Modern aluminium offers a genuine performance alternative to carbon fibre, but without the cost, says deputy editor James Spender
There’s a myth in cycling that the bike you should be buying is the bike your local bike shop mechanic rides. The rationale is that mechanics get to see, pull apart and fix everything, so they know what works, what breaks and hence what’s best.
There’s a caveat here – the mechanic needs to love bikes and work in a ‘proper’ bike shop. So the dusty second-hand shop you frequented as a kid, where lead mechanic Derek clearly despised bikes and anyone trying to talk to him about bikes, is not much use here. Derek spent his wages on a Mk2 Fiesta (OK, maybe that was just my experience). But find a bike-loving mechanic in a half-decent LBS and you’ll find the ‘thinking rider’s’ bike, the most sensible balance of performance and pennies. There, I wager, you find aluminium.
Let’s get one thing straight: not all aluminium is born equal, but as a general rule aluminium is cheaper than carbon fibre (and also cheaper than performance steel, titanium and magnesium). And yet is it so different?
Take an aluminium Specialized Allez Sprint frame and compare it to its sister flagship, the new Tarmac SL8 (see p11). An Allez frameset costs £1,800, the Tarmac £3,700. Admittedly the Tarmac frame weighs a claimed 780g while the Allez is 1,395g, but gram for buck, the Tarmac is £4.74/g, the Allez a mere £1.29/g. Or put it another way, build the bikes up identically and you’ll be £1,900 better off, and only 615g worse off. The bike mechanic racer knows 615g is nothing. Just chop down your seatpost and leave your phone at home.
Of course, there are other factors. Sticking with Specialized the Tarmac will be more aero, but by how much? I have no data, but the frames are very similar shapes and, no matter how you skin that cat to make it more slippery, the bike aspect of the rider-bike puzzle only contributes around 20% of the drag. You are the drag, your position affects the drag, and as it turns out, the Allez’s geometry is almost bob-on the same as the Tarmac’s.
And there’s more…
This isn’t a puff piece for Specialized. Cannondale has long made the brilliant CAAD bikes (now that is the thinking mechanic’s favourite) and an aluminium Synapse. BMC does a decent turn with an aluminium Teammachine, Trek has an aluminium Émonda, and then there’s Europe’s most popular bike (so Decathlon says), the B’Twin Triban – I defy anyone t
