Road bikes evolution
 

I was forced to switch from a very good 2015 road bike (SRAM Force mechanical, rim brakes) to a very good 2023 bike (Rival AXS, disk brakes).
Many will shout at me, but I feel like…

I have just swapped a technically very good bike for another technically very good bike, with the penalties of 15% increase in bike weight and 65% increase of price (say half of it coming from inflation). Better braking performance in wet or mud conditions is useless since, like many others, I am not a "pro" and I carefully avoid riding in such conditions.

i do agree with you and have bought a new bike road bike that has E-Shifting and disc brakes and its a fatty (Scott Addict 10 with Rival AXS that weights over 19lbs omg lol) and was wondering if I made a huge mistake.

https://i.imgur.com/ZgxwNgNl.jpg

but in the end I do love that with disc brakes you can put in a lot wider tires, mine came stock with 32c, braking with disc brakes (especially hydraulic disc brakes) is a lot smoother. the bike is the most comfortable road bike i've ridden/owned and I've done the retro steel with sram red that was so comfortable. i also did the super 14lbs light weight racing bike (van dessel rivet with sram red) that was unforgivingly stiff but fast and light and surprisingly not that expensive for that weight, carbon, and groupset (i spent well under 4k). Its probably mainly do to the 32c tires and i can even fit bigger 35-38c tires and turn the bike into a capable lighter gravel bike. hell even with the 32c tires I did some pretty gnarly semi-mountain trail riding just to see if it works and its good.

a lot of the modern endurance bikes also have mounts for accessory bags and fender mounts (i bought a official fender mount kit from scott thats super clean looking).

https://i.imgur.com/dwzACpRl.jpg

i'm contemplating spending $$$$ for carbon wheels/carbon cockpit/SRAM Red Cranks Groupt eventually to get it into that 15-16lbs range, but i actually don't care that the bike is over 19lbs so far I love riding it. The AXS shifting, Garmin Varia, Cadence APP (that tracks power meter and has varia) have made riding super fun and actually safer and mechanical stuff like no cables for shifting is even simpler.

i love this bike with all the newer stuff, I don't love its heavier and somewhat more expensive but everything is (groceries, eggs, gas, concert tickets, houses, etc).

the tech will catch up again and lower in price over time as well as get lighter for cheaper eventually.

Yeah, you got fleeced. Silly you.

Is better braking performance every really useless?

You also swapped an occasional need to charge batteries for the occasional need to swap shift cables. I find charging a lot easier to deal with.

I hope to never find out.

Agree with OP. The newer tech may be marginally “better” in some ways but the cost is big and the benefits small.

:50:

I have a Topstone with 105 discs, as well as a Chinese carbon with 105 rims brakes. I pretty much never ride in the rain (unless I accidentally get caught out) and avoid wet roads. There is functionally no difference between the 2 braking systems in good conditions. The singularly different advantage to a disc equipped bike is I can run much wider tires, up to 44mm, where as I would never be able to get a tire that large past a set of rim brakes. So discs are great for gravel and endurance bikes.

You don't say.

A Scott Addict that weighs 19 lbs? No, thank you.

My 2011 Addict R1, with frame pump, bottle cages, mounts for computer and lights, and power pedals weighs just over 16 lbs.

My 2006 bike with rim brakes, English BB and straight 9/8” steerer is a total weapon with its semi aero ISP frame and 50mm tubulars, weighs 6.14kg, owes me like au$3.5k, and half that was the wheels.

1. How do you get a bike to owe you money? Apparently, I’m doing it really wrong.
2. You suck at debt collection. 17 years is a very long time…unless you’re charging an exorbitant interest rate.

I heard about better performance of disk brakes, but my previous sram force rim brakes had very similar performance. Maybe that is to be expected, since pros had no problems to abuse rim brakes for decades, probably 5 times harder than myself.

Evolution or devolution? You decide. :D

in 2011 i weighed 215lbs on my 10sp mechanical sram red rim brake carbon road bike that weighed 14.5lbs.

in 2023 i weigh 153lbs on this 12spd sram electronic rival hydraulic disc brake bike that weighs 19.5lbs.

19lbs 2022 Scott Addict 10 for me please, thank you!

I'm not sure you can. If you further spend around 2000 EUR, you might obtain around 500 g weight reduction, which will reduce your actual 19.29 lbs (8.75 kg) to 18.19 lbs (8.25 kg). Does this worth the effort?

I am pessimistic about that. I spent lots of hours to find a decent lightweight road bike and I unterstood that the norm for all the providers during the last years was to continuously increase bike weight. I could find a bike below 7 kg in 2015 with 2300-2500 EUR. Now I should have spent 8000+ EUR for such lightweight – insane amount for just a bike. I think they will never go back to lightweight for casual riders.
I got now 7.7-7.8 kg from the start with less than 4000 EUR, but I clearly feel the difference compared with the old 6.65 kg.

Durianrider agrees fwiw

upgrade to wheels saves about 500g/1lb. integrated cockpit saves 250-300g. my seat is already 100g lighter. tubless setup another 150g. sram red crankset alone is 400-500g savings. i'm already in the 16lb range but will have to spend a ton.

everything gets cheaper eventually. even this stuff does too. I also bought a older 2019 scott addict 10 for $1000 used before this one and it has hydraulic disc brakes, 32c tires and 11sp group that sold for $3500 brand new. its all relative.

the only reason i spent $3700 on this is because it was new and I wanted a new bike again. i could scour the craigslist/ebay and probably get a comparable cervelo that was $5-6k new for maybe 4k or lower. its variable arguing about pricing when you compare new bikes from a bike shop to a used bike from ebay/craigslist. I know how to shop for both.

Has the OP explained why he was forced to switch yet?

At 19lbs if seems like there isn't much effort to get the weight down, my cyclocross bike 2x12 with road tires is 19.5 while my daughter's with road tires and 1x12 is 18.75lb, both are steel frames, seems like just a swap to aluminum or carbon frames would drop a lb with no real effort. A real effort to shave weight wouldn't take much, some lightbicycle carbon rims with lighter spokes and hubs could get mine into the sub18lb range with a little effort.

The strange thing is that none of this really matters to me. I am fine with rim or disk brakes. I have no problem with electronic shifting. Do I need it? No. What matters to me is riding for fitness and enjoyment of the adventure.

My complaint (and OP’s too I believe) is that for a mid or better tier groupset, going forward, we will HAVE to get disc brake and electric shifting, at a much higher price point. It’s unfortunate that the older technology may be relegated to entry level lower quality tier groupsets.

“Progress.”

The good thing is used bikes are plentiful and prices are stable if not dropping. Premium bikes rarely get destroyed or disposed of so no worries getting what you want for a long time to come.

What steel frame CX bike with hydraulic disc brakes weighs 19.5?

...I'm assuming this is a production frame.
...I'm also assuming it's a carbon fork and not steel fork, plus a smaller size?

54cm but built with heavier tubing since I'm not small weight wise, the fork is the one thing I don't like on it, too chunky looking, I'd like one more streamlined for cyclocross rather than designed for 48c gravel tires. But lighter rims, hubs, brake rotors, cassette, carbon post, carbon bars would all bring the weight down with ease. Daughter's is a 50cm, but running square taper cranks, nothing lightweight there, rival shifters, brakes and der, cheap take off saddle from the 10.00 bin.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d300374609.jpg