Crash716

The Cervelo Sololist aluminum frame is an great crit bike...

pretty light....a little aero, and aluminum so it's a little more tossible than a full carbon bike.

yellowjeep

Leader Al frames would be my frame of choice if i was racing, I would by 2 or 3 of these https://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-LEADER-56CM-...QQcmdZViewItem.

I had one for a while and it was a killer bike, I had the 735r.

I would then outfit one of the frame with Ultegra or Centaur of Rival, all work really well but dont cost out the ass, and some Ultegra or similar wheels laced to dt swiss 1.2 rims. There a bombproof crit bike and you have 2 frames in reserve.

acorn_user

Tom Teesdale makes a crit special in steel or alloy starting around $700..
https://www.tetcycles.com/Frames/Road...criterium.html

See lots of Cannondales, but they are ubiquitous in collegiate cycling. My road bike has to do everything. My climbing wheels are my crit wheels are my aero tt wheels. Except they are neither aero, nor light, just strong ! I think they are slightly under 2 kilos.

recursive

Me too. My crit bike is my TT bike. (with clip-on bars and a forward seatpost)

San Rensho 

On a continuim of racing bicicles, where you have a time trial bike on one extreme and a matched sprint track bike on the other, in general, a crit bike has may track bike attributes to it as criterium racing is not who is the best time trialer, but who is the smartest and has an explosive sprint.

As others have said, steep headtube and seat angle, short wheel base.

In addition, a high bottom bracket so you can pedal through the corners while leaned over more. Most crit riders are spinners, so 165-170mm cranks for a smooth spin and also added corner clearance.

Upper body position is more compact, not stretched out like pure point to point road race bikes, so shorter top tubes and stem. This gives you an advantage when you stand up and sprint, you can use your arms much more to add more power.

Don't worry about aero, there are so many other factors that completely dwarf any aero advantage in a criterium. A deep aero front wheel catches the wind and makes you squirrely in strong cross winds, and the last thing you want to do in a criterium is be squirrely.

Sew up tires run at a fairly low pressure (at least on the front). A big part of criteriums is going fast in the corners and sew ups are very sticky and inspire confidence in the corners.

dutret

Such a continuum is a bad way to look at bikes.

DocRay

cheap, stiff, ally frame. All ally parts. Stiff box-section ally wheels. Weight should not be a real issue.
Pedals should have a lot of clearance.

I'd go Campy over Shimano, for the multi-shifting on the sprints.

Please start the flaming.

Briareos

This is what I was thinking actually...

Old-School GT frame, set of affordable Velocity Aero wheels (I love the rims) and Campy Veloce. I'd have to check to see if Veloce has the "quick-shift" option though. Maybe go with a single-chainring to be "cool"? Ha! ^_^

Voodoo76

I like three things combined, a short front center (lots of overlap), Good alignment and OS tubing into the BB. More weight on the Front Wheel, if well aligned the bike will still track well even with the short wheelbase. Best ever for me was a Davidson Stiletto, overlap almost to the ball of my foot very easy to ride.

One point about wheels. A lot of Crit racing in the Midwest is on poor pavement, or even bricks. On those courses I really like a box section rim with a soft tubular (CX), feels like my tires stay on the pavement more.