2011 Tri Bike Conundrum..
MadDog2020
Posts: 20
in General Chat
Help! I am in the market for one of 2011's shiniest bits of kit in the £2000 bracket. 2011 will be my first full season of triathlon and having been bitten by the bug in my 4 sprint distance events in 2010, im stepping up to olympic distance for next year. To date, I have been punishing myself by dragging a 1999 vintage alu Trek 1000 around the events. However, the sight of some of these carbon marvels whipping past at warp-factor snot has prompted the sale of my beloved Kawasaki ZX6R so i can get my first dedicated tri bike. Don't let my sacrifice be in vain! I have narrowed my choice to: 2011 Cannondale Slice 105, 2011 Felt B16 & Trek Speed Concept 7.0 (at a stretch). For the life of me, i cant decide - can anyone with experience of these bikes pass on their thoughts?
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I love it but I'm due an upgrade, so it depends if I can get the right bike at the right price!
If you are interested let me know. You'd definately get some change out of £2000 and a top notch bike too. They were £2750 new and 2011 will be coming in at more like £3k.
You've listed 3 different bikes here:
2011 Cannondale Slice 105 - narrow/tall
2011 Felt B16 - long/low
Trek Speed Concept 7.0 - in the middle, possibly all things to all men but who knows.
So you need to consider your body type to work out which is likely to fit best.
Largeade - im 5ft 9ins and relatively have a longer torso in comparison to my legs, so maybe that rules the Felt out (long & low) in comparison with the Cannondale or Trek? I will do some deeper investigation into sizing - thanks for the link.
WelshAuditor - I looked at the Planet X, but see mixed reports out there. It certainly seems to have a lot of bang for the buck, but if things seem too good to be true they usually are in my experience. Do you / have you owned a PX before?
Wyno - thanks for the offer, but i work with carbon in the day job and would want to have a guarantee on the frame. There is always a risk of unseen damage that you don't know about that only a very thorough x-ray / NDT examination could rule out. Sounds like a great bike though.
long legs short body = tall narrow
So its a Felt (or Planet X) for you. But the Speed Concept seems on paper to fit an extremely wide range of types.
You will get more opinions than you can shake a shitty shit at, all with different likes/dislikes etc.
Best thing to do is go to a shop and take them all for a test drive.....then see how you like the handling etc and MOST IMPORTANTLY GET A FULL PROPER BIKE FIT CARRIED OUT.
You can spend 5k on a bike but if it doesnt fit you then its a waste of money, you would be better off on a £300 solid lead framed beast that actually fits.
Anyway enough of the helpful talk, Ill now just rant on about my opinions of each bike which in all honesty are not worth cock all to you, just what I think.
Cannondale Slice - Excellent bike (I thought about buying one) but can be quite harsh to ride
Felt B16 - Sketchy handling, not my cup of tea at all
Trek Speed Concept - As the Cannondale, excellent bike, however Trek have recently owned up to having problems with the seat post slipping (ask Shadow on this one he has recently bought one) Hence the delay in the main wave of deliveries. They have fixed this by using a shim on the clamp.
Also the BIGGEST PROBLEM with it for me, I would always be asking
"why didnt I save a little more money and buy the Speed Concept 9"
And for that reason alone I would not buy the SC7.
Therefore my conclusion would state buy the Cannondale.....
Good points all well made.
This was always going to attract a wealth of different opinions! Don't worry - I wouldn't dream of lashing out that kind of cash without having had a proper fit.
However, as i travel from one shop to another I see little consensus among the "experts" as the right purchase to make for my dimensions - all the advice in the specialist bike shops i have had so far has always been to buy one of the brands that they stock. No one shop stocks all of the major players and they are bound to push their own products. Test rides are also proving to be an issue (but i agree are essential) and the Trek & Cannondale in particular are proving to be about as common as rocking horse sh*t, and both have the aforementioned long lead times on supply (at least i now know why in the case of the Trek..).
So perhaps my question should be this: can anyone recommend an experienced and knowledgeable tri bike specialist that can provide an unbiased opinion of the right bike for me to buy based upon my size?
Mike the Bike at Bridgetown Cycles in Cannock......
He is a font of all knowledge and can get pretty much anything you like! He will stick you on the turbo and fit the bike to you, optimising your position etc for your goal races.....Short fast flat races?? Hilly Ironman courses?? No problems for Mike!
Although he does have a business to run, his opinion is always straight to the point of what he thinks is worth investing in.
You will not go wrong giving him a call on 01922 411180.
Tell him you have been chatting on the forum to the BCTTT guys and he will be sure to sort you out:)
Plus if the bike comes with the wrong size stem for example he will swap it for one that is for you!
A lot of other brands seem to have complete different frames in their cheaper lines. I will not spend more than 2K...and that planet x deal seems better every day.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... :MESELX:IT
What can I say.
As being the proud owner of SC7... and having owned it for two weeks and finally only getting to ride it on Sat/ Sun... feck me. Hussler is right, the SC7 and the SC9 do have a slight issue with the seat post but Trek are now fitting a little shim that works a treat. I got out on mine on Sat and I was really enjoyed it. Having not sat on a bike for 2 months getting on the Trek was brilliant. My sinlge biggest crit of the Trek is the aero bars it comes with - that elbow rests are far too narrow but I'll be looking to change the bars before the next season anyway.
As conehead says people do travel 400 miles to see him or even 12000 miles as in the case of the Japanese people who literally popped in to see him while visiting.. I travelled from the West of Scotland and have bought two bikes from Btown and had several other trips there just to see the shiny carbon bling upstairs...
I'm going to be biased and say get the Trek.
The guys were very open about the seat post issue and actually had the shims in stock pre supplied by Trek. My problem now (which isnt really because i wont be competing between now and then) is that they aren't expecting new stock until Feb 2011!
In the meantime i am beasting the turbo and hauling the museum piece up and down the hills so that i can do the new machine justice when it finally arrives. When it does, i shall pay Mike a visit to make sure that the set up is perfect.