "hills". But after a season of riding, you'll find that you can actually SPRINT up the same hills you used to have to stop and take a break on. So...learn to suffer young man/woman and in time, you'll be rewarded for it.
· What about Campagnolo? Yes, Campy still makes bike components. It's the most beautiful stuff in the business, but compared to Shimano it's heavier and more expensive. Hey, it's Italian. So is Ferrari. Get the idea? It's good. It's old world. It's time honored. (It also has a habit of making more noise when spinning than Shimano...something I can't get over.) Even though Campy makes 5 lines of components, you're probably best served with their ultra-deluxe Record group (equivalent to Shimano's Dura-Ace), or their slightly heavier, slightly less expensive Chorus group (equivalent to Shimano's Ultegra).
