What posh aluminium road frame?

Road bike frame looking shabby, it’s a Vitus carbon so pretty basic, and not that pretty.
But the groupo is Di2 hydro and I love it.
Looking for a change and fancy lightweight aluminium. The Treks are very pretty, very light but not Di2.
Had a quick look at Mason, but there’s no weight on the website and can’t find info on it.
What else I should look at?
Any metal would do, but limited budget- a grand tops. I have a titanium Charge, but it isn’t Di2 so it is my commuter/ filthy weather bike.

Condor Italia RC looks nice.

How about a Mason?

Cannondale caad 12. I had vitus zenium alloy frame few years ago(£250) in chain reaction sale it was excellent. 1200g with all bolts etc it rode well too.

Rose and canyon used to have some nice light alloy frames

Oops…you discounted that. Sorry

Bowman Palace?

Kinesis Aithein. Great bike!

How about a posh steel frame?
https://steelworks.bike/products/roadstar-x/gray-black/image-thumb__391__width780/pi000000_RSX_grey_black.jpeg

Cannondale Caad 12 or caad 13 if you can find one in budget. I keep looking at carbon frames and a lot of them are heavier then my caad 12 disc – need to spend a lot of money to get much lighter.

Only reason I’m slightly considering moving the caad 12 on is tyre clearance. I find with 25c tyres on (conti gp 4000’s) I’m getting a real battering on some of the roads round here. 28c Conti’s will be very close to the stays and I already find the clip on mudguards are a bit of a pain – the Caad13 has more clearance and I believe mounting bolts for proper mudguards.

I’ve been craving a Genesis Volare, it’s steel not alu, but is well within budget for 853 (and 951 if you have rim brakes.

If I was you I’d already be handing my money over for a Bowman Palace.

slightly over budget but the Allez Sprints are very good.

Here’s my experience of two…

CAAD12
Pros: handles nicely, lightweight, nicely made.
Cons: Pre-2019 had post-mount brakes, and frame has a QR rear wheel

Kinesis Aithein
Pros: Stiff (accelerates like a rocket), thru-axles and flat mount brakes, neat internal cable routing, very planted
Cons: A bit agricultural compared to CAAD12, a bit heavy, limited tyre clearance for a modern frame

I opened the thread to say Mason. They’re beautifully finished.

I wouldn’t bother about the weight, whatever it is. It’ll only be a few grams in it.

Or I’m sure, if it really bothers you, Dom will be happy to tell you if you call and ask!

CAAD 12 – the geometry is superb, both fast and racy but not back breaking on long rides, and I found comfortable than most ‘endurance’ frames. Plus in the purple it looks the muttz nutz. Not sure about the Caad 13, the welds don’t look as neat and the bigger downtube and dropped stays just look, well, meh.

I think I’d like to know the weight, just in case it’s really heavy.
They all look great tbh.

I think I’d like to know the weight, just in case it’s really heavy.
They all look great tbh.

Probably email or call Dom then and he’ll tell you. They’re not super light but look and ride great. My 58cm Def2 with Ultegra di2/hydro is about 9kg from memory.

B-S My current bike is 54 and 8.5kg, as standard spec so prob about the same.

I have an original Definition bought in 2015 and have no desire to change it.

Bowman but maybe the Weald over the Palace (assuming disks)
Nice vid on road cc on the Palace.

I went for a Bowman Palace.
On the plus side, it’s incredibly light, the paint is amazing, the geo is spot on and it would make a great perfect road summer bike or crit racer.
Unless they’ve updated it, beware the tyre clearance. I used 25mms contis that measured exactly 25mm and there was fag paper clearance to the rear brake bridge, i.e. any grit etc would have rubbed. Bowman claimed it was my narrow ‘old school’ (2010-ish) rims that were the problem, and suggested using nominally narrower tyres (e.g. 23mm) on a wider rim to ‘flatten’ the profile of the tyre! I tried a couple of other wheel/tyre combos including some wider modern rims and the clearance was still not anything like satisfactory to say its designed to use 25s. With Ultegra calipers the pads were near the top of the slot. I think Bowman even went as far as suggesting I was using ‘incompatible kit’. Some of you may agree, but to me that would be madness!

Before the tyres were pumped up to 90+psi and this issue became stark, the bike built up in the stand weighed bang on 8kg with said wheels (aluminium aero, so not light) and a mix of ultegra and 105 kit, carbon post, alu cockpit.

I prefer to go for kit from smaller, UK-based companies but the flip-side is that any problems you have, they tend to take quite personally – you might well be speaking to the designer, salesperson and customer service guy all in one go. And I imagine a return has bigger financial implications for them. There also seems to be a bit of an issue around criticising a more ’boutique’ product, as if you as a customer don’t ‘get it’ if you have a problem with it, whereas there are 100s of forum posts slagging off On One kit which the company takes in its stride.

From what I can see, the 10/10 review of the bike available online used 23mm tyres, so this issue may not have been apparent.

Unfortunately though, mine went back and I replaced it with the latest Kinesis Aithein, which is a touch heavier and less pretty, but will take 28s easy, even 30s (not tried). All it took was designing it so the brake bridge sits higher and the pads are near the bottom of the slot…

Think I’d be going for the Kinesis Aithein disc as it looks amazing in the purple, though a Bowman would also be a good choice. I had a Bowman Palace R and it’s the best handling bike I’ve ridden. I ran 25’s on wide rims and never had any issues with clearance. It’s just gone back for a warranty issue so I’ll be getting one of the new Palace 3Cs as a replacement, apparently the new frames will take 30mm tyres.

My 58cm Def2 with Ultegra di2/hydro is about 9kg from memory.

Maybe my Kinesis Aithein disc isn’t that porky then… About 8.1kg with Ultegra hydro (not di2) and Hunt aluminium wheels.

Fairly impressive if it is, especially as a lot of midrange carbon road bikes struggle to get under 8kg with anything but the lightest wheels on. My S-works SL6 tarmac with CLX32 wheels and Ultegra DI2 is 7.3kg.

Well my Synapse Carbon Disc is 7.9kg with exactly the same kit, and my Supersix disc is 7.6kg with lighter wheels. All Ultegra hydro. All tubeless with lightish finishing kit. So 8.1kg doesn’t seem that wild…
(edit: size 54cm Synapse / others 56cm)

Interesting about your Bowman. Also worth pointing out the new/current Aitheins have less aggressive geometry – the old red and black ones had really long and low geo – around 10-15mm more in reach for a given size.
The current ones are very similar to the Bowman Palace – taller head tubes for a given frame size without being ‘endurance’. My size small gives me about 6cm drop with the max 30mm spacers and the stem flipped down. At 5ft 8 I’m on cusp of small/med. There was also a QC issue with the Kinesis bit I won’t go into it as it was more cosmetic than functional and I can still ride the bike as intended.

Edit: My Aithein is a rim brake one. I’ve got it down to around 7.7 kgs with a set of very light but sensible (28/24h) 1350g wheels (about £350 from DCR). Suspect to achieve the same weight with discs would have cost me a hell of a lot more.

IMG_20200917_115620076_HDR by C Snook[/url], on Flickr
Been very happy with this beast since building it up a couple of weeks ago. Rear tyre clearance is the only issue I have had. 28mm schwalbe on a hope 25 rim measured 30mm which left about 1mm clearance… So I have the shame of a 28 front tyre and 25 rear. It’s about 9kg with GRX double groupset.

I really wish frame manufacturers would be more explicit when they say ‘clearance for 28mm tyres’. The inference is that you can go and buy a tyre with ’28mm’ written on the side and it will fit, but in my experience (Conti tyres mostly) clearance for 28mm tyres really means ‘clearance for 25mm tyres once mounted to a 19mm internal rim’…

Was disappointed in the Aethein, 1.55kg frame only plus 350g fork isn’t much to get excited about for that sort of money, Bowman claimed weight for same size frame and fork is 300g lighter AND they take ’30mm’ tyres (see above, does that actually mean a 28mm tyre on a 19mm rim?…)

My money is on the Bowman Palace 3C to replace my alu Rose Xeon when it eventually goes.

I’m not too worried about what it says on the tyre. Tyres rarely come out at what is printed on them. But if a tyre measures Xmm using vernier calipers, and the manufacturer States it had clearance for Xmm, it should have. The operative word being ‘clearance’, not ‘just about fit’.

The latest gen of Shimano rim brake calipers are supposed to take 28-30mm tyres, so there’s no reason for this area to be the limiting factor from the frame. Chainstay clearance on racy bikes is a different issue.

I remember reading an All City blog stating that one of their bikes had ‘legal clearance’ with Xmm tyres and Ymm tyres fit without rubbing but they couldn’t ‘officially’ recommend them…

The mk 2 Aithein does seem to be a fair bit heavier than the mk 1.
I have a mk 1 (so BB86, external cables, rim brakes only) and it is a great bike – following judicious use of bearing fit to cure the bloody creaking…

My Ritchey Logic is supposed to take 28mm tyres, I did manage to fit a pair of 28mm Specialized tyres but the front rubbed on the underside of the forks. Stayed with 25mm ever since.

I’m also now wondering about a rim brake build. I have a Scott carbon, one of those bonkers 1kg jobbies with a cracked frame, I built it up with cheap but light parts to a 7.5kg bike, which considering my weight, was very light.
So I have the parts to build a rim braked bike for fast summer rides, so now I’m thinking an ali frame for this, and if it’s cheap or second hand, a disc frame as well. Or keep the plastic hydro as my all round bike and sell the ti charge to fund a frame.

The Trek Emondo looks nice, I’m generally not into buying frames from the big companies but I love my Trek Crockett and the Emondo looks very similar to the Crockett.

https://www.tritoncycles.co.uk/frames-forks-c6/road-frames-c47/emonda-alr-disc-frameset-2019-p21430

Maybe buy it from somewhere else if you need it quick though (from my experience)

Not quite what you asked for but a Fairlight Strael 2.0 might tick some boxes. Obviously being steel its heavier but supposedly a great ride.

I have a bowman palace r and a mason definition. I love the way alloy rides, they are both vert different bikes. I’ve raced the bowman in 60/70 mile road races, crits etc, it’s brilliant for that because it handles so well and is light. The mason is my winter training bike. Again amazing handling, heavy and with a low centre of gravity. I would never take the mason out in summer. Will try and post some pics

Untitled by danjwilkinson[/url], on Flickr

20180421_113000 by danjwilkinson[/url], on Flickr

That Bowman looks the shiz

The Emonda is what brought me to the Aluminium party, but it’s not Di2, otherwise I’d have it.
I’m not a fan of the big brands either, but I really like it.

I’d sell the di2 and get an Emonda ALR 🙂

That Bowman looks the shiz

Yep, I remember one pulling up beside me at the lights and it looked just like dj’s, one of the best looking bikes I can remember seeing in the flesh. Frameset only cost something ridiculously cheap like 500 quid. Was sorely tempted.

Liking that Bowman!

I have a CAAD12, Cannondale Advanced Aluminium Design, they’re pretty damned good.