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Well its that time of year where the bike shops are clearing out their 2006 bikes to make room for 2007. Since the Tour de France didn’t feature Lance and in fact mainly featured doping, I’ve noticed there are quite a few great models that are still around. At least here in Seattle. A quick trip to Gregg’s revealed some nice deals for the ordinary mortal who wants a nice bike. Right now $1500 really buys you an amazing 18 pound bike while getting to $2000 gets something that would have cost $5000 just 7 years ago. That is you can get a nice carbon fiber frame with really to amazing components for that range. Some examples:

Specialized Tarmac Comp Double lists for $2200 and you can get it for $1600 right now (a typical 20% discount to move the bikes). It has a carbon monoque frame, carbon fiber seat post, stem, fork. The way they get to $1600 is to use the lower end Shimano 105, but as good as Ultegra of 2-3 years ago with 10 speeds and quite light. Really nice looking too. On Roadbikereview, it has 14 reviews and got a pretty amazing 4.79 out of 5. The Ultegra version is called the Roubaix Expert which streets for $2300 for the Ultegra, so it is all the component cost difference.

Trigearreview has a good professional review of this bike as well. Everyone finds it very stiff and responsive and the 105 (which used to be crud) is now the best value in the Shimano line as Dure-Ace has moved realy into stratospheric range. (They also mention the Topolino V19 which is an amazing deeper rim wheelset. I have the originalsnow called C19 and they are in a class by themselves and really the next upgrade for a bike like this). They also come with a compact crank which is really better for the average rider. I use them and you really get much more use as long as your top end speed is lower than 32mph.

Specialized has three lines of road bikes, the Tarmac (their premium road bike), the Roubaix which is a more relaxed, more upright bike (like the Trek Pilot), the Tarmac and the Allez (which is the lower end steel bike). For most semi-serious folks, the Tarmac is the best choice, while the Roubaix makes sense if you are just starting out. They also make a super premium versions of both called the S-Works Roubaix and Tarmac, with S-Works Tarmac SL really causing drool at cool $8200 list!

Other competitors in this class include from Trek the 2006 Madone SL 5.2. Slightly more expensive at $2200 from the a street of $2700 right now, they are the right price for the Ultegra version. The new Ultegra by the way is amazing, it is oversize hubbed and really better than the Dura-Ace of a few years ago. With Lance not riding anymore, Trek seems to be losing some mindshare to Specialized I’ve noticed. This bike is basically unchanged for 2007. It has an OLCV 110 frame with the only issues being that many folks like the Mavics on the Tarmac better than the Bontrager housebrand used on the Trek.