Help me buy a new road bike

Use:

• winter training (riding up the sea-to-sky on the shitty shoulder),
• commuting (9km each way),
• might do the occasional camping overnighter with loaded panniers,
• might do some logging road exploring.

Budget:
Hmmm. Mid market I guess. I'm not after bargain basement nor true top end stuff. My maxim is best-bang-for-the-buck and if there's a big step up in performance for a relatively small amount of money, I'm ok with that but I'm not into marginal gains!. 105 level should be fine.

Must have's:

• Discs
• Decent tyre clearance but chain stays need to be quite short (I'm used to riding a road bike with VERY short chain stays and I like the snappy acceleration)
• Drop bars/STi (prefer Shimano over SRAM but not fixed one way or another)
• Proper fender mounts
• Proper rack mounts (F+R would be good but front not absolutely essential)

Must not have:

• giant gate-like appearance (I'm 6'4" so I know the head tube is gonna be somewhat long)
• Don't want to have to resort a big stack of headset spacers either
• "Excess weight" - 23lb or less would be nice
• Was looking at a CX bike but don't want anything with too high a BB

Starting point so far is the 2014 Brodie Romax (@ $1800). What else is out there?

Surly Straggler
Traitor Ruben

Checked Brodie's Factory Clearance?

http://www.brodiebikes.com/2014/online_store/index.php

I bought a salsa colossal which covers all of your criteria - but the SRAM Rival is shit. I would upgrade to the next level or 105 if you can. I love the bike and it is amazingly smooth. Chainline in Kelowna had 1 left a while back for a blow out of $1500.

That Salsa looks good but fails due to lack of fender [HTML_REMOVED] rack mounts

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http://www.traitorcycles.com/2013/Bikes_Ruben.cfm

Thanks Rat…I'll put those on the list to be investigates further though the T R A I T O R is over my self imposed target weight as specced

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also check out All-City. They have a space horse and Mr. Pink which may fit the bill. I use clip on's on my colossal and it does the trick - kind of.

I use clip on's on my colossal and it does the trick - kind of.

I did use clip-ons on my current road bike but they failed (twice) and got caught up in the wheel and now rub against tires terribly. Luckily it happened to the back wheel and I haven't been thrown over the bars by stray fenders in the front wheel…hence requirement for 'proper' fender mounts

New 105 with hydro brakes an mechanical shifting is coming.

I have been riding the Trek Crossrip LTD since september. It has been a great bike, although it does look like a trek.

shimano 105
ample tire room
carbon fork
cable actuated hydraulic discs (feel quite good)
full fender and rack mounts
under / around 23 pounds.

http://www.trekbikes.com/ca/en/bikes/road/cyclocross/crossrip/crossrip_limited/

New 105 with hydro brakes an mechanical shifting is coming.

Ugh. Something sad about the death of beautiful drop-dead-stupid-simplicity that is a road bike.

Ugh. Something sad about the death of beautiful drop-dead-stupid-simplicity that is a road bike.

Rivendell will gladly sell you your simple down tube mounted shifter rim brake bike into the next 50 years.

Right…I think I'm about to pull the trigger and the short list is…Specialized Tricross Elite disc and Kona Jake ( or Jake the Snake). Thing is, I can't figure out why the Specialized is so much more expensive compared to the similar spec'd Jake. I don't really know road/cross components. Thoughts?

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