[Closed] Dark Side: Specialized Allez sport

MTFU. Get the compact.

And yes, its a brilliant bike. I'm saving up for one myself.

It's a decent entry level road bike. Sora shifters aren't to everybody's taste but they're functional. As for guards you're limited to raceblades or crud roadracers. I'd take the latter, running them on my tarmac and think they're excellent.

Got mine about 4 or 5 months ago, first ever RB and have gone from a twice a month rider to 3 times a week. Am over 1k miles now of back roads I never knew existed.

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Its an entry level RB and does the job, feels a little harsh at times but nothing much to compare against. Believe it's about 24lbs.

Naturally I'm now looking to upgrade when work sort out the B2W, mainly because I want something to do some light touring on and maybe a little lighter, and just like thinking about new stuff. If it wasn't for the touring I'd stick with it and just upgrade the parts.

Sora shifters aren't to everybody's taste but they're functional.

Hmmmmmm, functional in a heavy and not so fashionable kind of way or functional in a faffy never really working right kind of way?

Thanks for the tip on the gaurds!

Functional in that they change gear perfectly well but aren't as nice to use as some of the better shimano shifters.

tinrib - interesting, thanks.

Simondbarnes - perfectly well is perfectly good enough for me. I have found on the current commuter that deore is as good as XT after a week or two of salt / grit / general gunk from the road.

For the past two / three years being doing 100 miles a week on a hardtail with slicks on so I am quite excited about moving to a proper bike!

My current commuter is fast dying, the frame is bent, front wheel rim is v braked to an inch of its life, forks uppers are rusting badly and thier are not liking being locked out 100% of the time, rear wheel bearings are shot as the rear triangle is slightly bent, seat post has a worrying paint effect going on at the bottom bracket (I have not checked as I dont want to know if its a crack!), headset is dying but the bike has done about 15k miles since I got it so its not done to badly.

Quite excited about a road bike. I was looking at cross stuff with disks but they are out of what I can stretch to... plus my granda doesnt approve of disk brakes!

David.

[edit - removed my extreme over use of !]

I can second that shifters etc work fine, bit stiff sometimes but works.

I notice the 2010 prices are a bit higher, I only wanted to spend £500 but stretched to about £550 I think.

Might be worth checking round e.g. Ribble they have greater than bottom campag bikes 600ish:

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http://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/SpecialEditionBikes.asp - (use IE not FF)

And an audax range that would probably handle canal paths?

I've got an Allez Elite and I find the geometry horrific, it's like riding a chopper, even with no headset spacers and an inverted stem it's really high at the front.

It also weighs more than my Epic, but frankly that's because it's not a very expensive bike. Seems pretty tough, it serves it's purpose as a commuter bike, but I'd be looking to upgrade it pretty quickly if it was my only road bike.

I've got an 06 Allez Sport that came with Tiagra. As my first roadbike it was perfect, but as I was using it for tri I needed to make it a bit lighter. Fulcrum 5 wheels and some used Ultegra did me right and I've put some heavy mileage on it. I use it as my winter bike now as I recently bought a Pinarello, can't get rid of it!

Geometry wise it is OK and would suit a commute and an entry level tri bike. Can't really go wrong if your budget won't stretch to something more expensive.

I recently bought a Pinarello

Had to shoehorn that in eh!?

Of course! 🙂

HAd an 06' Allez Comp Double with 105 - fast bike - harsh'ish ride but very fast. Now got a carbon Sportive with Ultegra and in the 1 week I have had it lovely. The Allez is a bit of a harshish ride but very fast. If you wanna do long distances then a sloid Alu frame may not be your thing?

Picked up one last year - compared to my old road bike it was luxury and felt fast. I used to have an 80's Raleigh Sprint.
Did the Etape on it and it went fabulously.
Now it's back to it's intended purpose which is a summer fun commuter.
The wheels are straight pull but a bit cheap and need re-truing every so often. I'll probably upgrade them next year.

I got annoyed with sora and bought tiagra on the next bike (moving continent so had to sell the old one).

Sora doesn't have proper shift levers - the downshift on the front, upshift on the back lever is a teeny weeny thing. It means it is only easy to shift that way on the hoods, when you're on the drops it is a right old stretch, I used to just shift to the fastest rear cog at the top of a hill, get on the drops and not shift till the bottom. It is a massively expensive upgrade (like £150) at a later date too if you don't like them.

Joe

Etape on an Allez? Good work.

🙂 Thanks scottishbadger - it was somewhat gratifying to be cycling up Ventoux past bikes where one wheel cost more than the Allez

Hmmmm looks like Sora is not so great then? Bit of a road newbie...

Bought the Allez about 10 weeks ago and really pleased with it.
Went Compact and its more than enough range-personally would stay away from a triple it really isn't needed
Sora is OK and works perfectly well just not quite as easy to drop a cog or 2 when on the drops-only really notice if you are in a bunch and absolutely going balls out when you might lose a fraction of a sec on the shift but it really is marginal.
The only thing I changed was the saddle and I tend to do that on all bikes. Clocked over a 1000 miles so far and its been faultless

Have an 09
Great bike

I have Sora shifters on my Trek and they're fine. Agreed, it is difficult to shift when in the drops but unless you're racing does it really matter?

Like mtb shifters, they'll feel platicky compared to the upmarket ones, but they work.