Diamondback podium 7--little help

[bking]

a friend of mine started riding a few months ago. He started on a trek 1.2, is pretty young (30's) and in good shape and found that diamondback has a pretty good deal for their top end, record or red equipped bike.
He's asking my opinion and i want to be fair to him. I know nothing of diamondbacks stuff, except that i turn up my nose at it thinking kmart, costco etc. i'm sure that's not really fair, simply ignorance on my part.
even with the sale it's a big purchase for him and thought i'd ask here.
thanks.

link here: http://www.diamondback.com/2012-podium-7

[christian]

I just looked at the specs and the geometry (for the 56 - my size). There's nothing amiss there. I mean, sure, it's just-another-out-of-the-box CF bike, but I'm sure you can win a Cat 3 crit on it and it'll ride just fine.

The seat is ****. The headset is FSA (not my fave) and the wheels are carbon clinchers (which is dumb).

Other than that, not much to say. Oh, yeah, it's really f*cking red.

[christian]

Oh yeah, and the spec'ed stem on a 56 is 100mm! What T Eff? Should be 120mm at least.

[oliver1850]

I have a 5 year old Podium 5, which I bought as a new frameset. I just wanted to try modern carbon without spending much. The only quality issue I found on the frameset was the seatpost sizing. It's nominally 27.2, but I couldn't find a 27.2 post that was a good fit and ended up buying a new Thomson 27.4. This may be an isolated case, if it was a general issue I'd expect it to be corrected by now. Otherwise no issues with the bike, but I don't have many miles on it.

Diamondbacks and Raleighs might well come off the same line as DeRosas and Pinarellos. I can't see spending the extra $ for the name.

[eippo1]

Looks like a decent bike and most likely rides just fine even though looking at it hurts my eyes. Spec is alright and will be a great bike (especially compared to a 1.2).

[oliver1850]

The bike in the link is all black with white outline decals, seems pretty conservative looks-wise to me.

One other note: When I was ordering parts to build mine (frame was not here yet), I checked with 2 dealers and the company to find out which headset type to order. All 3 told me the wrong one. For the dealers, I supposed that they'd probably never sold a high end Dback, but I expected to get the correct info from the company.

[christian]

The new Podium 7, below. It's the post, seat, and stem that really make it pop!

http://www.bikemastertool.com/images/bikes/2682/xlarge/DB13_Podium7Camp_Red.jpg?1341958576

[FlashUNC]

They are what they are, I guess. Had a buddy looking at one similarly recently. Went with the Fuji Gran Fondo instead.

Pretty much what you'd expect from a Performance carbon bike. If it tickles his pickle, then he should jump on it.

[oliver1850]

I see what you mean about the red. I think I'd ask the dealer for black post, saddle and stem.

[christian]

Pshaw. You'd ask the dealer to paint the frame green, get red Ksyrium wheels and get a red stem and yellow bar tape. (Ok, since it's a modern one, maybe you'd settle for green with white.)

[pdmtong]

the geo looks right. who can argue with SR11?

the main thing though is that DBR has no cache. so there wouldnt be much resale. this may or may not matter.

one plan may be to get the 7 with SR11. ride it like crazy. make the next f/f be the dream purchase, move the group, and put force or ultegra or chorus on the DB7. now you have a go fast dreambike, and a well loved stillusable "winter bike"