Carbon Forks, Tiagra/105 compents worth the extra$$

[Runnerboy]

I'm very new to cycling, and am in the process of buying a road bike. I've got my choices narrowed down to two bikes, the trek 1000 or the Felt F75. The F75 has carbon forks and tiagra and 105 compenents compared to the trek's alumnum forks and SORA hardware. Is spending that extra 200 bucks worth the investment? And if anyone has rode either of these bikes, what did you think of them?

 

[rek]

The specs of that Trek sound wrong .. do you mean to say the "Sora" group on the Trek 1000, or is it a secondhand bike that's been upgraded by its past owner?

 

[Runnerboy]

haha yeah what the hell was i thinking . . that stuff is definetly sora . .

 

[MidBunchLurker]

The Felt sounds like a better deal to me

 

[rek]

I hate the Sora shifters, with the little devils-horn thingy. I much prefer the Tiagra-and-up way of having the two levers.

BTW Sora is 8-speed, Tiagra and up is all 9-speed and interchangable. End result, if you buy Sora and want to upgrade, it'll cost you dearly as you need to buy a lot of new things..

I would buy the Felt without giving the Trek a second look.

 

[Runnerboy]

Originally posted by rek
BTW Sora is 8-speed, Tiagra and up is all 9-speed and interchangable. End result, if you buy Sora and want to upgrade, it'll cost you dearly as you need to buy a lot of new things..

Thanks I didn't know that.

 

[RalleighOke]

Definitly the Felt F75. Tiagra and 105 is IMO much better than the Sora Groupset are. That is if you don't mind not riding a Trek. I specifically spend more than I budgeted for to get Tiagra instead of Sora.

 

[kneighbour]

Originally posted by rek
BTW Sora is 8-speed, Tiagra and up is all 9-speed and interchangable. End result, if you buy Sora and want to upgrade, it'll cost you dearly as you need to buy a lot of new things..

I would buy the Felt without giving the Trek a second look.

Same here. The 8 speed thing is a problem. It is hard to upgrade. For example, I had Sora on my old road bike - which had flat bars. I wanted to put on dropdowns, but really could not do it is practically all STI levers are 9 speed - so I would have had to upgrade the group. Very awkward.

I found Sora to be fairly similar in use - ie just as clean, etc. Almost. I am now using 105 and it is a bit better, but not so much as I would rush out and buy it. I thnk the 8-9 speed thing is important though.

I would look at the Felt over the Trek in this case - but personally I found the Felt rather indifferent to actually ride.