Colossal 2 or Ritchey Road Logic 2?

Northbound52

I'd be interested for some thoughts on which road bike to get/build.

I can, at present get a 2014 Salsa Colossal 2 (steel) for about $1,400. Or, I can put together a decent build of a Ritchey Road Logic 2 for about $2,300. The former would have 105 (10 speed). The latter would probably have Campognola Athena. For the difference in price, I could quite easily make several upgrades to the Salsa.

I ride about 150 miles/week on paved roads with some short unpaved sections. I don't race, and I have a bike for winter/bad rainy weather use. So, I'm basically after a comfortable bike for 50-ish mile rides. I ride somewhat aggressively, and there are some parts of my regular route that are fun on a nimble bike. I'm pretty indifferent between disk and calliper brakes; I've tried both, and I manage to stop in both cases.

So, basically, this is what I'm trying to figure out. Is there some reason to prefer the Ritchey frameset to the Salsa, all else being equal? The Ritchey is somewhat lighter (either 4lbs or 5lbs – I can't tell from the website whether 4lbs is for the frame alone or whether it includes the fork) vs about 6.25 for the Salsa frameset. If I made a few changes to the Salsa, I'd easily bring the final build in at 20lbs. The Ritchey might be 18.5. Given how I ride, I have a difficult time imaging that weight will be the controlling factor.

I can't test ride the Ritchey, so it's hard to compare rides. There is a lot of mystique around the Ritchey name, of course, and it's supposed to have fancy tubing. However, I don't really know how to assess the impact of the tubing without riding, and I don't care about the branding. I'm about 40, and I'm hoping to use this frame as the basis for the next decade of my road bike riding. I don't mind spending the extra money if there is a good reason to, but I'd also be happy to pump all or part of the $800 back into the Salsa over time to improve the wheelset. I can't get this year's Salsa, as both the shop and factory appear to have run out of frames in my size. I ride 28s, and both bikes will take them, so that doesn't seem to help as a differentiator.

Any thoughts much appreciated!

ugo.santalucia

They are two very different bikes... the Ritchey is a race bike, the Salsa is what I would call a "do it all" bike

Grill

I have a Road Logic 2 I use for everything from pootling about to fast club runs to 1000k audaxes. Big fan, but as Ugo says the geometry lends itself more to aggressive riding than relaxed pedalling.

Northbound52

Thanks both for the replies. That's helpful and confirms my general impression

I've managed to read a number of user reports about the Ritchey. Not much, by comparison, seems to have been written about the Salsa Colossal 2. I've found some stuff, but not much in the way of long term usage reports. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has ridden both, but I'm not sure that there is such a person.

ugo.santalucia

Northbound52 wrote:

Thanks both for the replies. That's helpful and confirms my general impression

I've managed to read a number of user reports about the Ritchey. Not much, by comparison, seems to have been written about the Salsa Colossal 2. I've found some stuff, but not much in the way of long term usage reports. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has ridden both, but I'm not sure that there is such a person.

The Salsa seems a very similar bike to the Genesis Croix de Fer... if you ask Bendertherobot, he has ridden both extensively (the Genesis and the Logic)... I have had a Croix de Fer for 4 years and it's a very good do it all bike, but it's also heavy and unresponsive, if you know what I mean

bendertherobot

The Ritchey is a wonderful thing. As you get faster it gets better. But, as Grill says, you can still do mega miles on it. Difficult to say much about the Salsa. It's steel of unknown origin. Bound to be ok. Who knows. Won't be as quick. Bear in mind you can stick big tyres (28c) on the Ritchey anyway, just not 30c.

You can do rough roads on the Ritchey. Even gravel, I guess. I wouldn't want to, necessarily, but it's tough enough.

What you really want though, for all round use is the Swiss Cross Disc. They're quite nice.

Northbound52

Thanks Ugo and Bender. If you're giving away a Swiss Cross Disc, I won't say 'no'... However, I have a serviceable bike for the small amount of gravel and fire road riding that I do. I'm interested in a mostly paved road bike that won't die on the 6 mile 'sprint' portion of my ride that's on a not-quite-paved road.

I haven't read hardly a bad thing about the Ritchey, and I've generally been leaning that way. I run 28s and don't really care for larger tyres than that for ordinary road riding. How does the Ritchey descend, in your experience?

bendertherobot

It's a steel racer. It descends like a dream....