Carbon disc road frame suggestions for a reasonable price

duncan-m-w

Keen to build my wife a new carbon bike. She has a custom ladies Boardman alu road bike at the moment which has been great, but she now does enough cycling to justify something a little more special, lighter and comfortable for long rides (she will be doing the Etape with me this year and we are doing a number of trips to the Alps).

She is least confident in the downhill, and given my love of my custom Genesis Croix de Fer (rode that in the mountains round Madrid 2 weekends ago - it was awesome and made me love it even more than I have done for the last couple of years), discs feel like the right way forward (not to mention that it feels like this is the way the industry is going, so setting up for the long-term feels like a good option too.

My difficulty at the moment is finding carbon (lightweight) disc frames that are not an absolute fortune! I want to kit it with SRAM and will have wheels built, but finding a reasonably priced carbon frame is proving incredibly difficult.

I think my best option at the moment is an Orbea Avant - seems to tick the boxes and is the cheapest I have come across at about £1700 RRP. But that still feels like quite a lot of money.

Can anyone recommend any cheaper options? Or are aware of a really good deal on one?

Thanks everyone.

Duncan

DiscoBoy

The Orbea avant is supposed to be a great bike.

You could look at the planetx cyclocross frame. Or, beyond that, buying a normal frame and fitting a disc fork. I don't think that having a caliper on the rear is a problem, really...

duncan-m-w

Thanks DiscoBoy

I had considered a cyclocross bike but it would appear that they weigh a bit more and I am note sure about comfort on road. I think the longer wheelbase would be good for stability on descents, but just not sure about comfort as I guess they are made to be stiffer?

The fork only option had crossed my mind, but not explored that yet. That might be my next step if nobody else can suggest anything. Thanks again

Duncan

ugo.santalucia

Get a light cross bike, best of two worlds. Planet X XLS for a grand you get carbon frame and all things. You just need to swap to road tyres and maybe upgrade the wheels to something a pound lighter and you're in business with a bike in the 8-8.5 Kg range. You can always keep the heavy wheels for bashing them with knobbly tyres

DiscoBoy

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Get a light cross bike, best of two worlds. Planet X XLS for a grand you get carbon frame and all things. You just need to swap to road tyres and maybe upgrade the wheels to something a pound lighter and you're in business with a bike in the 8-8.5 Kg range. You can always keep the heavy wheels for bashing them with knobbly tyres

If you're buying the built bike, then you may want to change the chainrings too: because it comes with 46/36.

ugo.santalucia

DiscoBoy wrote:

If you're buying the built bike, then you may want to change the chainrings too: because it comes with 46/36.

nothing wrong with that. Most riders would benefit from smaller rings

duncan-m-w

Thanks Paolo. I will take a look. And I will be coming back to you for another wheel build if that is ok (although I plan to be less demanding on the timeframe!).

My grey H plus Son/Novatec build on my CdF is still perfectly true and I love the whole thing! One of the best decisions I made was to ask you to build them!

DiscoBoy

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

If you're buying the built bike, then you may want to change the chainrings too: because it comes with 46/36.

nothing wrong with that. Most riders would benefit from smaller rings

It is personal preference. But the fact that it doesn't come with "normal" rings is still worth noting.

ugo.santalucia

DiscoBoy wrote:

It is personal preference. But the fact that it doesn't come with "normal" rings is still worth noting.

Sure, but considering the bike is for a lady, I would say the 36/46 chainset is bang on. I think smaller rings are the future. As more and more people get into recreational cycling, manufacturers can't expect everyone to churn out 300 Watts every time they ride a bike... cassettes have gone bigger, now it's time for rings to get smaller

DiscoBoy

ugo.santalucia wrote:

DiscoBoy wrote:

It is personal preference. But the fact that it doesn't come with "normal" rings is still worth noting.

Sure, but considering the bike is for a lady, I would say the 36/46 chainset is bang on. I think smaller rings are the future. As more and more people get into recreational cycling, manufacturers can't expect everyone to churn out 300 Watts every time they ride a bike... cassettes have gone bigger, now it's time for rings to get smaller

On the 46 front I agree, on the 36 not so much...

At the weekend I was riding with a lady who was using 46/36 as it happens. It got pretty steep and I think she was wishing for a 34

maddog 2

I run a Hongfu FM-166 disc: full carbon, sub £500 for F&F, 1200g-ish for the frame, 350g-ish for the fork.

It' the only sub-£1000 full carbon proper road (not CX) frame I'm aware of, available as F&F.

http://www.hongfu-bikes.com/html_produc ... e-287.html

duncan-m-w

Thanks maddog

I had stumbled across this, but I am not sure about Chinese frames yet - I know there are lots of good stories, but I am still incredibly nervous. If something were to go wrong, the wife would kill me. And if the frame went wrong and killed her, I would be pretty upset.

I guess if I knew that "this frame is literately built by exactly the same people who build ABC Well Known brand to exactly the same standards", I might feel a bit better, but I just can not get that assurance from anything I have read so far.