I you you were to provide a description of the difference in handling of an endurance road bike, like Felt’s Z series, versus a performance road bike, like Felt’s F series, what would you say? I am mainly concerned on how you would describe noticeable handling differenced, specifically while cornering or attempting to make quick direction changes.
Thanks
One thing to consider is this wonderful post by Josh, where he talks about his experience with blind product studies:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=4945729#4945729
In short, even very very expert people with strong opinions about the differences in handling and comfort of various bikes, it may all just be imaginary.
I for one can not detect any difference between an S5 and an R5 in comfort or handling. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any of course, it just means I can’t feel it. If you end up testing riding various bikes, be sure to use the same wheels and tires in all of your tests since those have more impact on the feel of a bike than the frame. So too does the choice in frame size, stem length/height etc.
For what it is worth I’ve seen plenty of aero frames (Venge, S5 etc) win crits at low and high level amateur bike races. So too do we see them win in the pro tour (Venge, S5, Propel, Ridley etc have all done fine) And crits are where people imagine you have to make quick direction changes (really you don’t except to dodge a crash maybe!)
The Z bikes are a little longer and the trail is a little different between the bikes but not significantly.
The biggest difference I see between them is that the F bikes are lower in front than the Z bikes. I chose the F bike because of that feature.
jaretj