Question: How much better are new bikes?
 

I've been getting back into cycling after a few years off the bike.

A co-worker of mine found a 58cm Cannondale Crit from from 1989 in his neighbor's garbage and gave it to me! (he's a member here :wave: and thanks again if you read this). I built it up with old parts I had kicking around and to my surprise the thing is a rocket and I'm having more fun on this bike commuting to and from work than I've had in a while.

Suddenly I've got the itch to find a nice ride that actually fits... but as I come back to cycling everything seems different! Disc brakes for road, 11 and 12 Spd, electronic shifting, tubeless tires, "modern" geometry and materials, and even a whole new category of adventure/gravel bike that seems to have taken hold.

So help me cut through all this. How much better have bikes and components gotten in the last 7 or 8 years? Are we talking incremental improvements or is it a whole new world?

Your thoughts will help me figure out whether to find an older used bike w/ a traditional geo and 9 speed dura ace or something or save for longer and get something more modern. My goal is to start taking some longer rides again and have fun - - - that's all. The Cannondale is a super fly commuter, but I want to riiiiiiiide (and after my first 30 miles out on the dale this ain't the bike for that!)

Interested in your take!

Thanks!

My take:

Yes, the last decade or so has seen true improvement in the performance vs price ratio. Bikes at or above a certain price point are, in fact, faster, easier to ride, and require less fiddling.

If you want to just get out and ride, then figure on spending about $2K on the brand name of your choice: Trek, Specialized, Canyon, etc. all make great bikes with 105/disc setups that you can ride all day pretty much out of the box. Until you get back in riding shape, any of those bikes will be faster than you are, so figure maybe for 2 years. After that, if you're still into it, look into something that's somewhat more sophisticated. Until then, wasted money.

Meanwhile, that SR500 is still a great tool. I also live in the DC area, and mine is the equal of pretty much anything else in my extensive collection. It will accept any modern group (I've built several with 11 speed Shimano) and fly down the road.

It really depends on what you want to do. If you just want to do fast commuting, the bike you have is fine. If you want to do criteriums or brevets, then there are other considerations for either one of those.

If it were me, looking back, the first thing I'd do is upgrade that bike to indexed shifting. I love indexed shifting. Some people love downtube shifters, some love bar end shifters, some love brifters. It's up to you.

After that, I'd probably put it at 10s with brifters.

At that point, you've really got a bike that ticks a lot of boxes.

In general, spend more time riding than fixing it up, though. Use the off season to investigate parts and bikes.

I had one of those criterium frames

Ugh.

Give it back and save your crotch tons of misery.

In the intervening years, they discovered how to make AL ride nicely. Carbon rides even better than that.

Lately, they've made clearances bigger so you can glide serenely over the nasty pavement in the DMV on 30c + tires.

If you don't want to spend large $$, check out Phoenix bikes

M

Thanks for the thoughts so far...responding to a few notes above about upgrading...

I looked into upgrading this bike a lot and the rear spacing on this is too narrow for modern stuff. Stuck with 7 speed and dt shifters (I really don't want to try any weird bendy forcey tricks)

rephrasing the question
In the last 8 years or so - what've been the biggest cycling innovations and why. what new stuff really changed the game and for good reason.

For me a notable change is 32 ish size fancy clincher tires for pavement riding. Plus 46/30 style cranks. I have 11 sp on one bike and dt on another and the components I don’t seem to mind having old stuff but I want all my bikes to handle 32 and compacts for sure

Wider gearing and road tubeless. The wider gearing is more important from my perspective. FWIW, I've been riding on a 2005 bike recently and a good bike is still a good bike. The only big different between now and when I first got it was that I had a 39-23 or 25 as my smallest gear back then and I now have a 34-28. Of course, I also prefer the DI2 group over the 7800 group it used to have, but the smaller gearing is more of a difference to me.

In the last 8 years? Disc brakes outside of MTB, electronic shifting, sub 800g frames...

Rent a 2019 from any of the major mfgs...you can then decide for yourself.

Far too many people waste years they can never get back on rides that are sub-optimal...

Buy a 2013 carbon bike from someone who had to have disc brakes to get a sense of what you are missing by riding that Cannondale. Ought to be able to find a great deal for $1k or less

Within the last 7-8 years maybe 5% better, since a first gen criterium probably 15-18% better

I had one of these Criteriums as my first road bike. I LOVED that thing! Fast, responsive, and oh how cool was that massive downtube. I enjoyed just looking at it.

And then....I found a great deal on an old Cinelli SC. The first ride on the Cinelli was a wake up call to what I had been missing with the Cannondale. The Cinelli was soooooo much smoother riding and just as fast. It was a real eye opener. So, in a roundabout way of answering your question, as cool as it is, you can do better than your current Cannondale. Even a Cannondale CAAD8 or newer will ride much nicer. If you would like to continue with the brand, Cannondale has also offered some nice carbon machines over the last few years. You can find lightly used carbon Synapses or SuperSixs for very reasonable prices these days.

Good luck with your search!

Texbike

My forty-year-old Fuji America can handle 32mm tires no problem, and it has a 34-28 bottom gear, with its original shifters and derailleurs and crankset.

The 1980s saw a lot of fancy technological advance, but I think in the flurry of progress, things were lost in design immaturity.
When oversized aluminum and later monocoque carbon took over as the main frameset construction standards, they were able to make big claims on spec sheets. First, less weight, and also "more stiffness." Later, wind tunnel data entered the battle.

Careful study into how the bikes actually rode and pedaled wasn't something the time or money budget existed for. And that's actually a bit of a problem, because the previous steel construction had been maturing for a very long time. Even if the frame designers didn't always have a clear picture for why some design choices worked better than others, there was a lot of experience to draw from.
It seems like the situation has been changing over the last decade, though. In 2017, cyclingtips somehow stuck Jan Heine and a Cannondale frame engineer in the same room together without them disagreeing very strongly about frame stiffness, but notably, the latter was actually looking into the question beyond the marketing line of "we should have more lateral stiffness and more vertical compliance."

As far as drivetrain changes go, gearing has continued to get wider, and low gears have continued to get lower. The slowness of this trend is entirely a matter of fashion rather than technology, but it's nice progress either way, because there's very little reason not to have support for a wide gear range.

E-shifting has technically existed for decades, although the last 8 years have certainly seen it explode in popularity. While it has some advantages, and is "hard to switch back from", I don't think its current incarnation has really changed road bikes that much. It's nothing compared to how the introduction of brifters allowed easy shifting out of the saddle, and even that isn't nearly as impactful as some folks make it out to be.
Where e-shifting has actually had a considerable impact is on TT/Tri bikes. By allowing you to put shifters on the base bars, it has had a similar effect as brifters had on road bikes.
Where e-shifting COULD be transformative for road bikes is if Shimano launches half-step gearing options to pair with synchro shifting. A >500% gearing range with tight even gear steps and 1x-like shifting could very easily be a reality. But, Shimano doesn't want my money. :(

Disc brakes are largely pointless for a dry-weather road bike. They add weight and reduce the frame designer's control over stiffness characteristics, for little to no benefit compared with a (quality) rim-brake setup. Also, the idea that disc brakes are somehow key to tire clearance on road-style bikes is total nonsense: there are plenty of powerful and reasonably-lightweight rim brakes out there that can clear tires much larger than people use on typical road bikes. The only issue is that none of them are sidepull caliper brakes, hence not fashionable/traditional/whatever on road bikes.
But, the drawbacks of disc brakes are fairly small, and disc brakes can dramatically improve brake modulation in the rain. Furthermore, they eliminate the problem of rim wear in mucky weather. There are some areas where the local road filth is horribly abrasive to brake tracks, and can destroy rims in just a few thousand miles of wet riding. So for a bike that gets used in the rain, disc brakes offer more consistent braking behavior and can allow the use of super-fancy wheels without you feeling like you're shoving dollar bills down a paper shredder every time you brake in wet weather.

What do you think a "traditional geo" is? Road bike fit and handling geometry hasn't changed much at all in the last several decades.

Anyway, you should get something more modern. And then also get an older used bike. And then get seven other bikes. And a bamboo recumbent tricycle.

You can buy a bicycle, but you can’t buy fitness. People focus on equipment because it is easier than getting fit.

Even though equipment has gotten marginally better, it doesn’t matter much. Some things are noticeably better (clinchers, bike computers, wide range gearing), and i wouldn’t want to go back to old handlebar shapes, but there is little that you won’t be able to do on that Cannondale.

If this bike makes you happy, you’ll probably ride it more, and that is what matters.

Related, if you can browse through a copy of the latest Bicycle Quarterly, there is a feature on a beautiful 60 year-old constructeur that would be right at home amid the all-road bikes at the last NAHBS.

Yeah and likely 0.1-0.3 % faster as well.