I you can afford it without putting a dent in your savings or monthly expenditure, then sure, go for it. Or, maybe, if you’re a bit doubtful, delaying a purchase is a great idea too. Assuming you are in the northern hemisphere, you’d get winters in a couple of months and would only be riding indoors in winters. So, maybe you can delay the purchase till the next summer and meanwhile save up. That way, you avoided a potentially impulse purchase, you saved up over a long time for it, and, you get a brand new bike for a brand new season!
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I’ve tried twice now with MTB over the years. Every 5 or so years I get sucked in by how the modern geometry makes it easier.
I can get down trails on my gravel bike that I used to bale on with a full suss. Nearly getting sucked in again watching the Olympics!
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Buy the bike and enjoy it.
Like you, I don’t race, never have, and have no plans to. But that didn’t stop me from buying an out and out racing bike a couple of years ago (a Canyon CF SLX 9); and I have absolutely no regrets. Riding it is an absolute blast and gives me so much pleasure.
Life’s too short - buy the bike.
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I test rode both the Emonda and the Madone yesterday. The Emonda was the SLR 7 and the Madone was the SL 7. I didn’t care for the Emonda, which surprised me because I thought that was the one I would like. The ride was very rough compared to the Madone.
The Madone was very, very fun to ride. It feels really fast but at the same time the ride quality is quite good – it feels like it would be a comfortable ride for several hours in the saddle. The M/L size (56cm) fit me quite well. My Domane was a pandemic purchase and at 58cm is probably slightly too big for me. I’m 90% of the way to being ready to pull the trigger on the Madone. Will probably give it another day or two before I decide for certain.
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Go for it and sell the too big Domane!
A non-racer buying a race bike is like someone buying a Porsche. You buy it because it’s fun.
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You didn’t say your domane was slightly too large. This changes everything, get the madone, sell the domane. With only one caveat did you test the madone before or after the emonda (if after just pull the trigger, if before do emonda them madone)
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The Domane is very slightly too large and I wasn’t entirely sure it was too large until I tried the smaller Madone. Here’s the order of what I did yesterday:
– Rode Domane to bike shop
– Test rode Emonda
– Test rode Madone
– Took Domane on same course as the test rides
– Rode Domane home from the bike shop.
If I pull the trigger on the Madone, I’ll probably keep the Domane for a few months to make sure I really enjoy the Madone for all of the rides I’m doing and then assuming I do, will sell the Domane.
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Buy it
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In my experience this doesn’t work. The body position on a bike with racier geometry is rotated downwards, towards the front tire (the head goes down), whereas on an endurance road bike it is rotated upwards. This cannot be compensated for by a racier cockpit as that puts the rider in a position the bike wasn’t designed for.
You also don’t change the handling characteristics. Steering is more sluggish, but more stable etc.
There are three contact points: pedals, saddle, and handlebars.
In my opinion, nothing else really matters in terms of fit. Aside from extreme cases, you should be able to transfer your fit from one road bike to another without any issues. I’ve been able to dial in my specific bike fit onto many, many very different bikes, including a 2021 Domane.
The HTA on that bike is pretty slack, but I enjoyed it as an all-road bike with 40mm tires most of the time.
@bmarum maybe you should keep the domane and use it as your “gravel” bike if you don’t already have one. I liked mine for that!
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Yes, you are right, you can make both bikes fit the rider, it all depends on the position of the touch points. But you can’t make an endurance road bike like the Domane into a more aggressive bike and making the fit too aggressive comes with downsides as you are out of the design envelope.
To get to a more aero position, the rider is “rotated” so that the distance between the contact points stays the same, i. e. so that the rider fits. Endurance road bikes have a higher riding position, and this is achieved by rotating the rider backwards.
If you put a more aggressive stem on an endurance road bike, you can adjust all other contact points to make it fit mathematically, but that comes with compromises. (Just to be clear, I have tried this with my previous (endurance) road bike, and it didn’t work for me.) For example, with a more aggressive stem (to rotate the rider downwards) you often need to tilt the saddle further downwards, and I could never get it to fit right. In fact, I have less saddle issues (no discomfort in my perineum) with a bog standard saddle on my race-y aero road bike (3T Strava) than with a fancy saddle with a cutout on my endurance road bike (spent ¥¥¥¥¥ on saddles).
Another issue is that if you prefer more aggressive handling characteristics, because none of that will change e. g. the wheelbase. A longer stem will have an (tiller) effect, though, but in my experience, if you stray too far from the standard stem sizes, it will negatively affect handling.
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Yeah, stem length will have an effect on handling, but I’ve found that longer rarely creates issues whereas short stems make most (road) bikes handle unfavorably.
I’d agree that the racier bike is going to have quicker handling pretty much no matter what, but bikes with slacker HTAs aren’t designed to handle that way regardless. If you want a twitchy-feeling bike for pavement, buy the road race bike.
The Domane could be a great light gravel bike for most, but the OP did state that it’s likely a size too big for them which could make getting the right fit tricky. The stack on that bike is pretty high and while you can pretty easily manage that on one that’s the right size, it’s not going to be the easiest on one that’s too big. 
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Yup. Sizing and geometry are super important, I always recommend that people test ride as many bikes as possible and favor geometry/feel over components. God knows, I spent a lot on my aero road bike, and I wish it hadn’t been necessary.
Yeah, and to emphasize, don’t interpret me writing “sluggish” as something necessarily negative, the slacker head angle and longer wheelbase will make endurance road bikes more stable and handle more gently. Other people will perceive the quicker, more fun steering of a more aggressive bike as twitchy and they don’t like the toe overlap.
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I pulled the trigger and picked up the Madone in the SL7 configuration, size M/L (56cm). I took it out for an easyish 2.5 hour ride yesterday and it feels very different than my Domane – in particular it feels much faster and more responsive. Not surprisingly, it is not quite as comfortable as the Domane, however, I was surprised at just how comfortable it was over the course of the ride. And certain positions on the Madone actually feel better than on the Domane (for example, the drops on the Madone are more comfortable for me than the Domane). I suspect this was not so much a bike difference as it is a fit difference. Most of my regular rides are 2.5 hours or less so being as comfortable as I was on it for that duration right out of the gate was awesome.
I am probably going to take a run at one of the local climbs I use as a bench mark later this week to see how my time stacks up against the Domane. It has been a little under two months since I last did the climb and I’m about the same fitness as I was then so if I improve my time I’ll be pretty confident in saying its the bike.
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What? No pictures???
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I know – will get some and post later.
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I imagine that it came with 28mm tires. Putting some 32s on would definitely make it more comfortable!
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