I feel like I'm fairly well-placed to answer this - having gone through basically the same process last year deciding between a Chinese bike, a Merida Scultura 6000 and a Polygon Helios with 105 Di2 (I'm also Australian-based, so these are basically the cheapest electronic options).
TL;DR: I went with the Merida and upgraded. Full story below.
The goal was:
- Under $5k AUD ($3250 USD)
- Decent frame (was willing to consider Chinese - bought a Velobuild 8 years ago and it was pretty good)
- Under 8kg with pedals
- Dual-sided or spider-based power
- Wheels at least 50mm deep and at least 23mm wide, prefereably with name brand hubs and spokes, preferably under 1400g
- Electronic shifting, preferably 12 speed
- Hydraulic brakes
- Good quality tubeless tyres at least 30mm wide
- No totally proprietary stem/bar setups - not too difficult to find one-piece bar/stem combo
- Easy to find a zero offset or short offset seatpost (my position requires a zero offset post on most medium size bikes)
- 38cm c-t-c bars
The Merida provided an extremely cheap starting point at $2750 AUD with 105 Di2. 99 Bikes were selling them at 25% off RRP, but for an extra discount,
their gift cards were available at 15% off. Worth keeping an eye out for these deals for any Australians looking for one of these.
The stock build for the Merida is not great, but I was willing to forgive that for the price. The issues are:
- stock wheels are crap - 17mm internal, heavy, not tubeless ready.
- tyres are some low-end Contis, not bad, but not tubeless and only 28mm. You expect that on most OEM bikes though
- handlebar is much too wide, the 42cm bar measured at 43cm and the bar tape is cheap
- stock saddle is heavy, but again, you expect that
In favour, the factors were:
- price gave me a lot of room for upgrades within budget
- nothing unusual about the frame - BB86 bottom bracket, FSA headset, round 27.2mm seatpost(!!), fairly standard race geometry
- world-tour tested (means little, really, but it's nice)
- media reviews tended to be favourable, particularly for the frame
- pearlescent white paintjob is nice
In the end, I bought that and it's now been upgraded with:
Kocevlo one-piece bar and stem, 38x100
Elita One 27.2 zero offset seatpost
Elita One carbon railed, carbon base saddle
Farsports Hyper wheels with DT Swiss 350 hubs and Sapim CX-Ray spokes
Pirelli P-Zero Race TLR (Italy version) 700*30
Magene PES power meter
Final weight: 7.95kg
Final spend: $4,970
I'm super happy with it - it's a nice upgrade from my previous (lighter) rim brake bike, a Focus Izalco Max. It's
significantly more comfortable - the 30mm tyres play a big part. The only thing I'm having issues with is the headset with the Kocevlo spacers - it's been a pain finding a balance between having the headset tight enough to remove knocking and stop the split spacers from coming apart, but not having it so tight that it binds the headset. Other than that very minor issue, it's been amazing. The FarSports wheels in particular are excellent - I ordered them without spoke holes for easy tubeless setup, and the Pirelli tyres were quite easy to get on and sealed straight away with a track pump - that impressed me a lot!
I skipped the Polygon Helios because:
- stock wheels are relatively heavy and only 19mm internal. Cam Nicholls also wasn't a fan of them (see his ride review on YouTube).
- stock handlebars are much too wide for me (42cm) so the integrated bar/stem would need to be replaced anyway
Apart from those two things, it ticks most of the boxes.
I skipped the Chinese frames because:
- groupsets are too expensive to get in Australia on their own compared to a full bike, unless you get lucky on a second-hand set
- the price of framesets from the more reliable brands (LightCarbon, Carbonda, etc.) is starting to get to a point where it becomes better to buy a lower tier frame from a major manufacturer.
- I'd have to pay extra for custom paint, I've had a matte black bike for the last 3 years so I wanted a change. Some are not willing to do custom paint without an MOQ.
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