By todays' standards is aluminum essentially entry level?

nternal1

Just curious. Are there any aluminum road bikes left that are considered competitive or is aluminum considered entry level at this point in history?

holiver

There are some really nice alu frames out there now. The new Kinesis one is a great example. Giant and Cannondale also produce lovely metal frames.

snickwell

Decent Alu beats cheap carbon, hands down. IMO.

nternal1

snickwell wrote:

Decent Alu beats cheap carbon, hands down. IMO.

At what price point does it become almost mandatory to go to carbon?

stueys

nternal1 wrote:

snickwell wrote:

Decent Alu beats cheap carbon, hands down. IMO.

At what price point does it become almost mandatory to go to carbon?

I would say 1500 is probably the point. Having said that I would always have an aluminium bike and a carbon one. Nothing quite like throwing an Alu bike into the boot crammed full of the holiday luggage and not needing to worrying about it getting knocked around. My go-to commuting, winter, general holiday bike is always an Alu.

Though riding it today having had almost 3 months of uninterrupted carbon riding and you really notice how much of the road noise you feel.

nternal1

Stueys wrote:

nternal1 wrote:

snickwell wrote:

Decent Alu beats cheap carbon, hands down. IMO.

At what price point does it become almost mandatory to go to carbon?

I would say 1500 is probably the point....

I wasn't really asking the price point for entry level carbon. I was asking at what price point does carbon clearly better anything aluminum.

diamonddog

Look at the Canyon AL range good spec and weight that beats a lot of carbon offerings hands down. £1130 ish for 105 group set up to £1750 ish for Ultegra Di2 group set.
Carbon frames seem to be comfier and absorb vibrations etc better than alu frames if you read the reviews.
I would think that a lot of people would consider the Canyon way beyond entry level and competitive given the spec.
Just for the record I ride a carbon frame.

Monty Dog

To weld aluminium properly you need to use a heat-treatable alloys which is a time and energy consuming process. Welding also requires a degree of operator skill. Carbon is a far more controllable process and only requires semi-skilled operators. Done properly, carbon has an infinite fatigue life whereas aluminium alloys don't. The reason why aluminium alloy fell out of favour with most high-end bike makers is it they simply kept breaking and decent carbon frames are pretty cheap.

unixnerd

I have a high end carbon bike and a Cannondale CAAD5. The CAAD5 is so well made you can't see the welds at all (modern Dale's have gone backwards a bit in this regard) and it's a lovely bike. For me the difference is that carbon soaks up the bumps and bad road surfaces better. There's not much weight difference between a good alu frame a carbon one, maybe 3-400g. I'd rather a good alu frame to a cheap carbon one I think.

Monty Dog

unixnerd wrote:

The CAAD5 is so well made you can't see the welds at all

Because they were filed-down!

unixnerd

Because they were filed-down!

Exactly, hand finished and inspected. Since Cannondale moved production to the Far East 2-3 years ago they've stopped doing that and you can easily spot the difference. I doubt it makes any structural difference but it looks far nicer.