Originally Posted by
Trakhak
Or if you walked into a Trek store and asked for a good entry-level race bike, you're looking at the $1,200 Madone.
Great bike for the money. You might be able to get a slightly better bike (lighter, higher-level group) from a couple of other companies for around the same money, but any bike in that price range would be good enough to whet your appetite for moving to a higher price range later (or to allow you to stick with that bike, if you're happy with it).
The Madone starts at 3600.
105 mechanical. Alloy bars/stem, crap wheels (and I used to own a set, they sucked - bearings, freehub both crap, boat anchor heavy) - over 19#’s.
You can get a similar Canyon with 105Di2, CF aero bars, DT Swiss wheels for the same price.
The 6k+Madone is = to the $4,500 Canyon.
Trek, Cannondale, Specialized… they charge a pretty steep premium for what is essentially the same performance- or less. And they jack up the high end bikes, higher than many other brands, which in turn allows them to jack up the prices of the mid spec bikes.
And there are cheaper brands than Canyon.