New road bike - need to feel the joy!

Equipment
1

Hi everyone!

I restarted cycling in 2022 after visiting my family in France. I used to mountain bike with my dad and did some road biking for a few years—just recreational, no racing. I remembered how much I enjoyed it.

In 2022, after more than 15 years after cycling in my youth, I had a Norco Indie2 commuter bike that I used casually around my neighbourhood, occasionally commuting to the office. After my trip to France in June 2022, I bought an old Argon 18 Radon alu/carbon road bike with Shimano 105 from an auction. I rode it for nearly 1,000 km, but the frame was an older geometry and slightly too large for me. A few months later, I upgraded to a used Giant Defy 2010 carbon alloy with aero carbon wheels. I loved the bike, despite imperfect shifting due to replaced parts. I took on the challenge of completely stripping and upgrading it to 105 11-speed while using the Argon 18 on the trainer during winter. The weather stayed nice, so I finished the Defy quickly and thoroughly enjoyed working on it.

Since refurbishing the Defy in December 2022, I’ve been riding it and it’s a beauty—smooth shifting and fast, with a very relaxed position. In January 2023, I bought a Giant TCX as a gravel bike. I love its snappiness and more aggressive riding position.

Since then, I’ve been itching to upgrade my road bike to a racier geometry, ideally with electronic shifting. While I don’t travel with my bike, work takes me to many places where I enjoy renting bikes and exploring new areas. I’ve rented a variety of bikes—Trek Domane, Checkpoint, Scott Addict, Giant TCR, Cervelo R3—and appreciate the new geometries and electronic shifting.

Last year, I rented a Scott Addict in California and almost bought it to bring back to Canada. But the hassle of finding a travel case and dealing with customs discouraged me. Earlier this year, I nearly bought a 2024 Defy Advanced Pro 1 from a Giant store but decided against it.

Recently, while abroad, I rented a Cervelo R3 with SRAM Force. The owner was selling it, and I had a great 100 km ride with climbing. The bike felt excellent, but again, I hesitated to buy it abroad.
Upon returning home, I checked out Giant Defy and TCR 2024 models but didn’t feel comfortable on them, they felt very slow possibly due to the wheel base and also influenced by the short test rides in the store’s parking lot.

I then tried a Specialized Tarmac SL7—much snappier and very light, but the Shimano 105 electronic shifting felt “cheap” to me. Yesterday, I test rode a 3T Strada at another shop. The bike was very responsive, with a nice aero carbon handlebar, SRAM Rival groupset, and a comfortable saddle. It felt good, but 3T is an unfamiliar brand to me—I only know one person with a 3T gravel bike.

Any feedback from anyone who owns a 3T road bike? A Strada, perhaps? Has anyone compared similar bikes? It’s tough to decide based on a 5-minute test ride for a bike you’ll be on for hours…

Thanks!!

1 Like
2

That’s a very long post, which I am sorry didn’t read but I think you have 1 simple question, what’s the difference between a 2010 aluminium defy vs a modern carbon road bike…

Modern bikes have disk brakes which are not only more powerful, don’t wear rims but also allow for frames with more tyre clearance which allows wider tyres which offer more grip, more comfort and are easier to bring up to correct pressure with a small pump and tubeless tyres are much less susceptible to flats anyway

The biggest advantage of electronic shifting is the hassle freeness, no cable stretch, always perfect shifting provided you remember to charge your batteries

Carbon adds more stiffness which theoretically allows for better power transfer but more importantly less road buzz and therefore more comfort.

1 Like
3

The biggest factor for me would be if you love how it looks (provided it rides well too, and meets your requirements for bike fit and tyre clearance).

My previous gravel bike rode like a dream but I didn’t really like how it looked so I was always looking to replace it, despite it being the perfect bike for me.

At the middle to high end, they’re all great bikes. The difference in ride feel goes away after 10 minutes of riding (except maybe a long wheelbase, which i don’t like on a road bike). Just pick the one you find yourself staring at the most.

4

3T are design pioneers and often bring new trends to market too soon for the market to accept them. The Strada itself initially went into the World Tour as a 1x exclusive road bike (without even a front derailleur hanger available to fit if you wanted one). I think this was still in the days of 11-speed max on road bikes, so it was a pretty bold step at the time. The team hated the bike because of this limitation and the results weren’t good and they were forced pretty quickly to retrofit the bike for a front mech so it could be 2x, but the damage to its reputation was already done.

A version 2.0 of the bike was released in the last year or two that included internal cable routing through the headset and a few other tweaks, so if the bike you test-rode was new then it’s probably that version.

Those who own 3T bikes seem to really love them. I’ve only ever bought a few components from them - in all cases because of some design innovation that the competition wasn’t really offering. Build quality and performance has been good but installation/serviceability and sourcing spare parts has been an absolute nightmare (most difficult internal routing job I have ever done was a set of 3T handlebars).

So aside from some possible WTF moments as a home mechanic or your LBS taking extra time to source weird proprietary bits of hardware, if you like the Strada then it’s probably a good road bike which has had a recent update and was ahead of its time at launch so is probably still pretty current despite being an older platform than a lot of the flashiest stuff out there.