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Originally Posted by ninjatalli I am all ears for suggestions and inputs on road bikes. Currently speaking with serious bikers too on the same. Keeping the budget open. |
There are many points to consider while choosing a road bike. This is going to be a long post and may even be adding to your confusion. But I believe you would make the right choice if you know about these factors. The information is what I gained in the past month in various online forums.
Frame:
Leaving aside full carbon frames which can cost above 1L, you can either choose a full aluminium/alloy frame and fork, or an aluminium/alloy frame with carbon fork. Usually, the entry level bikes of any brand or series would be full aluminium/alloy and mid and high end of the series would be aluminium/alloy frame and carbon fork. The advantage of a bike with carbon fork is that it would absorb some amount of vibrations on rough roads increasing the comfort level.
Geometry:
There are two types of geometries, endurance and race geometry. Endurance geometry would give you a more relaxed upright posture and is considered suitable for longer rides, whereas race geometry is more aggressive where your posture becomes more forward and downward. This reduces the aerodynamic drag and provides you with more acceleration and speed. But the downside is that if you are not very fit and flexible, riding long distances would be difficult. There are also bikes that have geometries in between these two. Even if you buy a bike with a race fit geometry, you could change it towards endurance fit by reducing the stem length.
Frame Size and Fit:
Choosing the right frame size and fit is the most important part of the decision. If you buy a bike that is not a correct fit for your body structure, you will most probably end up hating biking. Roughly the size of the frame can be chosen with your height and inseam (the length of your legs measured from your feet to the crotch). Once you have the right frame size, fine tuning can be done by adjusting seat height and stem length.
There are many online bike size calculators that you can use to decide on the bike size. The simplest ones just take your height and inseam, and the complicated ones take more measurements like torso, arm length, thigh length etc. Even though you can arrive at a rough size estimate from these calculators, the best would be to test ride the bikes to decide if that size suits you.
Group set:
The important components in a group set are the gear shifters, front deraileur (the mechanism that shifts the front gears), rear deraileur (the mechanism that shifts the rear gears), crankset (the front gear wheels) and the cassette (the rear gears). Generally most of the bikes have Shimano group sets. The entry level group set is 2300 followed by the Sora, Tiagra, 105, Ultegra and Dura Ace. As you go higher in the hierarchy, you get smoother gear shifts and lesser weight. In the aluminum frame bikes, entry level bikes usually come with 2300 or Sora, mid end come with Tiagra and high end models come with 105 and Ultegra. I would look for a minimum of Sora. In the group I ride with there are many bikes with Sora and I get very good feedback on the performance of this group set. So, you should be fine with a bike with Sora group set.
The crank sets come in two flavors - triple and compact. In the triple, you have three gears in the front similar to most MTBs. The advantage of the triple is that you get smaller gear size (30) on the smallest wheel. This gives you better climbing power. The downside is that there will be many duplicate gear ratio combinations and also the higher weight. The compact has two gears - 50/34 is the most common one. When you choose compact, pay attention to the rear cassette combination. If the cassette is say 12-25, the gear ratio will be 1.3 in the lowest gear. For a 12-30 cassette, the gear ratio will be 1.13 which gives you more climbing power.
Other Components:
Other components include the wheel sets, brakes, seat post, seats, handle bars etc. When we buy stock bikes, we do not have much control on these components. When you get to a more advanced stage, you could consider upgrading each of these components to better ones.
Now coming to some bike choices. I am just doing a rough classification on the entry/mid/high levels. There could be overlaps.
Entry Level (40K-60K):
Trek 1.1
KHS Flite 300
KHS Flite 350
Scott Speedster 50
Fuji Sportif 2.1
Cannondale CAAD8 7 Sora
Mid Level (60K - 80K):
Trek 1.5
Fuji Sportif 1.3
Scott Speedster 40
Scott Speedster 30
KHS Flite 500
Cannondale CAAD8 6 Tiagra
High End (80K-1.2L):
Scott Speedster 20
Bianchi Impulso 105
Cannondale CAAD8 5 105
Fuji Roubaix 1.3
Price wise, the brands in ascending order are: KHS, Fuji, Scott, Bianchi/Cannondale/Trek
I heard KHS and Fuji are great value for money brands. Many riders in my group ride these brands. For the same group set, these brands would cost 10 to 15k less than the other brands.
I am attaching a spreadsheet I created to compare the bikes. This will help in a side by side comparision of features vs. price. Not all the bikes listed above are in the chart.
Good luck with your road bike hunt. Hope I did not do more harm (confusion) than good
