At first, we figured it was time for a new bike. Now, finding a women's specific time trial bike for a shorter rider can be quite a challenge as we found out. The original purchase of the Slice was one of those right place, at the right time, grab a bargain type things and it just happened to end up being a great bike!
But now we were faced with seemingly endless possibilities so we narrowed it down to a basic few criteria:
- Low stack height
- Decent set of carbon race wheels
- 650c preferred if we could find some cheap Zipp 404's in 650c size
- Di2 Shift
- More aero than the Slice
- Not just a cosmetic upgrade
We soon realised that the manufacturers had all started going away from the 650c frames leaving only a few options
- Felt B2, Ultegra Di2
- Cervelo P3 Ultegra Di2
- Cannondale Slice Womens Ultegra Di2
- 2nd Hand Felt DA1 or B2 Frameset with 650c and Bayonet front end
In general, apart from the Di2, there were no huge technological leaps that justified the $5000 upgrade to any of these bikes. A second hand Felt DA or B2 seemed the best option for the high modulus carbon frame and the integrated front end but they were hard to come by in the small 650c frame size in Australia. A few popped up in Europe and USA on Ebay but the shipping costs were prohibitive and we looked for other options.
We started looking into what bikes could give us a Pad Stack height of 500mm.
The only 700c bikes that fit the bill were the high end models like the Felt IA with very flat integrated front ends which were well out of our price range.
We looked at some of the Chinese frames such as the Dengfu FM086 with the integrated flat stem but these started at around $1400 for a frameset for a generic branded bike. A second hand Felt DA including shipping would have been a preferred option for a build up in my mind.
So we decided to see what we can do with the Cannondale Slice we've got!
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