Frame
The frame is one of the most important elements of a road bike. Most people call it the core of your bicycle. The space between the pedals and the point where your saddle comes out of the frame is called the frame size. If you want to achieve a good finish time at the end of your training session, you must choose the frame that fits YOU.
Materials
When you’re watching the Tour the France you probably often see very nice frames. Most likely you’re thinking: ‘Why don’t I have that? Is that frame expensive? Or is it a different kind of material that makes it so special?’. But there are many different kinds of materials with which you can create a frame.
The material carbon is a bit stiffer where it needs to be stiffer and more comfortable where it needs to be more comfortable. Although carbon fibre is not very cheap compared to a material like aluminium. Other materials like titanium and steel are also used in most cases.
Kind of bikes
To know which frame you need, you need to know specifically what different kinds of road bikes are offered. One could be adjusted for speed, while the other would do a better job at an 3-hour training session.
There are frames for three kinds of road bikes:
– Endurance frame (mostly used for long distance training sessions)
– Aeroframe (mostly used for races)
– Lightweightframe (mostly used with steep incline tracks)
Gears, brakes and wheels
There are three common brands for gears: SRAM, Shimano and Campagnolo. To be fair with you, the ordinary road bike will not be equipped with a Campagnolo gear, because they’re just to expencive.
A road bike is also equipped with brakes. Disc brakes contain more weight, but unlike rim brakes they will give you a better result. Wheels also make up an important role when talking about bikes. The lighter and more aerodynamic a wheel is, the higher the cost. That being said you’ll cycle much faster. A part of a more aerodynamic wheel are higher rims than normal.
