Inpd

I've been eyeing this bike as an upgrade.

Cavalo Corsa Ultegra Road Bike

In terms of bang for buck its hard to beat. Complete Ultegra drive train except for the 105 cassette and chain. They did skimp by using the Tektra brakes. The wheel set is quite decent as well.

Strangely there are no reviews for it either on Nashbar. Perhaps a new model?

Anyone have one and care to comment on it?

bikemig 

Pretty sweet deal esp. if you get it when Nashbar is running a special. A lot of times, the manufacturer cheapens up some of the parts but not here. The Tektro dual pivot brakes are pretty good. The saddle looks like a hatchet job but that's easy to swap out.

Inpd

Yeah. One of the nice things about Nashbar is they do cut corners but on stuff that is easy to replace. Here they cut corners also on the handlebars, stem, seat post etc but I can replace them easily.

Quite a few manufacturers will mix and match the groupset which is tough to replace efficiently.

Alias530

Literally any part of a groupset is easier to replace than road handlebars and many are easier than stem or seat post.

bt

what bicycle part isn't easily replaceable?

seymour1910

I think it's a great deal at that price, I even thought it was a good deal when in was $1200.

Alias530

Handlebars are pretty time consuming

clgustaveson

I'm guessing this is mostly because you want to ride ASAP. I mean I get the tape, possible line adjustments etc. but I'm shocked this is considered time consuming.... Unless this is sarcasm and it went over my head.

Alias530

Besides replacing a wheel via building it from scratch can you think of a single road bike task more time consuming than replacing road handlebars and everything that goes with it? Untaping the old one, all the stem bolts, having to re-adjust the derailleur, taping it again, etc.

Literally everything takes longer than that. Compared to building a motor for a car, sure, very easy, but compared to other bike stuff, very time consuming.

clgustaveson

No, I think it is the most time consuming for sure. I just didn't think it qualifies as "not easily replaced". I'm the kind of person that is a tinkerer and would rather learn and mess it up a few times than have someone else do it and I changed out a set already and I've only had a bike a for two weeks. It seemed so long for me because I just wanted to ride.

I bought a pretty decently priced bike that had a tiagra set but some other parts were sub par. I replaced the brakes, the lines, and the bars (not the whole headset). I only wanted to have bars with the slant rather than just the round bars. I was the genius that did everything before the bars and hand to tape them twice. I would say it was the most time consuming, but I am so new I would say it still has to be easy. I would be more intimidated to replace the front dérailleur than anything.

smarkinson

I nominate replacing a Shimano brake/shifter. Especially if you have internal cable routing. You have to pull the bar tape off and rethread the brake and gear cables and I swear the Shimano gear cable routing has to be the most complicated, labyrinthine thing I've ever seen on a bicycle. Hell, I even had to resort to reading the manual to figure it out. And don't get me started on routing the cables through a Giant TCR frame.

I'll take replacing the handlebars over replacing the brake/shifters any day of the week.

momo15

For what I have replaced in my minimal time fixing my bikes, I will say that even a wheel change (swapping tires and cassette onto new wheels) can suck up more time then you ever thought it would, but none of it is particularly difficult. Mind you, this is with my limited experience. I'm tackling my first shift cable change on my bikes soon. I'm going to send the kids to daycare for it.

RollCNY

How is $1299 "sub $1000"?

svtmike

You forgot to divide by 41.

Smithson1

Fuji Roubaix 1.1 at Performance has a partial Ultregra group, internal cable routing and runs about the same price.

rms13

Their full carbon bikes are a sweet deal when they have 20-25% off
Nashbar CR4 Carbon Road Bike - 11 Speed Ultegra

Nashbar Carbon 105 Road Bike

bruce19

Does anyone know who makes the frames for Nashbar?

seymour1910

At the time he posted, the bike was listed at $989.

Inpd

When I said easy I meant I could do it without a whole bunch of specialized tools.

back to the point. Anyone had any experiences with it?

exime

An asian somewhere in Asia.

mawashi

Considering that it costs USD 1299.99 now I rather get a Kestrel Evoke 3.0 $1,199 from bikesdirect.com it's a full carbon frame/fork, mavic wheels and has some decent reviews.

Tundra_Man 

I just bought this exact bike last week. Put it together and have taken it out on four rides now for about 110 miles. All I can say is the more I ride it, the more I love it. The frame is light and comfortable, the full Shimano 5800 group works flawlessly. The only downside is maybe the wheels are a bit on the heavy side, but at this price point I'm not complaining. In fact the Mavic Aksium wheels are dead true and way stiffer than I expected, so in reality they're probably perfect for my size (~200 lbs) and the type of riding I do (mixture of commuting and exercise rides.) The bike corners and climbs very well.

At less than $1200 this bike was a steal. They have the same bike with full Ultegra for $300 more but unless you're just looking to save a few grams of weight I don't see the need to spend the extra coin. My opinion is that at this point in time I think the Kestrel Evoke 3.0 wins the "bang for the buck" award.

mawashi

Agree, the Aksium wheels aren't the lightest but they are my training wheels and I've pushed them hard within the last 3 months I've worn out 1 set of tires already and they still run true.

If however, I was in Europe, the PlanetX PRO CARBON TDF EDITION bike at £833.33 would be hard to beat as it has Sram force 22 components.
Fuji would be a brand I would consider as they use the same frame from their top end to mid range bikes like the Transonic series.

Here in Asia, Giant and Merida seem to have a better bang for the buck.

merlinextraligh

If the handlebars have internal cable routing, you have to do all that to change the handlebars.

Alias530

I don't know about road bikes but Giant mountain bikes are a HORRIBLE bang for your buck in the USA.

Aluminum frame and X1 components for $6k... most competitors give you a carbon frame and X01 components for $6k. For the non-mountain crowd, it would be like aluminum with 105 vs carbon with ultegra for the same price.