Moda Alto Black Soul Classified 2024

The Moda Alto is a bike that feels fast and performs well, and if you like your quick bike to give you plenty of feedback then it’ll certainly appeal. Ours came with the excellent Classified Powershift hub system which effectively replaces the front derailleur, and that completes a high-quality package very well; you’ll need pretty deep pockets, though.

> Buy now: Moda Alto from £5,775 from Moda

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Moda Alto: The ride

The Alto is a very purposeful bike and it’s definitely best when you’ve wound it up to a decent lick, when the reasonably aggressive position and deep wheels feel like they’re rewarding you the most. With a stack-to-reach ratio in this XL size of 1.45 (1.41 for the medium, 1.35 in the smallest size), it’s as aggressive as the frames that most WorldTour teams are riding, and you can tuck yourself out of the wind quite effectively. Even though it’s not specifically an aero bike, I’ve set a few personal bests on downhill and flat segments during testing.

If you’re putting the power down to get the speed up then the bike feels extremely solid; the oversize 41mm press-fit bottom bracket shell must make up a decent percentage of the Alto’s 970g frame weight (size M) as it certainly feels like there’s plenty of material down there.

That eagerness to transfer leg power to the tarmac is also great on short, punchy climbs and rolling stuff, where the Alto feels better than many bikes at maintaining speed over the crests. Even though it’s not the lightest for the money, it feels like the kind of bike that would reward you in something like a crit race, where speeds are high and there’s plenty of sprinting out of corners. The seat tube angle is reasonably steep, and that puts you in a position where you’re pushed a bit forward, which generally feels a bit faster and I also find makes me reach for the drops more often.

Front-loading the bike can make the steering feel twitchy, but the one place the geometry of the Alto isn’t especially aggressive is the head tube. Steering is pretty neutral, and there’s plenty of feedback through the stiff front end. It’s easy to pick your line on fast, flowing corners and it’s pretty handy in tighter stuff too; the XL test bike has a wheelbase of just over a metre which is pretty compact for what is the largest size.

On longer climbs the Alto is very composed, and it’s easy to settle in and pick a rhythm. At 8.45kg in this build it’s light but not superlight; you can get lighter bikes for this sort of money and the Moda’s nature on the climbs is more steady than eager. The benefit you feel from pushing up the speed is always a good incentive to try to push on when things start to flatten out, though.

Overall, I’d describe the ride of the Alto as firm. Even with big 30mm tyres (big for a race bike, anyway) pumped up not especially hard (I mostly ran them at 80/85psi front and rear) you’ll be getting plenty of feedback about what’s happening under your tyres. On bigger roads and smoother tarmac that can be welcome, but I found that the Alto wasn’t as composed as some bikes I’ve ridden when the quality of the tarmac dropped, which it often does round here.

Of the road bikes I’ve ridden I’d put it towards the firmer end of the pack. Depending on what you’ll be using the bike for, that might suit you, and it’s certainly not a deal-breaker on a bike that Moda describes as ‘the most performance focused frame in the Moda range’. You’ll more likely be riding quickly for shorter distances than heading out on big epic adventures. It’s an involving ride.

Moda Alto: Frame and fork

The Moda Alto is a true monocoque frame design, manufactured using unidirectional carbon and an EPS process. That’s the same EPS you’ll find in your bike helmet: the carbon layup is arranged around a solid expanded polystyrene core in the mould, rather than an inflatable bladder. That’s then heated and cured as usual, and the EPS is removed to leave a hollow frame.

There are two main benefits of making frames this way. Firstly, the frame is a single piece – there’s no need to layer extra carbon to join pieces together as you would otherwise need to, which adds weight and means that you don’t necessarily get the carbon filaments going in the optimal direction under the surface, where they can’t cross the join. Secondly, the EPS inner core gives the internal walls of the bike a perfectly smooth finish, where with bladders you can get ripples and extra material where there are creases in the bladder. That can save weight, and makes the material properties of the frame more consistent.

At 970g for a medium frame the Moda is very light, but not at the cutting edge; you maybe wouldn’t expect it to rival something as high end as the Specialized Tarmac SL8 at 685g, but more direct competitors such as the Orro Gold STC (830g) come in a fair bit under the Moda too.

The quality of the finish is excellent, with gloss black paint and iridescent frame decals.

The directness and stiffness evident in both the pedalling and steering is explained by the use of a 1 1/2in head tube and an oversized PressFit 41 bottom bracket. Cabling and hose routing is all internal, via a DCR/ACR-compatible headset system. Our test bike came built up with 25mm of headset spacers.

At the back the seatstays are dropped, and there’s a scoop in the seat tube to allow a shorter wheelbase while using a profiled tube. The top tube is flattened and you get a truncated-aerofoil-style aero seatpost.

Moda doesn’t make any specific aero claims for the Alto, but it’s hitting most of the current trends for an all-purpose-but-still-aero road bike. And it’s definitely a bike that feels fast at the kind of speeds where those incremental aero gains start to rack up.

The frame is available in six sizes, covering riders from 150cm up to about 190cm. I’m at the very top end of that range and the XL is just big enough, with a reach of 404mm and stack of 585mm. It’s more of an L than an XL really; many manufacturers will have a size bigger.

Moda Alto: Equipment

Our test bike was supplied with a mostly Shimano Ultegra Di2 drivetrain, but with an upgrade to a Classified two-speed rear hub, which is a £1,499 cost option for this bike, bringing the total to £7,274. Ultegra Di2 is, for me, the pick of Shimano’s groupsets. We gave it a full five stars when we reviewed it last year, and described it as ‘just brilliant’. Unless you want the bragging rights that come with Dura-Ace, or someone else is paying you to ride it, there’s really no point spending twice as much for something that’s functionally almost identical and only marginally lighter.

Shifting on the new Di2 is wireless from the lever to the main system in the body of the bike, so that’s one less thing to have to poke through your headset here; only the brake hoses run through the steerer tube.

The battery is in the seatpost and a cable runs to the rear mech (and the front, if you’re using one). The introduction of wireless hasn’t affected the shifting at all, which remains crisp and predictable right across the cassette.

Braking on the new Ultegra groupset has incorporated the new Servo Wave design from Dura-Ace, which gives you more pad clearance at the rotor and a more progressive lever stroke. It turns out that my new shed with its wall-mounted rack is a good way to find out if there’s any air in a brake system, as it tends to migrate to the lever or calliper depending on which way up the bike is. I did have to bleed the brakes on the Alto before riding it – well, after riding it very briefly and fortunately on the flat! – but it’s a simple job if you have the right tools. I’d prefer it to be fully and thoroughly bled out of the box, though.

If you’re not familiar with the Classified Powershift hub system then we reviewed it on road.cc at the end of last year. It’s a two-speed hub that has a direct drive 1:1 ratio, and a reduction gear of about 70% giving you a similar range to a double chainring.

The internals of the hub are all sealed, and the system uses a specific thru-axle which contains a receiver and a rechargeable battery. It receives the shift command wirelessly and changes the hub via a contactless system. Shifts are super quick, quiet, and work under full load (up to 1,000W).

There’s no setup or maintenance required, and because there’s no front mech it’s a lot easier to change your gear ratios by simply swapping out the front chainring. Our test bike had a 52T chainring, which is equivalent to running a 52/36 double. Well, 36.4, but close enough. But you could go for a 53 (53/37), 50 (50/35), 46 (46/33), 44 (44/31)… whatever you want, really.

The Classified system integrates neatly with Di2: you just use the lefthand shifter buttons like you normally would, and if you want different ratios, the capacity of the rear mech is plenty big enough to swap chainrings without faffing around with the chain length.

This is the first Classified-equipped bike I’ve used and I was really impressed. Shifting is instant and silent, and you get the psychological advantage of looking like you’re climbing the steep stuff in the big ring, even though you’re not. Every now and then I forgot which ‘ring’ I was in as there’s no visual cue, and the specific chainring used on the Moda was a bit chattery on the bigger sprockets, but overall I think it’s an excellent system. Removing the wheel is no harder than with any other thru-axle. Okay, £1,499 is a fairly high price for doing away with the front mech, which I’m not convinced I could justify, but your mileage may vary there.

The Classified rear hub replaces a standard hub in the Spinergy Carbon 4.7 wheelset. The 47mm rims have a reasonably narrow (these days) 18mm internal width, and the spokes are made from PBO, or poly(p-phenylene-2,6-bensobisoxazole) if you’re into your chemistry. Spinergy’s claim is that the material is three times stronger than steel, and half the weight, and that they also absorb more vibrations and combat rider fatigue.

It’s always hard to isolate what comfort comes from frame, wheels or tyres, but like I said earlier, this is a pretty firm ride, even with 30mm Challenge Strada Pro TLR tyres, which we’ve previously praised for their ride quality. They’re nice and grippy too.

The 47mm rim depth is in all-rounder territory; I found them mostly well behaved, although in beefier crosswinds they did occasionally catch the gusts. At 1,652g a pair (without the Classified system) they’re about what you’d expect in terms of weight; lighter wheels are available.

The rest of the finishing kit is good quality. Moda’s Carbon cockpit is very tidy and hides the brake hoses away well. It’s size-specific depending on what frame size you buy; my test bike had a 44cm bar. I’d probably opt for something a little narrower if I was aiming to ride fast, but I had no issues with the shape, or the accessibility of the drops. There’s a flat aero section on the tops and the Deda bar tape is decent.

The saddle is a Selle Italia SLR Boost, which I got on fine with and is a well-made saddle that should last; the two-bolt seatpost design makes it easy to tweak your saddle position.

Moda Alto: Value

At £5,775 without the Classified system even the standard build of the Alto is nudging toward superbike prices, and adding on another grand and a half for the rear hub would be a personal choice that I’m not sure I’d make, nice though it is. Let’s instead rate it based on the double-chainring build, which makes comparisons easier, as not many other manufacturers offer the Powershift rear hub as an option.

Some bikes are more expensive: the £7,199 Basso Diamante we reviewed recently is more or less directly comparable: a low-slung, Ultegra Di2-equipped race machine. Stu was very impressed with the ride quality when he reviewed it, and it’s a full kilo lighter, albeit in a smaller size. Pinarello’s X3 will cost you £4,500 with a groupset a rung down and alloy wheels, so a comparable build would certainly be more expensive. We liked the Ridley Falcn RS, too, but an Ultegra Di2 build is going to set you back eight grand.

On the other hand, the Orro Gold STC is well-liked around these parts for its ride and also its value: an equivalent build of that frame is £4,899, and Orro is currently offering a Dura-Ace/Zipp 303 build for £6,599. The Merida Reacto is more aero specific but boasts similar geometry, and when Stu tested the Reacto 7000 he was, again, really impressed with the ride. Like the Moda it’s not especially light, but an Ultegra Di2 build again comes in under five grand. The more comparable Scultura is a similar price.

Moda Alto: Overall

If I was looking for a bike to ride quickly and not especially far, the Moda Alto would be a solid choice: it has an involving ride and it’s at its best when you’re keeping the pressure on the pedals. For a road racing or crit bike, it’s definitely doing a lot of the right things.

The Classified Powershift hub is certainly an excellent performer, and the rest of the build is as very good quality. The hub makes the bike pretty expensive, but even without that it feels a bit on the pricey side. Okay, some other options are much more expensive, but realistically the Moda brand isn’t competing with the Pinarellos and Specializeds of this world, and it’s not a standout bike when compared with a Merida, or Canyon, or Orro that you can pick up significantly cheaper. That’s not to say it isn’t a good bike; it certainly is. But if I had six grand (or seven) burning a hole in my pocket I don’t think it would be at the very top of my list.

Verdict

Responsive race bike with a quality build that’s fun to ride fast

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