I currently have a Trek fx7 and would like to upgrade and switch to a road bike as I'm taking biking more seriously now. I have narrowed it down to a few options which I'll post below, but a few notes on the budget:
My initial budget was absolute maximum $1.6k but I picked that arbitrarily. I'll be fine spending more or less, I'm just frugal and in college to big purchases hurt my psyche. As I've been looking, I've stretched that budget up to around $2.1k for one of the options below, so please do not comment saying 'well… if you could just stretch the budget a bit to get this $2.5k bike…" that's an endless loop that I'm not getting on. My primary concern is not having the best bike in my budget, but rather getting the most value out of my money. Ok here are the options:
- Canyon Endurance CF 7 Disk ($2,100)
- Note that this article concluded the CF upgrade might not be worth it, lowering the price to $1800 for the AL version. They concluded that the AL is actually better in some regards.
- Clearly the highest end bike here. Seems like you'd struggle to find another bike this good with these features. I'm slightly nervous about ordering online considering my geometry preferences which I'll explain below.
- Cannondale Synapse 3 ($1,300)
- I rode this bike at the store for a few mins and I liked it. It was nice. It didn't feel like a huge upgrade from my fx 7 but that would likely show over longer rides.
- Trek Domane AL 4 Gen 4 ($1,700)
- The less aggressive geometry of this bike felt the best, but it wasn't a massive difference or anything. I've decided the jump from the AL 2 to the AL 3 (claris to sora) is relatively small, but the price is not and it's therefore not worth it.
- Trek Domane AL 4 Gen 4 ($1,000, locally)
- With the same geometry as the AL 4, this bike is essentially $700 less and sacrifices the Tiagra and the hydraulic disk brakes. I rode both and while both features did feel nice, they didn't feel 70% nicer (as the price is). I recognize that those small benefits compound over time but overall it seems thought to justify close to doubling the price for more responsive gear shifting.
I will mainly ride paved trails and occasionally roads, and I ride gravel every once in a while. I don't mind rerouting to avoid heavier gravel areas and I'd rather get a bike that's good at one thing than a 'do it all' bike. Currently, my plan is to order the Canyon and if I don't feel it justifies the price, return it and go with the Domane AL 2 or Synapse. Also note, I've felt the difference between claris, sora, and tiagra side by side and mechanical/hydraulic side by side. You can try to convince me they're worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars if you'd like, but it just didn't feel very different to me. Would love to hear more thoughts on this, thanks for anyone willing to help out.
by kamikhat