Your opinion Please!

[zoom-zoom]

If the price and fit are right I'd be hard-pressed to pick the aluminum over the carbon. I rode some pretty miserable miles in my first year on my aluminum frame. You ride a lot of the same roads I do. First 20 mile ride on carbon and I will never go back. At least not as long as I live in the land of chip-seal. I might reconsider if I lived somewhere with nothing but buttery asphalt, but that's not here.

[bonnypriest]

I personally tried out the Tarmac & Roubaix (in the same day) riding on some of those crappy chip seal roads. The Roubaix soaked up a lot of the vibration, BUT....the Tarmac was FAAAAAST! I assume you can guess what I purchased. See below.

My suggestion is to just go try them both out for yourself. You might love one or none, but at least you'll know. Good luck on your quest!

[Miranda]

Yep, alum is like riding with a tuning fork vibrating going thru your body. Carbon sucks the road up. Personally I'm considering alum only as a back up bike for shorter rides with the fm, not any major riding (just for something cheap). Yes, the shop can check for carbon damage. Fwiw, I crashed my carbon which 360 flipped over on top of me (my body didn't fair so well) and my frame fine. The alum spokes needed trued, and alum bars bent, but all carbon a-ok, stronger than you might think. Good luck.

[sundial]

Specialized does a pretty good job of dampening road noise through their Zertz inserts. My first Specialized was an aluminum road bike, a Sequoia, and it was pretty smooth on the chip seal roads that I ride on.

[Catrin]

I think that some of us do better with the aluminum "buzz" than others. Even with the carbon fork on my Trek AND the "iso-thingie" (can't remember the name) on the seat-stay it was very uncomfortable and I never made it to chip seal pavement. No aluminum for me ever again...

[pinsonp2]

Any body tried these to dampen the road buzz? http://bontrager.com/model/04579 I don't have the problem with the carbon forks, but I saw these in the LBS and thought they might be interesting.

P2

[sundial]

The one upgrade to my bike that made the most substantial change in ride quality was converting to tubeless road tires. That made the ride so much more enjoyable and the tires absorbed alot of the road noise.

[arielmoon]

Any body tried these to dampen the road buzz? http://bontrager.com/model/04579 I don't have the problem with the carbon forks, but I saw these in the LBS and thought they might be interesting.

P2

I had them and could not tell any difference.