Hello, I’m looking into buying a gravel bike and have no experience on road bikes so far.
Future plans with bike to be: weekly ride outs (most likely 60/40 on compact gravel roads and tarmac, ~60-100km) as well as bike packing tours (mainly on tarmac).
Surely some of you will point out the main difference between the bikes being the alloy frame of the diverge and the carbon frame of the topstone as well as some more high quality specs of the topstone. My main concern with the topstone is that the bike might not be worth its money after having read through some other Reddit rants about it (e. g. due to shitty WTB rims which are still part of todays topstone in question).
The purchase price of the diverge bike is ~1700€ and the topstone is around ~2200€. In general I would not mind paying more for better.
The bikes:
https://www.cannondale.com/de-de/bikes/road/gravel/topstone-carbon/topstone-carbon-3-c15373u
My questions:
- I am a little afraid of the carbon frame being more sensitive than the alloy frame, on the other hand I think it won’t make a significant difference in riding either frame since I’m a newbie. Are carbon frames really that much more sensitive?
- Could you please share your opinion on/experience with either bike.
Thanks a dozen times already!
by oost55