Emonda, Roubaix Comparison
 

So two weeks ago I sold my Emonda SL6 and while awaiting my new bike have had the chance to demo a Roubaix Expert for a few hundred miles. Never thought much about comparing the two till I had a chance to catch up on a ride with [MENTION=197775]RNAV[/MENTION] while visiting the beach and him asking questions about the two. I really enjoyed my Emonda but was looking for something with more diversity, gravel racing, CX, and group road rides. I had searched for several months while trying to decide whether to sale or not.

I was fit to the Emonda using my measurements from my R3, and to the Roubaix using the same measurements. I have ridden the Roubaix on rides up to 68 miles, and as short as short as 20. The thing that has surprised me the most, which also surprised me when I chose the Emonda, was the fact that it is one of the most comfortable bikes I have ridden. I honestly expected the Roubaix to me more compliant, however I didn't see that. To be fair my Emonda was set up tubeless while the Roubaix was not?! However I have also owned previous generation Roubaixs and found them to be very compliant.

I think both bikes are great rides and am not sure that one could be labeled better than the other, depending on the use. For the set ups I had, I honestly thought the Emonda was the better overall ride. Of course I bought the Emonda while considering the Domane and Synapse, believing it was the best of all worlds. I have seen others post that the SL4 is not the same Roubaix as previous models when it comes to compliance and I would agree this is true. It would be interesting to compare the two with the same set ups but I didn't have that chance. Just thought I'd share my thoughts...

So you're trying to compare the ride of two different bikes and one had tubeless tires and the other didn't?

To me you are comparing two of the best road bikes on the planet. No losers. The Emonda is considered a magic carpet ride. Specialized took the SL4 more in the direction of the Tarmac...an endurance bike with attitude. Depends in part on the personality of the rider I believe. If you want a slightly kinder and gentler Tarmac, the SL4 Roubaix is the bike. The Emonda likely has better ride quality and with H2 geometry and careful stem selection, can closely duplicate the riding position of the Roubaix which has a tall head tube to top tube ratio many average riders will prefer.
Early generation Roubaixs had a soft ride and lacked responsiveness...almost felt like steel only lighter. To me, one of the greatest bikes of all time and why I haven't sold mine is a Roubaix SL3 Sworks or Pro or Expert with either 11r or 10r carbon modulus. This bike came out in 2011 and was around until the SL4 with much stiffer rear triangle replaced it. When the SL3 came out and I started reading the reviews which pegged the scale of superlatives, I ordered a SL3 Pro from my local bike shop. He had never seen one. The best bike of 50 I have ever owned...built it up with Campy and 3 years later I am still astounded by how good the bike is.

Also as TrojanHorse suggested, tubeless is going to eat away some of the advantage of the Emonda and bring the bikes closer together in terms of ride quality.

Bikes like their riders have different personalities. Very little between them in speed but they will feel different. Both great bikes but with different character. I prefer the Emonda to either the Madone or Domane and the Roubaix to the Tarmac because the Roubaix is so easy to ride it is so stable and in my opinion is as fast unless you spend a lot of time out of the saddle sprinting and I give the edge to the Tarmac.
PS: If you don't want a super stiff bike like the SL4 Roubaix, either get the Emonda or pick up a used SL3 Roubaix off ebay. If you can find a Sworks or Pro SL3 Roubaix, its a special bike and still with race stiffness but without the edge of the Sl4 or sacrifice in ride quality. If you get a coveted Sworks SL3, don't be plussed by the PF30 bottom bracket that comes on the bike that Specialized has now discontinued for 2015. This bottom bracket can easily be converted to BSA and you can run a Campy or Shimano crank plug and play with rock solid reliability.

I'm giving my opinion on the two bikes, and thought it was important to note the tire set up! To be fair, and as I have stated before, tubeless is nice for flat protection but to me ride quality isn't drastically different?!

I agree, that's what surprised me was how relative they are while being marketed so differently?! It must've been you who I recalled talking about the changes between the SL3/4.

Fair enough - I've never ridden tubeless but the background noise leads me to think it has some comfort benefits. I have an SL3 Roubaix as well, going on year 3 and it's the first bike I haven't been jonesing to upgrade almost immediately. Ha. It sounds like trek really nailed it with the Emonda though.

And to not just take my word for it...go out on read some reviews of both the SL3 and SL4 Roubaix. Reviews are very different. Specialized changed every tube section on the SL4 when I thought the SL3 was nearly optimized. The result is a harsher bike which makes many scratch their heads because an uber stiff bike and endurance geometry don't seem or at least need to be compatible. The SL3 Roubaix is already a stiff bike and in fact, I was pretty surprised how stiff it was once I got it on the road. The SL2 Roubaix is a noodle compared to the SL3 which was a total redesign.

And a good point about how they are marketed. In some ways the Emonda is watershed because it is smack in between a pure race bike like Madone and Tarmac and an endurance geometry. If you study the geometry you will find this to be true in wheelbase, HT angle, head tube to top tube ratio etc. I like the Emonda a lot. The thing that sways me in favor of Specialized is I prefer BB30 to Trek's wider bottom bracket which can't be converted to English threaded for running either Campy or Shimano's cranks with less issue and I am not a fan of the seat mast design which is proprietary and relegates an owner to a single bolt seat post which I consider inferior to a solid 2 bolt. The Roubaix (and Tarmac) will both fit a generic 27.2 dia seat post.

I have about 400 miles on my Emonda SL6, and I really think Trek is missing the mark with how they are marketing the bike. Their ads and webpages for it go on and on about how light it is, but what is really the story is how it rides. It is stiff and light for sure, but they didn't sacrifice ride to get there. I rode a Tarmac and a Madone on the same day I test rode the Emonda, and the Emonda felt stiffer and more responsive than the Madone and smoother than the Tarmac. I did not ever get the chance to ride a Roubaix, because I had convinced myself that the "endurance" bikes were too mushy after riding a Domane. I only read after I bought that Specialized had stiffened up the SL4. Sounds like it would have been a tough choice between the two if I had test ridden the Roubaix.