What road bike would you buy?
 

Looking to start racing and not spend a ton of money..... Thinking about these to bikes and not sure which on to go with.

http://www.competitivecyclist.com/fr...ke--10841.html

http://www.excelsports.com/main.asp?...jor=1&minor=35

let me know what you think. Thank!

can you test ride either??

if you can't I'd go with the Wilier just based on CC's reputation.

I say go aluminum, e.g. Allez or CAAD.

Crashes are fairly common in Cat5 amateur races. If you're on a budget, drop $1000 on an aluminum bike, and you'll be half as upset as if you crashed that $2000 Wilier that stretched your budget.

And, of course, the performance will be nearly identical.

If you make it to Cat4 or Cat3 without getting wiped out by your hospital bills, then you can drop some dinero on a nice bike.

i like the wilier better, but i could do w/o the red.

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. :o

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.

+1 for CAAD or ALLEZ with 105.

wilier

If you've got the flexibility, go with the Wilier. The Ridley has a much taller head tube.

I like your question about Wiler or Ridley and the answers are Cannondale or Specialized

neither..................go to local shop...caad 10 better deal

Willier for the frame, but would prefer the Ridley's Ultegra.