That kind of thinking has no place on this forum!
i’ve been riding an emonda for ~1 year. it for sure has a different feel than a domane.
when I test rode it I could tell instantly that I got along with the emonda well. the domane I test rode felt sluggish (the domane did have worse tires and groupset so that was part of it i’m sure).
I have not compared a lot of bikes but I have with those two.
I will say when i’m on my emonda it feels like a great deal of my energy goes towards propelling the bike forward. where on the domane a bunch of my energy felt like lost. I dunno if that makes sense or not.
my buddy has a domane and he says it fits him like a glove. he found my emonda twitchy and uncomfortable.
all this to say - go test ride it and see how it feels to you.
you also don’t need both of these unless you maybe want to put thicker tires on the domane and use it for gravel or something like that. so you can sell the domane for sure if you buy an emonda. you will obv take a beating $$-wise but no need to store and maintain both of those bikes.
sorry but i’m hard disagreeing here. money is not finite like a pie. there are ways to make more. I dunno OPs situation but can he add extra hours for a few months? do an extra consulting job? work a summer tutoring if he’s a teacher or something like that? ask boss for side project? tweak a weak link in your biz that produces more?
if you have your $$ ducks in a row, you can always make more.
(and yeah I’m not talking about buying a pricey bike if you DON’T have the money / retirement on autopilot / emergency fund etc fully funded, not financing it, etc etc,)
ETA: although your approach overall is reasonable and I agree with thinking through every purchase and planning.
But if you pick up extra jobs to pay for your bike, you won’t have time to ride it…
There are some cheaper things to try if you’retight on cash. If you’re not running a really top tier/nice/fast tire then try that first. Pair it with latex or tubeless. Not sure what wheels but, if the Bontrager Paradigm I’d say look at a nicer wheel set as well. Tires first though.
Also, the emonda is like riding a jackhammer. Not a good choice imo. I rode the SLR '22 for a year and while it performed like every other top tier bike it was the most uncomfortable to date.
If you have it in your head you need a new bike and a Trek I’d highly suggest the Madone Gen 7. Get the SLR not the SL. I’d recommend the gen 8 but because it’s a few thousand more for the same thing the gen 7 is the way to go.
But in the purchases I’ve spent thinking and over-thinking on whether I should do it, and did, I find I regret it a lot more. When I bought the Cervelo Aspero, I walked in, asked, wistfully due to the notoriously low inventory levels, and was told that they found a bike in their warehouse that was my size, and showed it on their wall. It was a dark, almost velvet color and had the components I was looking for. They took it down, and I knew when I put my hands on it, I was going to buy it. I had them put it aside for a day, and went in the next and took that beauty home. I spent probably less than an hour thinking about it, and way way less time overthinking it, and am very happy with the purchase, where the road bike (prepandemic) that I bought, I’ve still caught myself regretting on some levels. I mean, yeah, if it’s a $10,000 bike that hurt buying it, there should have been more thinking before sinking that money into it, perhaps, but there are times when, if you can afford it, and you have a feeling about it, just jumping in full tilt can be the best buying experience. I mean, yeah, I do sometimes think that I could have used the money on some other item, or even upgrades, or a newer notebook computer, but I don’t regret buying that awesome bike. Every time I look at it, I seem to fall in love with that color all over again.
If it feels right, DO IT!!! I have been accessorizing and even built a wheelset for it.
People CAN overthink things and those days of research and hours of pouring over alternative choices can feed deep seated doubts that color the choice for potentially years after it’s made.
Just do it!! (If you can afford it)
Thank you everyone for all the great feedback! I’m going to take a look at the Madone in addition to the Emonda to see which one I like better. I haven’t decided yet if I will keep my Domane if I do in fact end up buying a new bike – I’m not sure I want to store two bikes and this will probably sound lame but I don’t think I’m going to want to swap my power pedals back and forth between the two bikes. If I do buy a new bike, I expect I’ll keep the Domane for a bit just to see if I end up being the kind of rider who goes back and forth. I’m in a really good financial situation, so this potential purchase won’t be an issue from that perspective, though I will still certainly think about what else I might do with that money.
I rode the Aspero exclusively for months, and am now ‘cheating’ on it with the Roubaix. But I find them so similar, and yet different, that I’d choose the Aspero usually, but the Roubaix does better on well maintained asphalt trails. But I haven’t ridden the fat bike for probably 5 years, and the MTB longer ago. shrug Yet I also ride my 15+ year old Madone (Mad One) since I did some drive train upgrades. They are like ‘tools’ at times. One is good for that, but excels in the other that the others don’t. I’m glad I have the options, for sure. The more the merrier?
Did that make sense?
commute to your new job with your new bike lol
Never
This makes perfect sense. I have a quiver of skis for just this reason. A quiver of bikes is a lot more expensive though and takes up a lot more space.
So you need a bigger house, or a room for your bikes.
Funny story, a guy that worked at the bike shop I did in college, had a girl friend (yeah, I know, how’d that happen). And they were supposedly getting serious, but she had never seen his apartment, until one night…
The next day I heard the razzing: they had broken up.
She saw his room full of bikes and parts, etc, and said that would be perfect for a nursery, and he had the perfect apartment for her to move it. He would obviously need to put his ‘bike stuff’ somewhere else. She suggested a storage locker somewhere.
I can imagine his horror, and the idea of putting his bikes in a storage locker somewhere sounds crazy, but it was funny that he was single again… The others there still hadn’t let off hi for that. YOU found a girl to like you, and dumped her because she saw your apartment? Wow…
Most of my basement is bikes and bike tools, stands, etc… Priorities. Hah!
Asks a bunch a bike enthusiasts if a new bike is warranted lol. I’ll give you three guesses on what they will say and the first two don’t count!
Actually I’m super interested in your test rides vs the domane as I have one and once in awhile think a hard core race bike might be fun.
But then some pretty big races have been won on that bike so…?
Joe
I love it!
Joe
Well, I might have had a “hoped-for” outcome…lol… I found the responses I got really thoughtful.
I’m going tomorrow afternoon. I’m going to ride the Emonda and the Madone. The shop has a 4ish mile loop they usually recommend for the test rides. Assuming that’s where they send me, I’m going to do the ride on my Domane after I’m done testing the other bikes to see if I really notice that much of a difference.
You’ve not got a folder or a fixie and youll need something Eroica too and probably a few others (MTB Full and hardtail, gravel, cyclocross, TT, etc) build that extension
Don’t under estimate the value of a back-up bike. (Or a back-up to your back-up for that matter).
Having one to ride while you work on the other is worth any resale value you might get IMO.
This, a lot. I am having similar justification thoughts over n+1 and actually bailed on one. But while multiple wheelsets has saved me a few times, I am a bit screwed if something happens to my (race) bike.
Ive got to admit I don’t MTB at all but based on my gravel biking technique (lack of) I’d only enjoy uphill MTB’ing too