Steel or Aluminium bikes: recommendations

bikezero wrote:

bikezero wrote:

The (steel frame/carbon fork) Boardman ASR 8.8 with disc brakes seems impressively quite light at only 11kg with mudguards according the Boardman website. The new (aluminium frame/carbon fork) Triban RC520 (also disc brakes) was reviewed here recently and the review said it clocked 10.7kg on the scales. It doesn’t have mudguards (although they can be fit) so it looks like both those bikes are a very similar overall weight (and price). The cheaper RC500 is probably only fractionally heavier but it seems that Disc brake fans don’t speak so well of it’s lesser quality (cable?) disc brakes when compared to the 520 model. Fairlight is another uk brand that claims to do very light steel frames on their standard steel road bikes.. i think around 9.5kg….but I believe they are a bit pricier (nearer 1.5 grand) so maybe not for you. What about the (aluminium frame/carbon fork) Btwin Triban 500? If you can live without disc brakes that one is only £349 and weighs in the same (10.7kg) as the above other bikes. I’ve used the Btwin Triban 500 for 16 months heavily and it’s a great all round bike for whatever you need to do (it even accepts slightly wider grippier tires if you want to quick-switch wheels and go on some off road trails). The only weak point is the quite poor caliper brakes (I just replace the pads frequently but maybe changing the very cheap unbranded calipers themselves would be a better way to go). I’d be inclined to move quickly if you are interested in the current Btwin Triban range as they might be facing extinction soon given they are a few years old, the new RC models are out and Decathlon say they are dropping the Btwin name altogether on adult bikes. It could also be worth looking at the Btwin Triban 520 and 540 models in that series which see the overall weight drop even slightly more, largely due to lighter groupset I believe. The decals are just stickers on the Btwin Triban 500 whereas on the 520 and 540 models the decals are painted on. Not that sticker decals really bother me in this case as the adhesive seems strong (none peeling away after 16 months) and you can always buy or reprint and replace stickers on a bike if you need to. Personally, if I had a budget of £1000, I’d be looking for a lighter category of aluminium bike altogether (8-9kg) of which there would be quite a few options. In fact the Btwin Ultra 900 AF is 799,99 euros in most Decathlon Europe stores at the moment and it’s sub 9kg. Maybe that isn’t the best choice for you as the frame is quite racey positioned and you say you want to do commuting, but there are a lot of lightweight (8-9kg) aluminium road bikes out there today around the grand price point that do have the slightly more upright “touring” race bike position. Canyon Endurace AL for example which starts at 899 euros on their website (6.0 model with Tiagra) and weighs under 9kg. I haven’t checked but I would guess that for UK customers it’s about £850? If you are intent on disc brakes that changes things because they add to the price quite significantly. If you wanted a sub 9kg aluminjium disc brake bike you’d probably need nearer 1.5 grand to start seeing options. As for alumiunium vs steel, in the price range you are talking about steel bikes tend to be a little heavier than aluminium though maybe not in all cases as the Boardman seems to demonstrate. Personally my next bikes will be aluminium rather than steel or carbon. Steel might be considered the strongest material and more comfortable but I have a steel MTB and I just detest it. That said it weighs around 15.5kg! Generally I find aluminium to be perfectly ok in terms of comfort.

The triban RC 500/520 was interesting because of the geometry – prefer a comfortable drop bar bike rather than a racy one. Disc brakes: granted these are not hydraulic but should/may perform better than average rim brakes in the wet(?). I am not sure how  fussed I should be re weights ranging from 9kg to 12kg. I do not intend to race to work. hmmm.

On paper boardman bikes in general seem excellent value for money – that was the other attraction.

I think I need to widen my search a bit and look at other AL bikes. Thanks for the info.