Originally Posted by milkbaby

Both those bikes look nice and seem like decent deals. If you're groupset agnostic, get the one that looks the nicest to you. I don't ever care what my bike looks like while I'm riding it, but if I didn't like how it looked when not riding, that would bug me the rest of the time.

For racing, lots of people recommend an aluminum frame like the CAAD or Allez because if you do crash it hard enough to break, you just trash it and find a used replacement for around $500 on ebay (easier if you're a common size). Very small dings you can monitor carefully, whereas common wisdom says a small ding in carbon is a catastrophic failure ticking time bomb waiting to go off. On the other hand, a simple break in a carbon frame will probably not be more than $500 for a repair and repaint. Some big guys feel the lower end carbon is flexier and don't like the feel when stomping on the pedals.