Maxxer

Hi guys,

I've been riding my 2004 bike for about 7 months now (Bought it used).

Note: I've been doing many sports before road cycling and I have very strong legs and a good potential to use good bike parts at their maximum. I clearly see a difference when I ride a full carbon bike and I climb a hill, The frame is a lot stiffer and more resistant to deformations and my energy is transfered greater in mouvement than heat from frame torsion.

So the point is,
My bike has:
a carbon fork
complete carbon rear triangle
105 Brake levelers
dura-ace brake calipers
dura-ace front derailler
105 rear derailler
105 clipless pedals
dura-ace 9 speed chain on 105 cassete
truvativ elita crankset which I'm planning to chance cauz it's on 39/25, yeah 39.... I didn't believe it too at first sight.

The problem: the wheels are WH-5500 (shimano 105 wheels): They're good for training but they have sucky performance : heavy, they ain't stiff enough, they touch my brakes each time I climb a hill.

My current dilemma:

Buy a Cervelo Dual 2006 brand new at my LBS for about 3000$CAD all included (I'm doing a lot of duathlons and triathlons (every weeks) but I'm ALSO a climber who do long-time rides and 100 kms+ races and who plans to do criteriums next cycling year.

OR

Upgrade my wheelset (Fulcrum Racing 1) which I would buy on probikekit.com for 1300$CAD with fees for shipping/customs, change my crankset (prolly gonna get a carbon one at 300$CAD, a new carbon stem around 200$ and buy a carbon aerobar maybe profil-design at 150-200$CAD. That's about 2000$ of upgrades.

If I buy the newb tri bike (Cervélo), I would keep my Devinci for criteriums and hills and training and I would only use the Cervelo once a week for my triathlons.

I know there's no good and final response here, I have a little budget for cycling and can't afford 3 specific bikes for hill climbing/criteriums/triathlons, hence should I upgrade only 1 bike and use it for everything or should I buy a descent tri-bike and keep my descent hill-climbing bike and make it Godly with Incredible wheels/crankset and a aero-bar that I would only use during triathlons?

What do you guys think about my situation? What would you personnaly do? Is there an option with more good sides? I would like some advices before spending about 3000 Bucks in both situation.

Thanks a lot,

Max.

rplong

You need to create yourself a Make-or-Buy analysis on Excel. Factor in your qualitative measure for either decision at the end. I would go with the Dual, but I am biased towards Cervelo and buying new stuff.

munckee

I'm assuming this is for tri, but it wasn't clear if you current bike is a tri bike (or maybe i just missed it). If its not, go with the tri bike.