The latest premium aluminium bikes challenge conventionally held assumptions about working with metal, offering performance and specs that go head-to-head with similarly priced carbon. Metal, by contrast, can be manipulated to a high degree, with elaborate butting, forming and heat-treatment techniques, but you can’t fundamentally alter the mechanical properties of the material with such ease, because it’s not a composite. It lets designers target stiffness, strength and flexibility exactly where they want it by using different types and arrangements of fibres and clever layup methods. There’s a temptation when reviewing premium alloy bikes to suggest they’re particularly good ‘for a metal bike’, the subtext being that we all know carbon is inherently better.Ĭarbon makes sense for high-performance bikes because it’s infinitely tunable. Best aluminium road bikes in 2023, as rated by our expert testers Triban RC120 That’s enough of the background, now let’s crack on with our pick of the best aluminium road bikes, from budget bargains to alloy superbikes.Įvery bike here has been tested and reviewed by our team and, i n order to be included in this list, a bike must have scored at least 4 out of 5 stars in our testing. Spend well into four figures and you’ll get access to the likes of Cannondale’s CAAD13 – a showcase for the latest aluminium tech and a bike that can fight it out with all but the absolute best carbon fibre machines. However, aluminium bikes at this price point – roughly between £1,000 and £2,500 – still regularly offer considerably better value, and sometimes a better ride, than similarly priced carbon models.įans of the pro peloton may have seen alloy come and go as the material of choice for the world’s fastest racers, but that doesn’t mean alloy frames have plateaued in terms of development. Spend a little more and the prevalence of aluminium thins out in favour of cheaper carbon fibre bikes.
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