Buying a Road Bike
Home Up Road Bike Highlights Buying a Road Bike Bike Fit Trek Road Specialized Road Cannondale Road

 

74 Main Street Middlebury Vermont (802) 388-6666

   

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Priorities When Selecting a Road Bike

  1. Frame:  The frame is the heart of your bike, and it's the most expensive part of your bike to upgrade.  The right combination of fit and comfort are essential to your enjoyment of your new bike.  Stiffness in the right places will help you get more out of your bike, especially when you are climbing (power transfer) and descending (stability).  Click for frame materials review.
  2. Wheels:  Wheels have more effect on performance than any other component on your bike.  This is why we put them second, after your frame, and ahead of your component group.  Before you continue, we suggest you visit our page on Choosing Wheels. We offer a wheel upgrade credit if you want to upgrade your wheels when you purchase your bike.
  3. Group:  SRAM and Shimano make outstanding groups at top, second, third, and even fourth level, with a weight penalty each time you go to a lower group.  With 10spd groups, performance of the lower groups for each brand is closer to top-of-the-line than ever before.  If you haven't considered compact cranks, we suggest you consider the option.
  4. Shoes:  Many customers don't think of shoes as part of the bike, but if you want to get the most out of a road bike, you should consider shoes as part of your purchase.  Specialized and Bontrager (Trek) offer some of the finest shoes on the market.
  5. Cockpit:  Bar, stem, saddle, post -- except for your pedals, this is where you connect with your bike.  Contact points should be comfortable, so swapping saddles and handlebars to ensure good fit is something we commonly do.  Click for Specialized and Bontrager (Trek) component links.  These are the cockpit components you will see on 70 to 80 percent of our road bikes.

Picking your group:  SRAM 

If you're looking for performance, light weight, great ergonomics, and reasonable prices, SRAM gives you the biggest bang for the buck.  Here are the SRAM groups at a glance:

Apex -- See bikeradar.com, Velonews, and Road Bike Action reviews of the new SRAM Apex group
SRAM's newest, most economical road group
Offers a medium cage rear derailleur and 11-23 through 11-32 cassettes
Top-notch performance at a budget price
SRAM Rival
Elite-level performance 
Lighter and less expensive than Shimano Ultegra 6700
Black anodized finish 
SRAM Force -- See cyclingnews.com review and roadbikeaction.com reviews of of 2010 Force 
BB30 and standard versions
Improved -- 2010 Force is essentially a Red group with standard bearings instead of ceramic
As light as Shimano Dura-Ace 7900, a little cheaper than Shimano Ultegra 6700
Elegant gun-metal polished finish
SRAM Red  
BB30 and standard versions
Now one of the lightest, stiffest cranksets cranksets on the market
Advanced materials include carbon, titanium, and hybrid ceramic bearings
Lighter and cheaper than Shimano Dura-Ace 7900
Super Low Gears -- for extreme hillclimb events like Burke, Equinox, Ascutney, and Mount Washington, or for customers who want a gear lower than 34-28 or 34-32.  We can do this by substituting components in SRAM's new 10spd mountain group to give a 34-34 or a 34-36 low gear -- lower than a 30-28, which is the lowest you can go with a triple:
10spd SRAM MTB rear derailleur
10spd Cassette 11-34 or 11-36.  Shimano 10spd mountain cassettes work great with SRAM mountain rear derailleurs, so although SRAM only offers 11-32 and 11-36, we find that a Shimano 11-34 offers the most logical spacing for a long-distance wide-range rear cassette:  11-13-15-17-19-21-24-27-30-34.

Picking your group:  Shimano

See cyclingnews.com reviews of Ultegra 6700, Dura-Ace 7900, and 105 5600   The ergonomics of the new shift levers are a dramatic improvement over first-generation 10spd Shimano.  Our own experience with the new groups has been very positive to date:

Shimano 2200 -- Shimano's 8spd road group, often used with Shimano Sora shifters.
Shimano Sora -- Shimano's least-expensive 9spd group
Shimano Tiagra -- Shimano's best 9spd group
Shimano 105 5600 -- the best 105 yet, offering the ergonomic and performance advantages of 7900 and 6700, but at a lower price.
Shimano Ultegra 6700 -- For riders who are on a budget that precludes 7900, the "new Dura-Ace" may very well be Ultegra 6700, which replaces Ultegra 6500 and Ultegra SL 6600 and offers almost identical functionality to 7900 at a significant savings.
Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 -- cranks continue to set the industry standard for stiffness, the brakes for stopping power, and the front derailleur for smoothest shift.  You can take some of the bite out the high cost of 7900 by substituting Ultegra 6700 brake calipers and cassette.
Super Low Gears -- we are sorry to say that with 10spd Shimano, the biggest cog you can use is a 28.  Shimano 10spd mountain derailleurs are not compatible with Shimano 10spd shifters.  In this respect, Shimano is not as versatile as SRAM.  The lowest Shimano road gear is a 30-28 (triple).

7900, 6700, and 5600 are lighter than their predecessors in the Shimano 10spd groups.  The new Dura-Ace cranks are available in standard (7900) and compact (7950) configurations.  The new Ultegra cranks come in standard (6700), triple (6703), and compact (6750) versions.