The following piece comes from the owner of Intown Bicycles, who has been servicing and selling bicycles for over 30 years.  These are good thoughts to keep in mind when selecting a bike – or encouraging your friends to start riding and join Team Noodle.

If you’re considering purchasing a new road bike, or just studying up on the subject for future reference, there are basically three things to now about road bikes:  Frame Materials, Frame Geometry, and Components.

Frame Materials:  Manufacturers use four materials to make bicycles – Aluminum, Steel, Carbon Fiber, and to a lesser degree, Titanium.  Each material has different properties and lends a different feel to the ride of the bike.  Manufacturers sometimes use a combination of these materials in different parts of a frame and fork to achieve a particular ride characteristic they want in the bike.

Aluminum is by far the prevalent material used by bike manufacturers today.  Builders like aluminum because it is lightweight and stiff.  With aluminum, they can make bikes that flex less under load and thus direct more of the rider’s energy into forward motion, rather than the frame absorb the rider’s energy.  However, aluminum can also make the ride bumpy and less comfortable.

Steel in the other hand, which has been used to build bikes for decades, gives a smooth, more comfortable ride to the bike.  It is a more pliant material, and therefore absorbs road vibration well.  Steel is also a very strong and reliable material.  It weighs only a little more than aluminum.

Carbon Fiber, though, touts the best qualities of both steel and aluminum.  It is lightweight and lends a very smooth ride to the bike.  Carbon fiber is also a very versatile material.  It can be laid out to be either stiff or compliant, depending on what part of the frame it is use din, and depending on what ride qualities the builder wants in the bike.  We’re seeing more and more carbon fiber used on bikes these days.  The technology has advanced and the price has come down.

Titanium, finally, tends to be the most expensive material builders use.  It is a very hard metal and difficult to work with.  It most resembles steel in its ride qualities in that it gives a very smooth ride.  However, it has the advantages of weighing less than steel, being very corrosion resistant, and incredibly durable.  Titanium bikes just don’t wear out.  Incidentally, Litespeed, one of the most highly regarded titanium bike makers, is located just up I-75 from Atlanta in Chattanooga.

Frame geometry is the second thing to know about road bikes.  As the term implies, frame geometry refers to the lengths of the frame tubes and the angles at which they are assembled.  The frame geometry, like the frame material, affects how the bike rides.  More specifically, frame geometry determines how the bike handles.  A touring bike, for example, has longer chain stays, more fork rake, and less acute angles in the head tube and seat tube.  Thus, a touring bike handles more like a Mercedes or Lexus: smooth, stable, and comfortable – desirable qualities for a bike to be ridden great distances, loaded with heavy gear, or used for commuting.  Conversely, a bike made with more acute frame angles, a shorter wheelbase, and less fork rake handles more like a Porsche or Ferrari: light, quick, and responsive – desirable qualities for racing or just the joy of performance.

The components used on a bike, i.e., the brakes, gears, wheels, etc. comprise the third element that determines a bike’s ride quality.  The Shimano brand dominates the bicycle parts market, especially the transmission market for road bikes.  (Of course, Campagnolo still makes fine road bike components, but not really on the scale of Shimano.)  When you hear mentions of words like “105” or “Ultegra” these are references to the model of Shimano components used on the bike.  Most manufacturers make a bike featuring each of these model component groups.  “Dura-Ace” is the top of the line component group where Shimano does all of its research and development.  It is very expensive stuff, but the technology developed there gradually filters down the line to the less expensive component groups, namely: Ultegra, 105, Tiagra, and Sora.  The higher quality components employ better materials, are machined to closer tolerances, and have finer finishes, which means they work better and last longer.  The shifting feels crisper, more precise; the braking faster and more controlled.

Now that you know all about frame materials, frame geometry and components, forget all about them.  You don’t need to know about any of that to buy a bike.  All you really have to do is this:

Visit a bike shop you like, determine your proper frame size, pick the price/quality range you want to afford, then test ride some.  See how they fit, feel, and handle. 

It’s the combination of frame materials, frame geometry, and components that determine how a bike will ride, not just the characteristics of a single element such as the frame material or frame geometry.

You’ll find that bikes are very competitively priced from brand to brand and store to store.  At a given price point, you’ll see similar, if not identical, components use don them.  Thus, you can focus your attention more on how they ride than how they’re priced.  You’ll know when you find the right bike.  It’s sort of like buying shoes.  When you “try on” the right one, it just feels good.

Your bike shop staff can help you determine the right bike for your body and the type of riding you plan to do.

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