I have a question about carbon frames. I am thinking about buying an FP3 Ultegra (http://www.evanscycles.com/products/pinarello/fp3-ultegra-20 10-road-bike-ec022257?query=Pinarello). I was going to treat myself as a 30th birhday present early next year, but I am thinking of bringing it forward as it is on sale. I currently have an Specialized Allez.
The question is do I need to keep the Allez as a winter bike? How hard wearing is carbon. I am quite fastidious with my bike and clean it once a week, so am i right in thinking it should cope quite well with winter conditions, (I will not be riding in the snow!)
Not sure exactly which Allez you have, but if you try to trade it in or sell it you may not get a whole lot for it, so it might just be better to keep it as a bad weather/ back-up bike. Only you can decide if the money you could recoup from the Allez is more useful than having it as a standby bike. Of course you could love the new bike so much that you will never even think of riding the Allez. :p
I was thinking of using it like a sports car, take it out when the weather is conducive, maybe do a few criteriums next year
Agreed. Optimize the new bike for performance and racing, maybe optimize the Allez for poor weather riding. This way, you can maybe have the Allez a bit more sure footed for wet weather and still get your miles in, and if you DID crash it out it wouldn't be as big a deal. Also, if you ever use your bike as a commuter or to run errands, it would be much better to park the Allez in public than the new ride.
That's what I did with my old Trek 1200. It had rear brazeons so I added a rack in case I wanted to use it fro commuting, but can still do a good group ride on it easily enough.
