Help choosing a new bike carbon fibre vs aluminium

RHJ

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Me..... if I had to make a choice I'd go aluminum for durability if it was just the one bike I had. Carbon is nice but easily damaged.

I've steel, carbon and aluminum and the battered aluminum bike gets cycled the most.......

Best of luck with your cycling......

Cee-Jay-Cee

For he sake of €300 I’d go with the carbon bike. You know you will regret it and be always wondering if you go with the alloy bike.

gambeta_fc

Disclaimer ... I'm just in from the pub so please take my ramblings with a pinch of salt.

At 700g you're talking about the weight of a filled water bottle. It will make a difference on hills but I think it's marginal in terms of combined bike and rider weight, if you're in or about ~80kg you're talking about a very small overall percentage difference.

The most bang for your buck is reportedly made on wheels, if you can use the difference on price for the ALU frame with better wheels I think you'd probably end up better off.

For reference I have an ALU Cannondale CAAD12 and a CF Synapse. I love the Synapse, find it more comfortable for longer spins but I'm convinced this is primarily the fact that I have 28mm tyres on the Synapse. Couldn't recommend them highly enough and would swear by them. I've yet to measure what the CAAD12 could take (came with 23mm, I've since put on 25mm) but I reckon the difference with the Synapse will be much harder to detect if they were both on 28mm.

RHJ

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Fian

There is constant references to N+1 on this forum - the rule that the number of bikes you need is always N+1, where N is the number you currently own. My first road bike was aluminium. It wasn't long before i wanted a carbon. I have my carbon bike for 2 years now. I don't have any hankering for an upgrade at all - I have absolutely no desire to change it.

If you buy aluminium you will soon start thinking about upgrading it to carbon. You will wonder about ride comfort when you come in from a hard cold ride feeling stiff.

The difference is probably more imaginary than physical. However differences in the head probably matter more than real differences - if a carbon bike were actually inferior but you believed it was better you would still want it - what you believe counts form more than objective truth in this context.

€300 will probably save you in the long run by prolonging your use of the bike before you hanker for another.

Edit: But if you are using the bike to commute on I would go aluminium. I have an alu hybrid to commute, my (replaced) alu road bike which is Kind of redundant and my precious carbon road bike. I would not use a carbon bike to commute or leave it parked where other bikes could bash into it when i am at work.

Oh and here is €1,600 ultegra CF bike:

https://www.rosebikes.com/bike/rose-pro-cgf-ultegra-6800-bike-now/aid:2655813

RHJ

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