I would avoid Seka just on the basis of their customer service and revolving door of european distributors. That said their hype was driven by the RDC being made in the same factory with the same tech (allegedly) as the Factor bikes. It was one of the first light weight chinese bikes to see the light of day in western markets. As the story developed though it was undone by a brand story that didnt quite add up (i.e., an "aero" bike with an endurance geo that never saw a wind tunnel), atrocious delays and customer service, and issues with details like seatpost fitment. While I personally dont worry too much about the pictures of cracked frames, those other issues are big enough for me to not pay that much for an RDC.

I agree with @patlean1 that the Elilee is a more complete story as a light weight race bike that was tested in the windtunnel (albeit slower than the SL7) and with decent reviews. However in the current market without discounting, that frame is also a tough sell. Afterall you can pick up a complete Pinarello F5 105 Di2 in the blue color for $3280 from Excel Sports right now.

Yes. Though its really difficult to check and verify. XACD does 0.9-0.7-0.9, but some straight gauge bikes not built in China are 0.7 and therefore end up lighter.

Just based on numbers on the geometry chart alone, I am a huge fan of the Voice Velo. This is another bike I would buy but wont because of overlap and the budget being eaten by custom ti bikes. I also think if the seatpost, routing and stem are nice enough its actually not a terrible price if the quality and the weight specs hold up to the press. The issue is lack of service and brand presence, but UDH and round seatpost take care of a good number of those problems.

Nice frame, but the stack is so low. It is a pity chinese manufacturers only aim for such low stack bikes nowadays. It really pulls me off the market ...

This is pushing me towards Chinese bikes. As a smaller rider I barely fit on most brand's race bikes without needing to size down to the smallest size because the stacks have gotten so tall. On gravel bikes its darn near impossible with most brands. I think there has been an interesting effect with the rise of youtubers and youtube fitters and some of their obsessions with saddle to bar drop at the cost of reduced reach causing people to size down. I see guys over 5'11" to 6ft tall on the same size bikes the pro women are racing on at 5'4" but with a stack of spacers and a 140mm stem. Meanwhile short guys like me needed the -12 degree 110mm stem slammed to fit on the SL7 and it was the only major bike brand bike that I could fit on at a size 52 because it was the only one that regular customers could get the pro level stem for. I ended up going the chinese Ti route in the long term for my road bike instead, but I am in the middle of surveyed proportions for a male of my height with "above average" hip mobility. Nothing crazy just 5'6" / 169cm.

This is the AT-B02 that a lot of us have been discussing that is the black / carbon bike on their Facebook Page: http://www.adapt-bikes.com/Products-detail?product_id=100

They also recently added the QX-B01 which appears to be the 3D printed prototype on their facebook page. Its almost like a mashup (in a good way) between their Aero FM49 and the AT-B01 but electronic drivetrain only with the same clearance and BB specs as the existing models: http://www.adapt-bikes.com/Products-detail?product_id=95

The New 2024 Aero is not a model i had seen before. It appears to be a variant of the AT-B02 with a deeper headtube and downtube with a countersunk headset cap: http://www.adapt-bikes.com/Products-detail?product_id=101. The rendering shows UDH, but it’s not listed in the specs as they only list t47.

Just remove #2 and #5 from the list and the rest are chinese brand frames.

One thing that I think about a lot is sourcing of spares and universal components. I am pretty good with CAD and familiar with both metal and the commercial scale 3d printing that use engineering grade plastics so making little odds and ends to fix things like seat post binders and headsets don't scare me that much, but there are some criteria i consider non negotiable on that front.

1. Use of 52mm headset bearings. For internal routing that means 52mm x 40mm nominal headset bearings. I know I can source the 49mm ones Specialized and Cervelo use and even the 42mm ID ones Canyon loves, but realistically, I also want to be able to get high quality C rings and great bearings and not have to mix and match proprietary nonsense.
2. Removable FD hangers. I want to be able to fix these in the case there is a quality issue. Also remove them and print a cover for 1x.
3. UDH. Not because of Transmission compatibility but because it solves a real problem re: sourcing of quality hangers which makes a huge difference in how much time a bike spends on my stand getting the shifting dialed in.
4. Thru Axles. If its got proprietary or hard to find thru axles its a deal breaker. Mavic speed release isnt quite a deal breaker since they are readily available, but its close.

Things I don't care about for bikes usually mentioned on this forum.
1. Aero tube shapes / Rim shapes. Unless the brand shows that they bothered with, at the least, CFD in their development process and then doing benchmarking in a WT, i dont care. Aero tubes without aero development are just a guess, particularly if they deviate from the general NACA profiles.
2. What grade carbon they use. It is really T1000 for Toray or a T1000 like material? Does it matter? How would any of us know? I'd rather see a weight vs. deflection chart
3. Bundled bars. Honestly, most of these look like an afterthought and to point 1 if they arent developed together with the frame are you getting the full benefit? What about fit? Most of these are very wide compared against current trends. Besides I am going to chose one of these frames because I dont want to buy a prebundled setup from a big manufacturer.

I'd at least add LightBicycle there for wheels

Agree.

I think if you go into nearly any bike shop in a major US metro that has a wheel building person, they will know Light Bicycle at least as a rim supplier. A lot of them will have worked on rims from them via other wheelbuilders who are relatively transparent about their sourcing (like November, NOBL, etc) or built them for themselves. I doubt they would know Winspace, Elite, or Magene.

Step 3: Budget vs “True” Budget
If your budget is “only $600” for a frame, ask yourself if an extra $300 will be significant to you a year from now. How about an extra $500? How about two years from now? Buy nice or buy twice. Might be worth spending the extra money if you plan to keep your bike for longer than two years. But be warned: cheap bikes are addicting.

I think saving money up front on a lower cost frame / group ends up actually being less significant in the total build cost of the bike than people think. Also problems and headaches around headsets, metal parts, cable routing, water killing groupsets, cables fraying, indexing etc. end up costing a lot of money to trouble shoot. Reconciling your quest for knowledge with your overall tolerance for nonsense and your total budget is worth it. Utility is a real thing too. A bike that sits, probably has less value to you than a bike you ride

Step 2: Riding Style and Geometry
Can you slam your stem? Cool for you. Do you prefer an endurance style bike? Also very cool. Geometry is critical obviously. I cannot stress seeking a professional bike fit enough. Or just comparing your current bike to your target bikes using something like Geometry Geeks.

I will add that while stack and reach are great to look at fit the other parts of the geometry chart matter too. Looking popular youtubers, Neil Stanbury of RCA fits a rider very differently Bike Fit James of Cade Media. I wont opine too much on who i think is right vs. not, but there is more to getting a great bike than just fit and there is likely more than one fit that can work really well for you. Forcing a specific frame to an extreme using stems bars, extra spacers, etc. will likely end up with you being unhappy with the bike. Geometries arent randomly generated sets of numbers. In most cases, even for open molds, the engineer has benchmarked other bikes, considered fit data, modeled the handling of these bikes and then determined the numbers making tradeoffs to within their design / budget constraints.

If you look at a recommended size chart and you see yourself going up or down by 2 or 3 sizes or need to add more spacers than the bike comes with: your fit is wrong or the engineers designing the frame didn't do a good job and don't understand how people fit on bikes. In any of those cases, you should probably not buy that frame.

If you can't find a better fitting frame and you are truly a statistical anomaly, its probably time to look into a custom bike.

By?? The Sram eTap has wired blips, wouldn't Shimnao have patented satellite controls? The new Red AXS that is coming out soon also has an auxiliary button on the levers, isn't that also patented by Shimano....the Sram and Campagnolo derailleurs have auto trim, right?

The methods for managing "trim" different. Campagnolo uses a sensor to guide the trim behavior and while i think Sram played with autotrim or something that behaved like it on some beta releases, i think the firmware launched with the D2 Force groups does individual front shift profiles depending on the rear gear you are in and rely on the YAW geometry (which they also patented) to avoid needing trim the way Shimano does it.

I am sure patents exist on satellite shifters, but guessing they either weren't enforceable or were covered under expired patents from Mavic Zap or Mektronic.

The legal stuff around groups has really hobbled Ltwoo and Wheeltop. A far cry from a decade ago when Cherry was making GM and VW cars where you could swap body panels with the real thing.

Thanks for the replies! Maybe the A22 fits me the way a bike should fit most people but not me?
lower back discomfort isn't something that never happens for me. If I'm active it doesn't bother me but if I'm standing around doing nothing it will.
I've attached a geometry comparison. So the effective top tube is a bit over 19mm with the Elves. The stack #'s says the Elves is 10mm taller but its headtube is 20mm longer and its bottom bracket is 3mm lower compared to the A22, so only a 10mm difference doesn't seem to add up. Maybe its not ~20mm but 10mm has gotta be wrong.

I've had the bike for 2 seasons now but it might only get riden once a week or so. The lower back discomfort slowly builds as the ride goes on. I find I ride with my finger tips on the top of the bars often to get some relief. Afer 60km or so I'm ready to get off the bike. The bar is an integrated and is 44cm wide with a 110mm stem. The top of the saddle is 10cm taller than the tops of the bars.

I'm not sure how relevant it is, but I also attached a pic of my hybrid. This bike gets the most saddle time and I've done many 100km+ rides on it with no discomfort at all. The drop from the saddle to the bars is ~2cm. FWIW the horizontal distance from the center of the seatpost the the center of the bars is 69cm on both bikes.

Thanks again!!

I think i might have had stack and reach reversed in my comment. Sorry about that! It doesn't look like you have much room to increase the stack on that bike. Given what you have described, doing core work is actually the most likely answer.

The other thing to consider is try tilting your levers in a little. Not a lot, just 1cm a side to the part you hold. That will actually reduce your effective reach to the hoods and is a free way to see if a new bar is the answer vs. a new frame. You can try more than that, but note that it may make braking awkward.

The long fits that are popular with the pros currently are made possible by raising the bars and going longer. From a comfort perspective they are equivalent to the larger saddle to bar drop aesthetic that was popular until about 2 years ago (and still dominates on instagram). If you think of moving the bars in a constant radius from your shoulder--thats essentially what they are doing. There is an additional wrinkle of going with a narrower bar. That rotates the shoulders forward which means you need a longer reach--as much as 2-3cm;but that can only really be done as long as the saddle to bar drop is not extreme or you are likely to run into some impingement issues.

Looking at your bike, i think a narrower position could help with the back issues by shortening your effective reach and the drop isn't so extreme to rule it out. If it works, in the long run, it might be worth considering a narrower bar.

Hope this helps!