Road Bicycle Buying Advice

[SVOboy]

I resent your hate-filled attack on carbon fiber.

[AndrewJ]

I knew it might bring on some resentment

But you must admit, it doesn't look like much fun...

[SVOboy]

Eh, I could find those pictures for steel, aluminum, and titanium as well. Internet picture shows aren't good statistics,

I will say this at least: it's more expensive to wreck a CF frame than a steel one,

[AndrewJ]

True dat, yo.

I still don't trust the stuff though.
And it has nothing to do with me being a crotchety old ******* either

Seems like everything these days is made for racing, or with racing in mind. And I don't have the luxury of a sag wagon to pick me up if I break something, or a team mechanic to fix things, or sponsors to give me new parts every season (or every time I break something)

But some people are starting to come around, just wish more people would go back to making steel frames. Aluminum just looks so ugly by comparison, with big nasty TIG beads all over the place, bleh. And you racing folks can keep your CF, at least it looks good.

[SVOboy]

Haha, it's just because everyone aspires to have what the people on TV have (and it's becoming really cheap to do that). If we could buy nascar stock cars for 2k you bet there'd be millions on the road,

[trebuchet03]

Normally, I'll come to defend the failure mode of CF... All that extra shattering is absorbing impact energy... I say normally, because in the case of a bike - you're still going ass over and you're still likely to have a head/neck/collar/chest impact despite the CF absorbing that extra energy...

All that said - I have a vintage Japanese (the brand escapes me) cro-mo frame at home. I found it by a dumpster, mostly stripped. The problem is - it got into an accident and torqued the whole frame... If the fork had bent or broken away, the entire frame would probably be perfectly in line...

I've seen this picture come up a few times


I think that one was from a crash caused by riding down a mountain...

Here's a more typical (when it fails) form of steel (even aluminum - although Al will fold/bend more) failure




But I tend to agree that having a bit more strength for pure commuting is a good idea

[Gone4]

Great tips and discussion

What do the touring guys use those racks for anyways? I guess I travel everywhere with a backpack and maybe people would put stuff on it instead? It doesn't seem like much could possibly be secured to them, unless I am horribly mistake. And fenders are just more money to keep me a bit cleaner/dryer...

I guess I should consider a touring bike as well. I looked in my local store and didn't see a single one so that derailed me from searching them out further. Do I lose a lot of potential speed/distance for comfort?

[SVOboy]

Riding with panniers is much nicer than having a load on your sweaty, gross back.

How far are you thinking you might bike? If you want to go 500 miles once a year, it might be worth it to just get a road bike and add some touring gear when you go, but if you're going on centuries to go camping every weekend, you might want a touring bike.

[Gone4]

I get the feeling it would be better to get a bike I can add the touring gear to. I don't see myself needing all that much most of the time. It's pretty ugly too

[SVOboy]

Ugly indeed...I'm prolly a bad person to actually be giving advice, since I've bitten the schwag apple...but then I've not actually bought and schwag for a long time, so I think it was just a phase,