So, I wanted 11 speed, carbon, disc brakes and bolt through and was looking favorably at the KTM Revelator Sky and the focus cayo 3.0 disc with a sideways glance at the Trek Domane 4.5

However, a bit more digging and it seems that if the lever seals leak, the whole lever is scrap. Two bikes (for me and the wife) at £155 a lever is off putting.

So, now looking at rim braked bikes. Spotted the Giant TCR Advanced 1 at £1500 and wondering where the catch is, seems like a real bargain.

What else is worth a look then? Rather Ultegra than 105 if we can, and carbon just because we’ve never had carbon bikes. Tubeless compatible wheels might be nice as well. Only doubt with the TCR is that our long country rides intention is a bit more Defy than TCR.

What else is worth a look? 2014 Defy Advanced 1 looks nice but that Overdrive 2 stem looks like a pain to fine tune the fit.

As in first ever road bikes? If so, that’s an awful lot of “wants”

Have you tried roadbikes at all?

Also, what do you mean by long country rides?

My carbon TCR is fine for 100mile+ rides on less than perfect country roads.. Inversely, I wouldn’t want to ride my mates Defy to the end of the street with its humongous head tube.

What makes you think the seals are going to leak? The brake manufacturers have all been making hydraulic brakes for years so there’s no reason why their road brakes should suddenly leak.

Hydraulic discs are a great idea for a road bike that’s going to be used in wet manky conditions. If you plan on riding only in the dry, rim brakes are perfectly adequate.

You don’t actually need 11 speeds so if you find something with 10 at a cheaper price, go for it. For an amateur rider the standard “compact” 50/34 chainset is fine, along with gears 11-27 or 11-30 if you live somewhere hilly.

Carbon is a good idea because it’s carbon, along with STI shifters, comfortable handlebars and saddles and wide ranges of easy gears, that has been responsible for bringing so many novices into road cycling.

You don’t actually need Ultegra; 105 is considered the gold standard in value for money and works the same as Ultegra, in fact the new 105 has been reviewed as the best ever road groupset (and it’s 11 speed).

Buy a decent frame in a lowish spec model such as a Roubaix SL4 Sport then save your money for accessories and for upgrading the components later on, starting with some good tyres, then some stiff light wheels and perhaps later some lighter major components like the crankset.

Road riding is all about spending longer times in the saddle and moving much faster than on a mountain bike so you will need snug-fitting windproof clothes that don’t flap annoyingly. Bike fit is much more important so if you can get a basic bike fit session thrown in, so much the better. Any good dealer should measure your basic dimensions and sell you the right frame.

First road bike for the wife. I’ve got a Tripster that I used to use for commuting and also used to train and complete an ultra triathlon earlier in the year so not very first but I’ll hold my hand up to knowing a lot less about road bikes than I do about mountain bikes.

Just lately, I’ve seen enough XT levers with gummed up master cylinders that have no fix other than replacement to feel wary of Shimano levers right now. Some just outside that two year warranty period. I’ve been running discs on mountain bikes without issue since Hope made one nameless disc brake so I’m sold on the concept and if the hydraulic STi wasn’t so disposable, I’d be there.

I know we don’t really “need” 11 speed. All the mountain bikes are still 9 speed. Just like the idea of giving the kit the longest life span I can and it’s available within the budget so why not. Not against 105 but I do like nice kit, hence I know I’m likely to upsell myself to Ultegra.

I’d imagine most rides will be a couple of hours from the door towards the hilly stuff or occasional days out in the Peak District, not looking to break any records, just like the idea of covering more ground than we could on the mountain bikes.

Both the bikes you mentioned have shimano discs (KTM Revelator Sky and the focus cayo 3.0 disc), I though it was SRAM’s Road discs that they released last year which were withdrawn due to a low temperature seal failure issue, I didn’t think that shimano’s new road brakes had already developed issues… Are you sure you read the right rumours OP?

Whatever fits her after a couple of hours. Nowt else matters.

Why not look at something with TRP HyRd disc brakes on it?

TCR might be limited to 23mm tyres. Defy Advanced 2014 is an awesome bike and they do enough frame sizes that you probably won’t need to change the stem (if you can still find one).

I’d look at the Canyon Endurace or CF SL too.

I’m speculating regarding the Shimano levers based on what I’ve seen recently with the XT levers. SRAMS not really an option since I don’t like doubletap. That’s why I’m now moving away from my original idea of discs. Don’t fancy cable operated discs, so I’m now looking at rim brakes given that we’ll probably not be riding them when it’s really foul outside, just a bit of drizzle or road spray.

Useful info about the TCR regarding tyre size. Given the riding we’ll be doing, 28s might even be on the wish list.

Funny the Canyon Endurance should get a mention. Compared to what the wife has sat on so far, it seems shorter and taller which can only be a good thing for her.

I’m speculating regarding the Shimano levers based on what I’ve seen recently with the XT levers. SRAMS not really an option since I don’t like doubletap. That’s why I’m now moving away from my original idea of discs. Don’t fancy cable operated discs, so I’m now looking at rim brakes given that we’ll probably not be riding them when it’s really foul outside, just a bit of drizzle or road spray.

Useful info about the TCR regarding tyre size. Given the riding we’ll be doing, 28s might even be on the wish list.

Funny the Canyon Endurance should get a mention. Compared to what the wife has sat on so far, it seems shorter and taller which can only be a good thing for her.

TCR is not limited to 23mm.infact 28 should fit (as 25mm with guards works fine)

The TCR Advanced is a superb bike. Will take 25c tyres fine. 28c may be more of a squeeze. For a first road bike, it is the equivalent of a race car – but all-day comfortable. The Defy may be a little more suitable because it has a slightly longer head tube, shorter top tube and very slightly slower steering. I’ve raced both and there is little in it. Mine Defy is running Vittoria 27c Pave tyres with no issues. The 2015 disk-braked Defys will not take mudguards, the TCR will take Raceblade Longs.

Buy with confidence, and don’t over-think disks. Ultegra calipers will stop you in the wet, provided you aren’t using carbon rims.

No plans for carbon rims. I am thinking of swapping to swiss-stop pads as well.

However, a bit more digging and it seems that if the lever seals leak, the whole lever is scrap. Two bikes (for me and the wife) at £155 a lever is off putting.

Not really scrap, as they will be replaced via warranty.

for the first two years. But you’re left high and dry from 25 months and onwards. As these will be extra bikes rather than main bikes, I doubt I’ll give it enough use to fail at 23 months every time. In fact, I have a knack of things going just after the warranty.

Happy to be corrected about the TCR, was basing my comment on the account of an owner with one from a few years back – hence the “might”.

Worth noting though that a frame might have clearance for wider tyres when static, but they may rub on the stays when you’re honking it up the hills. Personal experience of this myself.

So, TCR is still worth a look then.

For a first road bike, it is the equivalent of a race car – but all-day comfortable.

This is quite right. Love my TCR. Not had any trouble with 25mm tyres (reckon 28mm would be rather a tight squeeze, I’d not like to try it.) Never tried fitting any sort of guards though. Really is a race bike you can ride all day (well at least it is for me!) If you want a bike to ride fast for a few hours, the TCR is great. If you want a bike for a comfortable all day pootle then maybe look elsewhere.

That TCR Advanced 1 is a corker, first I thought that was a mistake about the price.
The TCR is fine for distance, it’s stiff where it matter and compliant where is doesn’t. Though personally the longest I’ve gone on a TCR is 180+ miles.
It would need clip on type guards.
23c’s are default, takes 25c’s but even with those any road debris clinging to the tyre will often rub the frame. Myself I’d not go 28c anyway.

The Defys are great bikes. The alloy ones take a unique full guard and have a fair bit of clearance. Probably 25c with guards.
These bikes aren’t slow either. Despite having another ‘nice bike’ I opted to take the Defy to my yearly Pyrenean trip, and to Belgium to ride all the main Bergs as well as other European trips. It gets used every weekend. And this year I did my SR on it. a series of 200, 300, 400 and 600km rides. It was great.

This year it rained a fair bit in the Pyrenees, calipers were wonderfully predictable and didn’t suffer a bilisecond of fade hooning off several HC climbs in the wet. Discs are great also.

Cheque in the post please Giant

Thanks for that. I’m now looking at 2014 Giant Defy Advanced 1. The reason for looking at the TCR was that all the carbon Defys now have discs.

Mind you, the Canyon Endurace is looking good. Just trying to work out what that bottom bracket is!

As a first road bike, i’d pick the Defy. But if it wasn’t available, then I’d pick the TCR. The advanced carbon frames are excellent, Giant finishing kit is pretty good and their wheels robust. You will be very satisfied with either. Giant’s sizing is pretty good. I’m 179 cm and ride a Medium in both. My defy has a longer stem for the shorter top tube.

Personally, i’d try and avoid white.

With all due respect to TiRed.. I’d completely ignore his recommendation.
Firstly, his use of the bikes sounds very different to yours and secondly it’s entirely his personal preference.
I jus so happen to be 1cm taller than him and also ride a medium TCR. I have ridden a medium Defy and not only was it too short for me but that taller head tube meant there was no way I could have run my bars low enough. If I were to go for the correct length Defy I would have had to jump to a. M/L which has an even taller headtube.. You see where I’m going with this?
To make a decision between the two, Find a Giant dealer and ride both for yourself.

From my blog. My experience of a Giant fitting.

Wattbike Powerfit

As an oldfart I’d always been cynical of bike fits. I sort of trusted the bikeshop owners back in the day, you know the ones that wore brown shop coats and had raced the London – Holyhead or some such epic road race before hanging up their wheels to sell to us. Sadly they seemed to disappear with the old steel frames that came in every size under the sun, the same time strangely that bikes started to come in small medium and large.
So it was then that I spent a life of ‘nose low bum high’ on my bikes, even my mountain bikes. Roll on thirty odd years and you begin to wonder if that was right. Well actually I started to wonder because it seems no one can buy a bike these days without needing a bike fit, I mean it’s not rocket science is it? Does everyone ride like a retard until the local Paul Daniels at the bike fit company sorts them out? I was still cynical.
Here’s my issue….feel free to comment. The basic bike fit, someone that’s never seen you before measures you up, and using a set of formulas sets your bike up to fit you, and you give them a hundred quid.
So your bike now fits. But it did before. You could sit on the saddle, reach the pedals and bars, ride steer and climb. What’s changed apart from someone saying that your bike now fits? Prove it. Well it fits, this is where your knee should be, where your saddle should be etc etc….prove it! Well that’s what we’re told, that’s the way every single rider in the world should be set up. So if I wore the same boots as Beckham I could play for England then. I was still cynical.
Where was the tangible evidence that the fit actually made any improvements? other than the placebo effect that a fool gets when he parts with his money.
Enter Wattbike Powerfit. Someone told me that BC had been using this system to put the pros right, and that it had thrown up some data that exploded old myths about position. Basically Powerfit is an active fit that provides that tangible data there and then and combines it with data gleaned from tests with the BC elites. That someone also told me that they needed a Guinea Pig for a day to train fitters under the eye of an expert!
Will you throw in lunch…you will…..okay I’m in.
Bring your bike, your kit and shoes. Duly changed into them I enter the test room, it’s got lazers. I get measured up and asked a thousand questions, but I’m distracted by the red lines of the lazers measuring every aspect of my bike. They then build a picture of how, or want to ride, after all there’s no point fitting up an aging biffer for racing when all you want to do is ride a few miles in comfort each Sunday. I tell them that I raced a lot, but might be knocking it on the head though I would still be keen to mix it up on the Sunday bun run.
Once all this is done your existing measurements are transferred to the Wattbike along with your own pedals and saddle.You then do a test ride, they can record HR, cadence, power as well as Wattbike specific data. test ride over the data is analysed. Turns out I’m pretty average….not happy. The data is then explained to me, thankfully I understand most of it. The program then gives an ideal set up for the rider. I’m then poked and prodded and covered in pink sticky back dots and told to repeat the ride. I keep the cadence the same, I can’t see the HR or power output. When this test is done the data is analysed again. With the simple adjustments made I see an improvement in pedaling efficiency. This is the tangible proof that is missing from so many fits. However the fitter then goes on to make further small adjustments which I test until the data readouts show the best figures. This is very satisfying stuff, but it’s only part of the fit. I’m pedaling as best as I can now, but what about the rest of my position? Time to come to terms with the fact that I’m 54 not 24 and I don’t have the core strength of Peter Sagan. Slammed stems might be all the rage, but only a fool puts looks before fit, and anyway it’s now known that too many people ride too low. We do an off the record test, I assume my ride position, pedal a while, brake, release my grip and then slowly move my hands outwards away from the bars and I’m on my way to a very painful face/stem interface. It shows that I’m using effort just sitting there. My stem is duly raised. The result is a comfortable yet still efficient position. Fore and aft position sorted the recommended measurements are transferred to my own bike, which I know is under size, being convinced that racing a small bike is better. The changes are so drastic that the bike can’t be adjusted enough. Good job I was selling it then. Along with my too small CX race bike and training bike. The data gives me the info needed to get the best fit/frame. With that in mind I buy a Giant Defy frame, which gets dressed in all my Campagnolo kit. And with read outs in hand the bike is measured to fit.
So how was it on the road? Better in every way, the comfort and efficiency vastly improved my average speed over known sectors for less HR. Shame I don’t have a power meter. I also noticed I was changing gear far less. So I’m now very happy, even mildly excited. I was the proverbial ‘long in the tooth’ ‘dyed in the wool’ ‘old skool’ cyclist faced with the proof that I needed to change. It’s only been a while since the Powerfit but it’s greatly improved my cycling pleasure, what more could you want.
I had my session with the guys at the Giant store in Camden Town who were great.

POSTED BY CARL AT 06:30

Cool (if a touch narcissistic and mildly irrelevant) story bro 😉

I’m sold on bike fit. Sorted niggles out for me in the past. Always used it to refine an existing fit rather than create a new one though.

The trick with these road bikes will be making sure we get the right size to start with.

Thanks for that. I’m now looking at 2014 Giant Defy Advanced 1

I don’t think she’d regret getting one, I certainly don’t. Very comfy but still handles sharp enough.

My only change has been putting my Ksyriums on it and moving the stock wheels to my winter bike.

Nice blog post Oldgit, do you want to share a link with us?

here he is

Bolt through, crabon fribe, discs, Ultegra 11spd, takes wider tyres and is all day comfortable?

*Looks at own bike*

*Smiles smugly*

“I’d completely ignore his recommendation.”

Well thanks – my comment was that the sizing Giant sizing charts are reasonable. I didn’t comment on the OP’s size in fact I don’t know how tall (s)he is, so didn’t make a recommendation other than the Defy is a more suitable first road bike. On their charts I can ride a M or a M/L, so chose a M with a longer stem to replicate my TCR and Propel positions.

As for bar height, it is subjective, but if you spend less than a third of the time on the drops, then I’d say your bars are too low or too far away.

Left-of-field, I’d be looking at one of these maybe for a MTB’er buying their first “Raod BIke”:

http://www.pearsoncycles.co.uk/pearson-the-rough-with-the-smooth.html

http://www.merlincycles.com/merlin-x20-105-11-speed-alloy-cyclocross-bike-75146.html

http://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/CBPXXLSAPEX/planet-x-xls-sram-apex-cyclocross-bike

Yes, only the PX is carbon. Yes, they’re all “Cyclo-X” bikes in the loose sense fo the word- all can be worked very well on the road.

Don’t really see the need for bolt-thru’s on road bikes.

Absolute do-it-all bikes. Road….bit of offroad…..commute etc etc. I’m sorely tempted by the Pearson- lovely looking bike…

CFH, I like the Diverge and its “do it all” nature. Not sure I like the idea of paying full retail for it. Feels like its about £500 too expensive to me.

Actually, since reading your last reply I’d recommend ignoring most of your advice TiRed.

How can you say without knowing any of a riders background in riding or indeed anything about them that one bike is more suitable than another as their first roadbike?

And without knowing anything about my background, fitness, flexibility, core strength, experience or what/where/when I ride. How on earth are you qualified to comment from behind your keyboard on my bar height or laughably put a time limit on which position I should favour while riding?

Ps. Fitting a longer/shorter stem also effects handling and to some this is actually important.

You may have a point, OD. However, it’s one hell of a good frame, and is the same weight as the same spec Roubaix, so it’s hardly a porker. Nothing seems to have been skimped on it, apart from possibly lacking tubeless ready wheels (Can be rectified, however). Am going to be trying some CX tyres on it soon, so we’ll see just how “do anything” it is really!

The Focus range looks good as well, BTW. Well, anything with skinwall tyres is always going to look good, isn’t it? 😀

What about Giant Defy AdvancedCarbon, 11 speed available disc brakes & bolt thru

“How can you say without knowing any of a riders background in riding or indeed anything about them that one bike is more suitable than another as their first roadbike?”

All just a question of geometry. And the fact that the OP is asking about a “first roadbike”. Hence a suggestion to choose one that provides the most adaptability to most riding; long days, fast days, racing days. I’ve ridden 100 mile days on a TCR and a Propel and raced crits on a Defy. The Defy is more suitable for a first road bike. Hence my recommendation.

And I will stand by my point that most people ride with their bars too low so that they don’t ride on the drops anywhere near enough. It’s a consequence of modern frame design (short head tubes) and shallow drop bars.

Wow! What an incredibly blinkered outlook