Is that even possible without renting and riding for a few hours?
The best you can do is get a feel for the personality of a bike on short back-to-back rides. For example here is what I did when buying my first road bike:
better than nothing. Ended up buying the Domane 58cm. My fitter made minor tweaks to the fit.
My fitter offers a new bike fitting service:
I guess thats another option.
Some people say the Tarmac SL7 is nervous or twitchy, I find it responsive and communicative.
I recently got a Melee. It’s interesting to see the geometry numbers compared to my n=1 experience. The bike’s turn-in and cornering composure is amazing (same wheels and tires as previous bike). Is quicker always better, or is there a Goldilocks zone?
There are certainly better value bikes, but I love my Melee.
Per the origin of the handling side of this discussion, we were first looking at the new Lauf Uthald that takes the “long& slack” formula to the extreme (at least within the road “race” bike spectrum). See the delta between a Med Uthald & 54 Melee and note just how much longer the Uthald is than the Melee. Add in the head tube angle and they become fairly different bikes in handling would be my expectation.
Personally, even with 60mm deep aero wheels I’ve never had an issue with my aprarently “aggressive” Emonda using old school race geo. I also have endurance bikes (Roubaix & Domane) along with time on plenty of longer gravel bikes to know the handling extremes in the drop bar realm.
Each has pros & cons depending on your preference. None are purely right or wrong, it’s just a matter of choice. I personally think the Uthald is rather far on the end of the spectrum and not at all something I’d want in any road situation. The Melee looks interesting and would be something I’d try at least.
Nice! By all accounts the C68 is a beauty to ride. My last Colnago was a CX1 back around 2012-ish. It’s time to get back on one imo! As an older guy I’ll consider the 68. I’m of the opinion (to get a bike to do what you want) all the stuff you hang on it matters infinitely more than the frame. But, I’m picky and I’m sure in the minority with that statement.
Anywho, unless Colnago let’s you pick bar type/size, stem length, crank length, ring size etc…I’m buying a frame and building it up.
I agree for the most part, but I think you can still learn something from the short test drive/ride. When I bought my gravel bike I test rode the Cervelo Aspero back to back with a Trek Checkpoint, and I could tell quite a substantial difference even in stock form. It can be very misleading though if the bikes have very different wheel/tire setup.
I would REALLY like to ride a C68, that’s a beautiful bike. Which is of course, the thing that matters most…
No, a lot is personal preference. What is “more agile” for one rider is “nervous” for the other. Conversely, “more stable” might feel like “unwilling to corner and boring” to others.
I strongly prefer road bikes with a racier geometry, but that’s just me. My previous road bike had endurance geo and I always felt as if it resisted going into corners. Only once I got to ride a racier road bike in the corners did I understand what carving corners feels like on a road bike.
I think the best-selling road bikes mostly have a more relaxed endurance geometry. Hence, even though I reckon Lauf’s new bike is not for me, there might be a market for it. Even if it isn’t a bike for you, I personally like that there is plenty of very different bikes to choose from, which makes it more likely that there is the one special bike for you. Or 10 if you are @mcneese.chad 
Totally agree: loaner for 1+ week > long test ride > short test ride >> nothing.
Usually it doesn’t take long to understand that a bike is not for you. And at least in my experience, the bikes that I loved felt great from the moment I got on them.
I am always amazed how many people are able to test their bikes before a purchase. My experience with couple of LBS was “want to test it? Buy it” 
Depends on your locale, I guess. In Germany I have always been able to test ride bikes. Good for them, on more than one occasion that resulted in me spending more money on bikes 
In Japan, I was never able to test ride bikes. Exceptions were explicit loaners by manufacturers (not for sale) or during bike fairs/manufacturer events.
IMHO not being able to test ride a bike is bad for business. If I have to guess, I can order online.
This is always my point. If I can’t test a bike, buying at local LBS provide no value. Heck, they do not even offer coffee here!
It’s quite interesting because no one will buy a car in dealership without test drive.
I know you are being facetious, but IMHO that’s a great point. In order to compete LBSs have to offer things that online shops cannot. You have to offer value to customers.
My last LBS in Japan did offer coffee for 100 ¥/$1. It was the best LBS I have had, great selection of brands, the boss was a former world tour pro team mechanic and not just knew the tech, but was plugged into the Japanese cycling scene.
Absolutely this. I spent $9k on my last bike, and I was sure because I could test ride the frame for two weeks. And I had a short test ride before that, too.
OT, but I have… twice. Probably me being outside the bell curve here too, but I bought my brand new CR-V and WRX sight unseen and with no test drive of a similar car.
Just lots of research and use of prior experience to make the call, similar to many of my bike purchases done without riding the bike. Been burned once or twice on the bikes but successfully done on many more.
I dont expect that this will help me choose between two bikes that I like, but I do think that it will help me tell if there is one that I strongly dislike. Nonetheless, point taken that its a fairly inexact science.
As far back as the early 90’s, when I was managing shops, one of my core principles was giving reasons for customers to just come into the shop. Beyond a welcoming, friendly staff, that meant constantly changing products to check out, etc. so when we brought in clothes, we didn’t bring in much more than a size run of any particular design…miss out on it, and it was gone. We’d bring in dumb, fun stuff like the Park Pizza Cutter or other knickknacks that people would splurge on for no reason….same with t-shirts, etc.
You can specify a reasonable amount on their configurator if you buy directly from them, but it’s very fixed in terms of wheel choices, etc. - as an experiment I did email them about other choices and heard nothing. You can also configure the paint job, which looks fun but I can’t imagine what the lead time would be.
Personally, I had my LBS (who are a Colnago dealer) build it for me exactly to my spec and based on my bike fit with them. I’ve got exactly what I want on it, and I’m dealing with someone local if anything needs fiddling with. Some of the bits, like wheels, I sourced myself. I couldn’t imagine buying a £12k bike off the rack.
On the bars - I’m not completely sold on the stock Colnago CC.01 bars, but it’s my first experience of an integrated bar/stem. I think you can also fit a Deda stem and bars to it, which might give you more optionality.
Overall though it’s a beautiful bike and lovely to ride.
At $950 USD+ I’m not sold on them either. Seriously though, one piece are nice if the drop, reach and bend work but not a deal breaker if unavailable (size). I’m running Shimano Pro stuff now so the drop is more and the angle of the stem is more as well. All easily accounted for but, just another potential hiccup in the fit. I’ve discovered I’m very sensitive with regards to everything front end…other than that, up close, they work flawlessly with the spacers which aesthetically can kill the look if they don’t work. Fortunately, the V4RS comes with a round steerer tube so anything will work initially but, might look off.
It saddens me greatly that anyone accepts a less than perfect bike fit, just because it is more convenient for manufacturers.
Wow. I didn’t realize there were places where you can’t test ride bikes at the LBS. That sucks and I hate it for you. If that was the case for me, I would just buy online. I believe in the LBS and I spend my money there, but that’s because they offer products and services that I want to keep local. Take those away, and I understand why someone would buy online,
My most extreme experience (sorry for off-topic) was LBS where I was buying a stem for my Giant NRS (as you can imagine it was long time ago). Direct quote (I remember till day) “Why you are buying such a nice steam for such shitty bike. It’s too nice!”.
When I was buying my road bike small things like swapping a casette was also not possible in price of the purchase. So if so simple things (not to mention test rides) are not provided why I wouldn’t buy online? Yes, those are local experiences but I magine a lot of places sti operate this way. Of course there are also places that are amazing experience (I haven’t been in one but I imagine it has to be true).
That’s just crazy to me. And has to be hurting business. If one shops says no and the other lets me ride, who do you think is getting my business? My experience was quite the opposite and highlights how test riding can bring you business. Also shows that even a test ride can be helpful.
I had a Trek Checkpoint and Trek Domane. Both with carbon wheels. I was in a shop getting a fitting. Happened to be a Specialized dealer because the fitter just happened to be very highly regarded. Anyways, during my fitting on the Domane we were just chatting about my goals and I told him that I wanted a little more aggressive position and we tested a few things out but somewhere in the middle he asked if I wanted to test ride a Tarmac SL6. I said sure. Even with the stock setup (alloy wheels I think) with all the spacers and bars that were wider than my preference, I could pretty quickly get a feel for how the bike would ride and it was a race car compared to my Domane. And it lead me to buying the Tarmac and selling my Domane. Had he not let me test ride, I very likely wouldn’t have bought from their shop as I wasn’t even in the market for a new bike and was buying from the Trek shop across town. It also highlights that a test ride can be enough time to feel a bike out and make a decision.
I think people with lots of experience who have owned multiple bikes can say things like “you can’t tell with a test ride” because they’re looking for something very specific, but people who are new can benefit deeply from a test ride. Am I a 56 or a 58? Do I want relaxed or racier geometry? Those kind of questions can be answered much easier when riding both side by side.
