T/M: New Frame, or 7 hours and counting on a Specialized Allez Comp E5

After waffling for months--Ridley Damocles? Trek Madone?  Specialized Tarmac? Canyon perhaps?--I decided that at less than $500 (the price has increased, but msrp is still less than $600US), the Specialized Allez E5 comp (which I'd also ridden--but in a size larger than what really fit me) would have to really suck to justify spending nearly 3 times as much for any of the other frames.

The E5 is a hydro-formed aluminum frame.  It's based on current Tarmac geometry and features a tapered head-tube and the 1.5" lower bearing. (In my frequent test rides since August, I've decided that the tapered head-tube offers a significant improvement in front-end stiffness and handling).  

Specialized doesn't provide weights and I haven't weighed the frame.  Honestly, I don't really care that much.  It seems the same weight or lighter than the 2006 Isaac Pascal I've ridden (listed at 1370 grams for the frame:  a war-pig).  It retails for somewhere around $500 for frame, fork, cane creek headset, and a 27.2 seatpost.

The frame also takes a braze-on front derailleur, so I simply swapped my current parts over.  Nothing remarkable to report about building the frame up.

I've spent a few hundred miles riding my wife's 1985 Klein Quantum (s/n less than 100).  If any aluminum frame should be a boneshaker it should be that one.  I always liked it--even on chipseal.  It sure ain't plush, but it's not unrideable.  I've ridden steel, I've ridden carbon.  I think that geometry, bike fit, and tire pressure are more important components of ride "feel" to me than frame material.

The isaac features a 54cm top tube, a 43 degree fork rake and a 73 degree head tube angle (and a 16 cm head tube), and a 73.8 degree seat tube angle.  Don't know the bottom bracket heights off-hand.  The Allez E5 shares the 73 degree head tube angle (with a 14.5 cm length), but differs from there:  45 degree fork rake, 54.8cm tob tube, and a 73.5 seat angle.  So, we're talking minimal geometry differences.  I measured the Isaac's stack and reach to set up the front-end of the Allez (and was able to use the same 120 stem; btw, I use a dry-wall square to measure the stack-and-reach).  I set the saddle position on my rollers using the old-school "heel-on-the-pedal method," then spun a bit to see if anything hurt.  It didn't so I put it away to do a longer test ride on Saturday.

Park multi-tool stowed in a jersey pocket, I rolled out the door with my son Saturday a.m. fully expecting to use the Park frequently.  Ten pedal strokes in, in fact, I knew that the saddle was too low, not really level, and, holy counter-intuitive, needed to move slightly back-ward (which puts my saddle-rails squarely in the center of my 0-set-back Bontrager seat-post.  Those adjustments made, off we rode.

Two hours or so later we rolled into the bike shop.  The guys asked me how i liked the frame.  "Love it," I said.

Loved it enough, in fact to go out and do another hour to try to figure out what was going on.  Perhaps you wouldn't think that little differences add up--but they do.  After nearly four hours on Sunday on a variety of road surfaces ranging from super-smooth asphalt to washboard gravel, I won't say that the aluminum is as smooth as a carbon frame, but I'll repeat:  it's not torture, and I think the frame-fit is more important than the material.

So, to wrap-up:  while I'm sure that a carbon Tarmac would be a smoother ride than the Allez (and while some folks will want to include the Cannondale CAAD frames in this discussion), for my purposes--which are getting an affordable and raceable frame that fits, the Allez E5 works well, at least based on 7 hours.  If anything changes, I'll let you know.