Hello aP or anyone else who can help.
I am looking at buying either a BMC cross or a Argon 18 Arsenic. I see from some browsing that aP has owned both these bikes.
What is your general opinion of the two models? Ride Characteristics?
What size frame did/do you have and how tall are you, what size other bikes do you ride (road)?
Any help would be appreciated, ideally I would like to ride these bikes but am never going to be near a shop which sales these bikes.
Any help welcome.
Regards, Derek.
Anyone?
I had (have) a bmc cx02 which was ok, except for: the handling was a bit strange - good and stable in high speed corners not good at all in tight corners, and it came with the universally reviled Easton cross forks which are very flexible and had incurable brake judder (although on a weeks cycling in the French alps I discovered that getting heat into the pads and rims cured it - although getting the front wheel off the ground braking into a hairpin coming off the Joux Plane didn't exactly endear it to me).
The Arsenic is very good and the handling is much more to my tastes, but it's not listed as a 2012 bike on the Argon 18 website so that may be an issue. Additionally when I bought the frame it didn't come with the front derraileur pulley or rear brake hanger or the Internal headset spacers and the dealer wasn't terribly fussed about sorting any if this out. Spares may be an issue as none of the other 2 dealers I spoke to were able to help me at all although I didn't expect the Kingston shop to be able to do that anyway.
If you are after a fast cross frame I'd probably suggest looking at something like a Ridley as they appear to have a dealer network which gives a damn.
Thanks very much for your response.