Roadies…..Colourful...
 

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Roadies…..Colourful bike or black?

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@chakaping – the chameleon Emonda SLR and the Domane with the green bar tape are all that remain. Bar tape is now black.

Makes sense. I thought that shed must be a bit of a Tardis if not.

The Emonda is beautiful, do you find it's much slower on the flat than the Aeroad?


 
Posted : 28/10/2022 1:19 pm
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The Aeroad was fun as it was great for the type of riding I did, I would do chain gang rides where we would be averaging over 25mph for 20/25 mile rides. This involved all sorts of terrain, flat through to rolling countryside hills. It just always made me smile while riding and look forward to going out on it.
I remember my old race bikes (Emonda and Madone), never gave me that same sort of feeling.
The Aeroad also climbed fine. It was comfortable to ride, but it was undoubtedly quick.
I did a load of testing at my local closed circuit crit course. I mean a load!!! It’s generally a smooth circuit with a single small rise, followed by a fast downhill then straight, shaped like a kidney bean. The Aeroad with 60mm wheels and 25mm tyres was my fastest combo. Wasn’t much in it with regards to 50mm or 60mm wheels. And my recordings were purely non scientific, it was just me trying to look at what was fastest for me for race day. The Aeroad was significantly faster than the Domane in its normal guise (28mm tyres but same make as on the Aeroad and 40mm wheels).
My current Emonda has 60mm and 38mm wheels, both are very light, the 38mm being about 1350g and 1600g for the 60mm. For disc brake wheels this is pretty good. I only ride the 38mm’s, but that’s because I think they look much better. If I was racing again I’d be on the 60mm for pretty much all courses.

Solo rides from my front door, I have a 12 mile section that the Aeroad was just awesome on. Very fast twisty roads, slightly downhill. It was just a dream on that bike.

My superlight Emonda felt responsive initially, eg, from first pedal stroke. But it didn’t have the same sort of fast flowing feel as the Aeroad. It’s all perception as the speeds were all so close together to not really be noticeable.

If you want out and out speed for generally flatter courses/routes then I’d go for 60mm wheels. I have quite a lot of wheels ranging from 35 through to 60mm, in my opinion on non aero frames 40mm is a good look, 50mm starts to notice performance improvements and 60mm look like a dogs dinner but notice the bigger performance benefits.

Just to add though, my Bontrager 60mm wheels handle winds really well. My Reynolds were OK in the wind, but had other issues….The Cannondale wheels felt like wrestling a tiger in the wind. Really wasn’t impressed with how they rode.


 
Posted : 28/10/2022 1:33 pm
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@w00dster yeah - I'd have loved Campag, but I already had eTap RED groupset and I like it a lot, so couldn't justify the change. Similarly, a pair of Campy wheels would have been nice, but the Zipps are great value for money and I already had SRAM everything else. So yeah, not a very conventional C64. Campag EPS will be an upgrade in a couple of years, maybe.


 
Posted : 28/10/2022 1:38 pm
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