Does this bike exist?
 

I hate disc brakes and I don't like SMP saddles and I still think this is the baddest looking bike I've ever seen. If it does exist does it come with a free Cippo autograph?

Just swapped everything over. You either need to buy the Hollowgram specific crank puller tool or have a shop do the drive side crank for you. The torque spec on the cranks are 25-30lbs so you need a torque wrench in that range. All the parts are swappable. Didnt need to buy a thing. Reused the 109mm spindle from the Caad and the washers.

I posted back in November that I was building my first road bike up - as promised here's a picture!

It all started with a 2015 CAAD10 frameset. Base gray powder coat - red finish that looks like a decal but others have said it's paint. Comes out kinda orange in this pic though.

http://i.imgur.com/XJBUFuU.png

My Dad donated most of the Ultegra 6700 components. Managed to get the Boyd wheels for a great price at the end of 2015 on closeout, very happy with them and customer service at Boyd. eBay helped me source the rest of the stuff I needed. I promise I'll cut the steerer tube down! I'm nearly done dialing in fit and pretty happy with just one small spacer right now..

I did a 50 mile ride on this setup a few days ago and was very comfortable the whole time, which is great! These really offer some serious bang for your buck. I will continue to rack up the miles on this great bike. :)

Best time to purchase?
 

I'm looking at upgrading my 2011 CAAD10 to newer version or a Cannondale slice... What time of year is it best to start shopping for bikes? Or when do the new 2017 or 2018 bikes come out and the current versions go on clearance?

Thanks!

2016 should be on clearance right now, you should start seeing 2017's soon, Cannondale just unveiled all of the new bikes last week.

Thinking about getting a CAAD12 but I have an issue with the sizing. I'm 5'7" with a 30" inseam. I think I'm around a size 52. However, the stand over height for the 52cm CAAD12 is 30.8" and even the 48cm frame's is 29.9". Am I looking at the wrong measurements or will none of the sizes fit me?

Go to the bike shop, check your sizing, take it for a test ride. I would guess 52 will be fine.

Standover height means nothing when you're riding the bike. The measurement you should be looking at is effective top tube. Also, your pants inseam has nothing to do with your actual inseam. If you really want to know your size, start with real measurements and put them into a proper fit calculator.

Bike Fit Calculator | Find Your Bike Size | Competitive Cyclist

Personally, I think this is important to know before walking into a shop, because you never know if the shop is telling you something just to move a bike off of the floor.

Effective top tube is a lousy measurement and definitely should not be used. The fact that people obsess over top tube lengths has lead to silly frames with 75 degree seat tube angles and such.

Height charts are completely adequate for sizing if you don't know what you want in the stack and reach departments because torso length and leg length are inversely proportional. even if you are of unusual proportions, because it will give you a good compromise between stack and reach, instead of trying to fix all your problems just adjusting one or the other.

Yes, stack/reach are superior, but I will still argue that ETT is far better than stand over height for estimating size.

No, ETT doesn't mean anything and can be deceptive if you only look at ETT.

Standover at least tells you if you can stand over a bike, and there's nothing wrong with using height to size bikes.

Well, at least you'll know which bike you look good standing next to.

Better than buying a bike that has both the wrong reach (and stack) and you can't stand over because you only looked at ETT.

We'll agree to disagree then.

As I said before, height, as in your height from head to toe, is a perfectly adequate starting point for sizing if you don't know what your stack and reach figures are.

ETT is an inferior method and flawed and tells you less than standover height does.

So every bike fitting website on the internet is wrong?

Also, the standover height on my mtb is completely different than my road bike, yet the ETT is 56 on both, are you saying that my mtb is too small for me because there's a bigger gap between my boys and the top tube?

I can stand over just about any size of bike, doesn't mean they're the right size for me.

And now you want to claim ETT is comparable across bike types between road and MTB? This is the kind of stuff obsessing over ETT does. Even the calculator you posted earlier will spit out different ETTs for road and MTB. No not every bike fitting website is wrong. Because not every bike fitting website obsesses over ETT.

I never said to size by standover. I said standover height is a more useful figure than ETT. It gives you something meaningful, which is top tube clearance. I told you sizing by height, total body height, is adequate.

But he can stand over both bikes, so what size should he get?

I never said to size solely by ETT either, but I do feel it's a better estimate than stand over height.

This is a dumb argument, it's a cannondale, you have to buy it from a shop anyway, jsut ride both sizes and pick the one that feels better.

Except he didn't say he could clear the top tubes, his concern was that he couldn't, and least not with more than 0.1" of clearance. You said "the" measurement to look at was effective top tube, the only measurement you said he should look at, and now you're trying to walk that back. Nor do I really care if that's his pants inseam or his actual inseam, because I said sizing by height will get you close enough.

I'm not defending standover, like you seem to think. I said standover was a more useful figure than ETT, which can be less than useless as it can cause you to buy the wrong frame. At least standover tells you if you can stand over the frame with both feet while stopped.

Test rides rely too much on whatever set up, the bikes have on the showroom floor and tire pressure. One could find a bike more responsive or twitchy because of the tire pressure and attribute it to geometry. Or if the saddle is forward and/or angled nose down, the rider could think there's something wrong with the geometry because there's too much weight on their hands and so on. Discomfort from bars being too high, too low or at the wrong angle.

I could set up two same size bikes with stock equipment to the correct saddle height, and make them feel completely different.

By the way, those fitting websites you love so much say your MTB is too small for you, going by ETT.

It's amazing how wrong I seem to be, yet every single one of the bikes I own have a top tube of roughly 56cm.

Guess I just got extremely lucky when I bought all seven of my bikes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good for you. You sure showed those evil ETT fitting sites that say you need a longer ETT for MTB who's boss. More power to you to completely disregard the advice of ETT fitting sites.

And you still have no idea what you're talking about. So I think we're good here.

Go plug in your numbers into the competitive cyclist calculator you linked and tell me what ETT it returns for MTB.

I was wrong about my mtb top tube length. I apologize.

I also apologize for the entire silly argument.

So my Etap and Enve post and stem came this week. Still need to make some adjustments. Going to run the Campy wheels till the Enves come. Pictures do not do this frame justice.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...7_192058_1.jpg