Road bike recommendations

Hey guys, you seen this?
http://road.cc/content/news/143527-exclusive-first-ride-mason-progressive-cycles-resolution

If we're routing through the road cc archive I'm looking forward to hopefully getting a full review of this in the next few days, really like the look of this,

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Repost ;-)

Giant Propel bro

Mason Cycles pricing announced:

• The Resolution frameset is £1,459. The frame is Columbus steel and the fork is a carbon monocoque, Mason’s own design. The price includes a Mason seat collar, Deda headset, a MultiPort cable stop set, and marine grade stainless steel bolts.

• The Definition frameset is £895. The frame is Dedacciai aluminium. The fork and all the other elements are the same as above.

Cash money. Too expensive to be competitive in my opinion with the Condor Fratello disc frameset costing only £699...

Right, my last frame has cracked and I may possibly have £1500 to spend on a frameset and wheels. Im just about to start racing, so not going for a carbon frame.

I'm leaning towards either a bowman palace frame or the canyon ultimate AL SLX. Does anyone have any advice on which to go for?

For wheels I was thinking the arc 31 ultrawide wheelset: http://www.superstarcomponents.com/en/arc31-ultrawide-wheelset.htm

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Funnily enough I am also considering a road bike build around £2000 - £2.5k. Personally I think the biggest contenders are Cervelo and Canyon, you absolutely cannot beat Canyon for good value against performance, and Cervelo have got some good pedigree/reviews.

I'm probably going to get a Fondriest TF3 as a complete wildcard due to the fact that I've ridden one and a good friend/ex-boss of mine owns a shop that sells them so I'll get a good deal.

Would be interested to see what you go for.

I'd go for bowman

Look into rosebikes, some very good full bike deals on their aluminium framesets.

Specialized have their allez with smartweld that's meant to be as good as the go-to aluminium frame, the caad10 (check ebay, often has very good caad10 deals)

@Zed any particular reason?

@noBlakes I already have a groupset, so there's no need for a full bike. Was thinking about specialized, but the bowman/canyon looks like it has the edge.

NOS aluxx sl tcrs are an option if you can find them.

I've had two Ultimate AL's, and a CAAD 10, the 10 was a better climber, but thats my perception.

I'm on a Canyon Roadlite atm, not much difference between them.

I'd probably only go 23mm wide rims

Too expensive to be competitive in my opinion with the Condor Fratello disc frameset costing only £699...

So the Definituon looks like the go-to one. C.£1,500 is a lot for an unknown brand's OTP frame.

You know it's too expensive when Condor's version is cheaper! There will also be the Kinesis and Genisis options which should be cheaper still.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Second hand CAAD8 complete from ebay? Then sell the parts you don't need/want to keep as spares.

Depending on the day and your luck it should only cost you c£300 which gives you £1,200 to put towards a pair of Zipps, HED.s, or coaching sessions.

£1,500 is a lot for an unknown brand's OTP frame

I thought it was basically Dom from Kinesis UK designing the steel frames he always wanted to etc.

Fair enough, it's annoying the spesh is only availible as an £800 frameset and there's not too many floating around second hand

If you're wanting semi-exotic aluminium, there's the van dessel alluminator which is meant to be alright, not sure it's worth the cost+import though

Carbon is way more durable than aluminium. Get carbon or nothing. Alu is crap. Steel is better.

@chip was there any advantage with the Al?
@hugo7 whilst that comes sound like a good deal I'm more interested in a frame set, and a better one than a caad 8 (having said that I'm only going from word of mouth, no idea how they ride)
@noBlakes I was thinking of the van dessel hellafaster, but again, import costs etc. Also, reviews state the bowman is better (which I would assume means that the Al is faster)

Yep. I mean, Dom is obviously knows his shit and the frames look super tidy but that price point is hiiiiggghh.

If Genesis release their Volare with disc brakes, that'd be perfect.

Maybe "newcomer" or something similar would have been more diplomatic. Obviously I realise that's it's not like Danny Foffa has teamed up with Mielec, but it's still a new company so you have those inherent risks. Which also not to say you shouldn't take them but it's a lot of £s.

I'm just bitter as I really love the design of them and hoped they'd be around the Condor price mark.

Its an award winning frameset. Check out their social media feeds.

You'd be supporting a small fledgling UK business, who support UK grass roots racing.

They have small dealer network, which are all small independent bike shops (or have partnered with small retailers, eg Giro Cycles in Esher or Cyclelab in Shoreditch).

Let me know if you need more reasons...

Is the colour nice?

External cable routing (unlike the Canyon or Rose)
The 'correct' seatpost dia' (unlike the Rose)
The 'correct' steerer dia' (unlike the Canyon)
The 'correct' BB standard (unlike the Cannondale).

...a few grams heavier though...