Top end aluminium bike or lower end carbon

Grill

Sarto is a good fab. Quite like my Sarto frame...

Coach H

Carbonator wrote:

DKay wrote:

Littleleg5 wrote:

I would not say that I am completely new to the riding scene as in my younger days I used to own a graham Tomlinson hand built bike with dura ace group set, and my old cycle club used to do 80-100 mile rides on a sunday.

so the type of bike im after is one which I can do the 80 - 100 mile a day touch (eventually) but I have also been told that I have an aggressive riding stance, which I presume is a race position rather than a more up right postion.

Sounds to me that the Cayo would suit you down to the ground in that case. The proof as always though, is in the riding. But I don't think the 2013 models hang around for long at the discounted prices as the 2014 frame is identical, with only minor componentry changes.

BOOM Cayo wins

You might find the Focus comes up a little smaller than say a Cannondale (not that I am encouraging you to get a big frame) which might be worth bearing in mind if you did want to try one and they only had certain sizes left.

Do you know what Carbonator and DKay, it seems you might be right. But only with the further info from the OP, seems they are not NEW to this at all but have some experience, knowledge and reasoned expectations.

With this extra info and taking the aggressive riding stance at face value a Cayo or CAAD might be a pretty good option

Coach H

Grill wrote:

No, Spec do the prototyping. Scott (in the link) and Cervelo also prototype in-house (among others) and from there mass production is undertaken at the fab. If you look at Cervelo's 2014 line you'll see that the tech from the R5Ca has trickled down to other products in the line.

Note: Off topic discussion NOT argument

Have now watched the links and still not convinced.

The Spesh link discussed the McLaren Venge, a low volume concept build probably manufactured in an R&D pilot plant. NOT the same as lower spec venges made by Merida who will likely have been given the project concept and a price point. Merida's R&D guys will likely have taken that and engineered a product BASED on the concept that could be mass manufactured economically enough for the price point. This OEM spec will have then likely gone back to Spec to see if it matched the concept enough for Spec to place an order. If not Merida would have done the re-engineering.

Pretty much exactly the same story as the Cervelo R5Ca. Couldn't be made economically by the OEM but used as a concept for the OEM to R&D a mass market product.

The Scott link looked to me like entirely OEM based processes.

Couldn't find it but there was also an interesting feature on Trek R&D where the in house guys made stuff as one off's but then passed it to the OEM to see if it could be mass made and the OEM refined it to a retail product. Fairly sure it was on weightweenies that Treks OEM did IsoSpeed for them and it was only Treks R&D who came up with the concept of separating the frame tubes and the OEM sorted out using an MTB roller joint to facilitate the concept (sorry could not find the weightweenies post to link but I'm sure I've not imagined it; search skills not functioning tonight :roll: )

This is only for the top of the range stuff mind, cant see the brand R&D guys spending much time on mid-low range products. Far more economic to leave it to the OEM. Some brands with fairly recent in-house manufacturing such as Cannondale and Trek MAY still have some in-house expertise but I would wager they still pretty much leave it to the OEM. The obvious exception amongst the big brands is Giant and Merida who are Brands and OEM's.

The vast majority of contract manufacture (EOM's in cycling terminology) works this way. It certainly did in my 16 years in contract manufacturing in two sectors (not cycling), 9 years of which was in R&D for a contract manufacturer. It was very rare indeed that the brands I worked with did any R&D other than for the most technical and high spec products and in most cases the contract manufacturers do the concept development as well. Just cannot see why it would be any different in cycling for anything other than really top end stuff (such as McLaren Venge, R5Ca etc)

Grill

Coach H wrote:

Grill wrote:

No, Spec do the prototyping. Scott (in the link) and Cervelo also prototype in-house (among others) and from there mass production is undertaken at the fab. If you look at Cervelo's 2014 line you'll see that the tech from the R5Ca has trickled down to other products in the line.

Note: Off topic discussion NOT argument

Have now watched the links and still not convinced.

The Spesh link discussed the McLaren Venge, a low volume concept build probably manufactured in an R&D pilot plant. NOT the same as lower spec venges made by Merida who will likely have been given the project concept and a price point. Merida's R&D guys will likely have taken that and engineered a product BASED on the concept that could be mass manufactured economically enough for the price point. This OEM spec will have then likely gone back to Spec to see if it matched the concept enough for Spec to place an order. If not Merida would have done the re-engineering.

Pretty much exactly the same story as the Cervelo R5Ca. Couldn't be made economically by the OEM but used as a concept for the OEM to R&D a mass market product.

The Scott link looked to me like entirely OEM based processes.

Couldn't find it but there was also an interesting feature on Trek R&D where the in house guys made stuff as one off's but then passed it to the OEM to see if it could be mass made and the OEM refined it to a retail product.

This is only for the top of the range stuff mind, cant see the brand R&D guys spending much time on mid-low range products. Far more economic to leave it to the OEM. Some brands with fairly recent in-house manufacturing such as Cannondale and Trek MAY still have some in-house expertise but I would wager they still pretty much leave it to the OEM. The obvious exception amongst the big brands is Giant and Merida who are Brands and OEM's.

The vast majority of contract manufacture (EOM's in cycling terminology) works this way. It certainly did in my 16 years in contract manufacturing in two sectors (not cycling), 9 years of which was in R&D for a contract manufacturer. It was very rare indeed that the brands I worked with did any R&D other than for the most technical and high spec products and in most cases the contract manufacturers do the concept development as well. Just cannot see why it would be any different in cycling for anything other than really top end stuff (such as McLaren Venge, R5Ca etc)

Except it's not. Your original comment is as follows:

Coach H wrote:

My only comment is that the thread is about top end Al or low end CF. Therefore is not the reality that the R&D Depts of the 'BRANDS' will not have anything to do with this sector of the market? The OEM's will do all this work on behalf of the brand. Particularly as they have all the manufacturing expertise.

I said that the brands work with the fabs (many have staff stationed at said fabs) as this is necessary to make the product feasible. I think we're in agreement on this. Saying that the fab does the work on behalf of the brand is what we disagree on. You can read about the whole process here:
http://carbonexperts.scott-sports.com/en/index.html
http://www.specialized.com/dk/en/bc/microsite/fact/index.html#/home
http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/03/13/trek-factory-tour-part-3-us-based-oclv-carbon-bike-production/

As you can see, neither Scott nor Specialized rely on the fab, and Trek's production of their high-end frames are fully in-house. They could easily transfer their production methods to Asia and save a few pennies, but they don't. Both Scott And Cervelo have used Ten-Tech for their frames, and Scott have also used Giant for the exact same frames (transferred over moulds as well as materials process) and there was no difference in the end product. This alone illustrates that the fab is working for the brand and not the other way around.

Coach H

Grill wrote:

I said that the brands work with the fabs (many have staff stationed at said fabs) as this is necessary to make the product feasible. I think we're in agreement on this. Saying that the fab does the work on behalf of the brand is what we disagree on. You can read about the whole process here:
http://carbonexperts.scott-sports.com/en/index.html
http://www.specialized.com/dk/en/bc/microsite/fact/index.html#/home
http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/03/13/trek-factory-tour-part-3-us-based-oclv-carbon-bike-production/

As you can see, neither Scott nor Specialized rely on the fab, and Trek's production of their high-end frames are fully in-house. They could easily transfer their production methods to Asia and save a few pennies, but they don't. Both Scott And Cervelo have used Ten-Tech for their frames, and Scott have also used Giant for the exact same frames (transferred over moulds as well as materials process) and there was no difference in the end product. This alone illustrates that the fab is working for the brand and not the other way around.

See I read the same words as you and interpret them differently. In my experience I distinctly remember being referred to as 'our R&D chemists' at a product launch despite the fact I didn't actually work for just on behalf of the brand in question. Sure in lots of cases the Brands people were in constant communication regarding the R&D but I don't recall them doing much of the actual R&D for the consumer products. This was the exception rather than the rule though and most of the time the Contract manufacturers were left to do it all.

Grill wrote:

.....Scott.......... have used Ten-Tech for their frames, and Scott have also used Giant for the exact same frames (transferred over moulds as well as materials process) and there was no difference in the end product. This alone illustrates that the fab is working for the brand and not the other way around.

This bit I really don't get. How is this economically viable? If you own the production techniques and the expensive bits of the tooling why use an OEM? Cut out the middle man and open your own facility in the far east.

Think we may have to agree to disagree on this one. Good discussion though.

IrishMac

Boardman bikes from Halfords are excellent in that price bracket.

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/gear/category/bikes/road/product/review-boardman-pro-carbon-14-47909/

This knew one's a cracker!

My Dad has an aluminium frame with same spec top bikes

explosifpete

just to throw in my 10 cents worth.
I work in a bike shop and as such get to ride lots of top end bikes, my current race bike is a merida race lite 900, a £600 bike (although I have changed ever part bar the frameset) and the difference between this and the best carbon frames i've used ( kuota kom/kebel/madone/cervelo r3/dogma/ect) isn't that great, sure its a bit heaver and not so comfortable at the back and there is a bit of flex in the B/B but at the same time it goes round corners better than any bike I have ridden (due to geometry that suits me and a good fork) and I don't feel like a "all the gear" type when I turn up at a race