I’ve been looking at a new road bike, and it’s amazing how low the weights are for carbon fiber bike frames. For titanium, the Seven Axiom is already a light frame at 3 pounds and the Alta is 2.5 pounds, but the Giant Formula One Composite frame in the small size (the size I would probably purchase) is 865 grams or 1.90 pounds. It appears most of the manufacturers now have readily available frames which hover around 2 pounds or less. In the Tour de France, the dominance of carbon fiber is shown by the fact that I think every bike in the peloton is carbon fiber. I’m particulary interested in the Giant road frames since I see so many Trek OCLV frames out here. A custom Seven would be nice, but in terms of bang for the buck and the positive reviews I’ve read, I’ll have to go try out a Giant composite road frame. Another reason is that I miss my Trek 2100 which had carbon fiber main tubes, an aluminum rear triangle and aluminum lugs, so I’ve had a positive experience with carbon fiber. The Specialized Allez Comp I have right now has a top tube which is too short for me and a very stiff ride.
One thing that will be interesting to me is that almost all the road bikes have a 53 tooth large chain ring which I think may be a little big for some riders. I’ve been pretty happy with my 48 tooth large chain ring on my Bianchi Axis, but that’s on a cross/touring bike with 35 mm tires, so it’s going to have a lot more rolling resistance than a road bike with 23 or 25 mm tires.