I’ve ridden one: doesn’t have aesthetic niceties like internal routing but as far as actual ride goes, they’re suitably stiff, the geo in the size I rode felt great and turned fantastically and I couldn’t really fault it for the coin. Wouldn’t suggest selling it - just use and abuse it and upgrade it for something more aesthetically pleasing at a later stage once you’ve put enough miles into it to have got your money’s worth.
They have pretty short head tubes so you can get a nice low front end without having to resort to stupid angle stems too
Update: Merckx is goneski. So looking to get something in the next two weeks.
Test rode a 2012 R3 today. Pretty decent. Liked the steering feel and compliance over the cobbles. It was the standard 2012 rival build, which I gather is better than the 2013 105 build?
Would really rather something with a force build though and possibly lighter, but not sure if this is available at this price point?
Don’t suppose anyone: a) wants to buy a new 105/ rival group
b) is selling a force group?
Another update: test rode a Tarmac expert with ultegra for $2700 and a BMC road racer with ultegra for $3500. Both were nice.
The Tarmac had better handling but looked a bit naff (white with blue decals)… BMC on the other hand looks hot.com, but is a little more exy. And neither have force. Whats the chances of being able to swap out ultegra with force for minimal cost?
I had a mates orbea in my stand the other day,
I’m purely a campy man but the new ultegra is pretty good.
I can’t see any big advantage to force over the ultegra.
The Tamacs are a well balanced bike and I love the handling of my one.
It does it all from hills to crits with no real drama.
The money you save you could get some custom decals printed and upgrade the wheels to a kick ass price point.
Me neither. I’m a Campy snob but I rode a new Ultegra equipped bike yesterday (tried to smash it up actually, but failed) and was most impressed. I have no idea why anyone would anything more unless they had a big ego/small self esteem. Aesthetically, it look pretty good … functionally, I thought it was close to perfect.
Fwiw the bike was a Roubaix with the new SL4 frameset. If I had the $'s I’d be on one right now.
Yeah the ultegra bike i had here was a mates that had been crashed.
I just had to tune it and check it over.
i did the same, tried dumping lots of gears shifting under load and it performed well.
Not as sharp as super record or DA but i was really impressed.
The only thing stopping me from riding it is my campy snobism.
I have never ridden the roubaix but i hear they handle and absorb rough stuff like a charm.
Small differences between dura ace and ultegra, but as said functionally much the same. Not having to use the trim is a nice da feature. Oh, and it weighs less
