Rose Carbon Pro SL 3000

e17blade

For a couple of years now I have been commuting into central London and going out for weekend blasts around Epping Forest on my trusty Giant Rapid. It's been a great bike, and I will keep it, but my mileage has got high enough and my riding good enough (I think!) to justify having my first ever "proper road bike".

Months of research - on this forum, in bike shops, emailing manufacturers and annoying everyone I know whose opinion I trust - led me finally to Rose in Germany and a Carbon Pro SL 3000. A huge raft of measurements and an epic email conversation with the extremely helpful Peter at Rose satisfied me that I was getting a bike that fitted well - so I pulled the trigger.

After a fairly short wait my next door neighbour knocked on my door and told me he had taken delivery of "a really big box" for me. Oh happy days.....



Rather than tearing the box to pieces in the style of a little kid at Christmas, I got as far as this and got really nervous.....



I got over myself though and got on with it







Frame: High Modulus Aerospace Carbon Fibre
Fork: Full carbon
Groupset: Shimano Ultegra 6700 (inc pedals)
Wheels: Mavic Ksyrium Equipe
Tyres: Continental Grand Prix 4000 S
Seat post: FSA SL-K SB20 Carbon
Saddle: Prologo Nago Evo T2.0
Handlebar: FSA Wing Pro Compact, oversize
Stem: FSA SL-K, oversize, with carbon cap

Went out for my first ride yesterday on my regular hour run round Epping Forest despite feeling pretty lethargic - I am recovering from a bad concussion - and promptly set a whole host of personal bests on Strava

I can't think of anything bad to say at all. The compact chain set will take a bit of getting used to though as my Giant had a triple and I was pretty lazy and stayed in the middle ring about 90% of the time.

I am in love!

Cheers.

Dave

Calpol

Very nice indeed. Is the stem flipped deliberately?

mattbell

you need to flip your stem over, it's the wrong way up! You'll get even faster strava times then!

mr_sj

Lovely looking bike, i came very close to ordering a rose myself but in the end realised i just couldnt afford it :-(

You get a hell of a lot of bike for your money and they look great

Markjaspi

Love it, but as mentioned flip the stem mate.

e17blade

Markjaspi wrote:

Love it, but as mentioned flip the stem mate.

I did think that, but it came like that and I thought I would try it like that and then flip it to see the difference.

Is it actually 'upside down' or do people just 'prefer' it the other way up?

Might swap it over before I go out at the weekend.

Cheers.

Dave

chigman

That bike is a wet dream mate - get out now and enjoy it.

Love it 8)

Steve

imposter2.0

Markjaspi wrote:

Love it, but as mentioned flip the stem mate.

ironically, his saddle/bar drop is lower than yours with his stem inverted..

Markjaspi

Yeh your right, but I've got short legs Ha so I can't get the saddle much higher, but I think it's the aesthetics too.

imposter2.0

Markjaspi wrote:

Yeh your right, but I've got short legs Ha so I can't get the saddle much higher, but I think it's the aesthetics too.

you can get the bars lower though...

El Correcto

Lovely bike. Don't see that brand very often out here in sunny California. Ride safe and enjoy it!

philwint

Now that is an extremely beautiful bike - enjoy!

nevman

Got to say that bike would suit me to a T.Bargain buy there fella.

canny_lad

Very nice, good choice.

e17blade

e17blade wrote:

Markjaspi wrote:

Love it, but as mentioned flip the stem mate.

I did think that, but it came like that and I thought I would try it like that and then flip it to see the difference.

Is it actually 'upside down' or do people just 'prefer' it the other way up?

Might swap it over before I go out at the weekend.

Cheers.

Dave

Stem now flipped................. and it's much better!

Markjaspi

How are you getting on with that saddle mate, thinking of upgrading my Kappa to either one of those or the all carbon C.one 30?

Markjaspi

Imposter wrote:

Markjaspi wrote:

Yeh your right, but I've got short legs Ha so I can't get the saddle much higher, but I think it's the aesthetics too.

you can get the bars lower though...

Yeh I'm pondering a bike fit, so I might wait until its set up properly.

e17blade

Markjaspi wrote:

How are you getting on with that saddle mate, thinking of upgrading my Kappa to either one of those or the all carbon C.one 30?

I like it a lot - probably the best thing I can say about it is that I didn't really notice it when riding.

I haven't put down a lot of miles yet though, and it isn't like I have tried a wide range of other saddles to have much field of reference either, but still, it's all good so far.

likeakipper8

Just got the same exact model as well, only been able to take it out once properly but seems great so far. I'll get my pics up when I get some taken with a decent camera

Stevo_666

Very nice - IMO Rose road bikes are under-rated. Also the pics on the Rose website don't do the bikes justice.

shamrock134

Rose seem to hide in the shadow of Canyon.

Perhaps if Rose had a team associated with them in the Pro Peleton they'd get a bigger profile?

Stevo_666

shamrock134 wrote:

Rose seem to hide in the shadow of Canyon.

Perhaps if Rose had a team associated with them in the Pro peloton they'd get a bigger profile?

I was thinking that as well. Canyon seem to have hit the spotlight amongst the German direct sellers, probably for a number of reasons - though I'm not knocking them.

I also really like the Rose 'build your own spec bike' option, though last time I looked it didn't seem to be there?

e17blade

likeakipper8 wrote:

Just got the same exact model as well, only been able to take it out once properly but seems great so far. I'll get my pics up when I get some taken with a decent camera

Hope you are as happy with yours as I am with mine. Just got back from 54 miles of freezing fun in Hertfordshire and my enthusiasm is undimmed.

What was your buying experience like? I thought Rose were absolutely first class.

e17blade

Stevo 666 wrote:

Very nice - IMO Rose road bikes are under-rated. Also the pics on the Rose website don't do the bikes justice.

Good point - the website pics are pretty poor - the bike looks amazing in real life. Their marketing department must have a job vacancy or two!

e17blade

Stevo 666 wrote:

shamrock134 wrote:

Rose seem to hide in the shadow of Canyon.

Perhaps if Rose had a team associated with them in the Pro peloton they'd get a bigger profile?

I was thinking that as well. Canyon seem to have hit the spotlight amongst the German direct sellers, probably for a number of reasons - though I'm not knocking them.

I also really like the Rose 'build your own spec bike' option, though last time I looked it didn't seem to be there?

At first I was customising my bike using the online configurator (which is great by the way). However my bike switched to being a "discontinued model" so I couldn't use the configurator. A quick email to Rose though and they replied immediately to say that every single component could be changed if I wanted to and that all I had to do was ask. Seriously great service.

shamrock134

Hope you don't mind me adding more Rose love.

likeakipper8

e17blade wrote:

likeakipper8 wrote:

Just got the same exact model as well, only been able to take it out once properly but seems great so far. I'll get my pics up when I get some taken with a decent camera

Hope you are as happy with yours as I am with mine. Just got back from 54 miles of freezing fun in Hertfordshire and my enthusiasm is undimmed.

What was your buying experience like? I thought Rose were absolutely first class.

Very happy with it, only done a quick 15 miles on it at the moment, but the difference between that and my £500 Specialized Allez is obvious (and I still love the Allez). I think they've made up for selling direct from the factory by having top class customer service. I was tempted with Canyon but the fact that Rose allow you to customise the bike swung it in their favour. I had to wait just over a month (although the bank's fraud department blocking the transaction for a week was out of their control) but to get a full carbon bike with the components I wanted it was worth it. It's not like I would have ridden it much in December anyway

e17blade

likeakipper8 - exactly my thoughts on the Canyon/Rose trade off.

I am far from a freak of nature size-wise, but among other things I ended up with wider bars (broad shoulders) and a longer crank (big feet). I also ditched the white saddle and tape in favour of black for solely practical reasons.

Sometimes these small details make all the difference.

e17blade

shamrock134 wrote:

Hope you don't mind me adding more Rose love.

Is that a Xeon CRS? Very nice indeed!

likeakipper8

e17blade wrote:

likeakipper8 - exactly my thoughts on the Canyon/Rose trade off.

I am far from a freak of nature size-wise, but among other things I ended up with wider bars (broad shoulders) and a longer crank (big feet). I also ditched the white saddle and tape in favour of black for solely practical reasons.

Sometimes these small details make all the difference.

Apart from wanting shallow drop bars and a carbon seat post my changes were aesthetic (so long as there was no compromise on quality) and I ended up with red tyres, pedals and bar tape to match the red on the top tube. I'll try and get pics of mine up on here soon although it's not exactly light years away from your machine

e17blade

likeakipper8 wrote:

e17blade wrote:

likeakipper8 - exactly my thoughts on the Canyon/Rose trade off.

I am far from a freak of nature size-wise, but among other things I ended up with wider bars (broad shoulders) and a longer crank (big feet). I also ditched the white saddle and tape in favour of black for solely practical reasons.

Sometimes these small details make all the difference.

Apart from wanting shallow drop bars and a carbon seat post my changes were aesthetic (so long as there was no compromise on quality) and I ended up with red tyres, pedals and bar tape to match the red on the top tube. I'll try and get pics of mine up on here soon although it's not exactly light years away from your machine

Unless I am very much mistaken..... it comes with a carbon seat post doesn't it? Mine did anyway.

Which bars did you go for?