While sitting around enjoying the miserable fall weather I decided to spend roughly an hour thoroughly cleaning my and my girlfriend’s bikes. She does not race her bike. She’s just an enthusiast who rides hard on a nice bike and I love her that way. She rides a Pinarello Dogma from 2009; the one with the magnesium frame, carbon stays and the unnecessarily wavy carbon ONDA fork. It’s a gorgeous bike, and she built it up herself with campy record. A race bike if ever there was one.
(this one)
Comparing it to my venge (as seen in the header) I get the feeling that her bike really isn’t meant to be ridden hard, raced or crashed. Prestige bike brands like Pinarello, Colnago, Merckx and De Rosa might be performance machines capable of winning grand tours but they almost feel too nice and too snobby to be put through the ringer by an average guy who pays his own entry fees. The attitude of the bikes would almost get in the way of being able to ride them effectively.
If I’m having trouble articulating what I mean as the difference between race bikes and race bikes, maybe a comparison will help. When I think about what I want out of a race bike I think performance. Plain and simple. I want a frame that is light, stiff and just barely comfortable enough. Manufacturers that come to mind when thinking about soulless performance machines are Specialized, Cervelo, Felt, Cannondale and Scott. Of course, my interpretation of some of their bikes as being soulless performance machines could be debated and is open to personal interpretation but I think I mean it as a complement. I would have no objection to racing a SuperSix or an Addict. I don’t care that they were made by expensive machines and not at the hands of some old Italian master, or that they weren’t hand painted and detailed. I just want them to win races.
(Handmade by expensive machines)
Obviously if you’ve ever been to a single road race in your life you know that people do still show up on these bikes. Guys will race their Dogmas right along side other guys on Treks. They even race them well sometimes. But to make a point of all this I guess I’d say that when I line up at the start, they really aren’t the guys that I’m worried about.
Race Bikes or Die 