59 year old ex Road (and some Track) cyclist getting back into cycling and focused on gravel racing in Michigan (mostly >50 mile races) and need a new bike. I’m obviously not at the front of the races but am competitive in my age group (podiumed at the Michigan C2C 100). I’m 170lbs / 250 FTP so I’m not smashing the pedals. Working with a fitter in Ann Arbor and have narrowed the search to the new Argon 18 Dark Matter or the Allied Able. Both can work for me…the Argon will work out of the box…will need to play a bit with the stem on the Able. Anyone have experience with either bike or advice. I doubt the bike will matter that much but at my age I want to have every advantage possible.
Additional option is Titanium…my fitter rep’s the Seven Cycles. Not sure I want to go that route for cost and weight but appreciate thoughts on this as well
Just got my dark matter XPLR force build a couple of weeks ago and have done a race on it already. I love it, happy to provide specific feedback.
Looks good, fits me well, room for big rubber (comes with 50mm RX Pro, but I have 2.1 thunder Burt’s on it), integrated front end and downtube storage.
Pretty similar bikes that check all the important boxes for me. As far as the stem on the Allied, I’m pretty sure you can specify the size when ordering (It might take a phone call or 2, but I understand that they tend to accommodate special requests).
I got my Able several weeks back., Worked with my LBS for the order so they could tweak what I wanted. Didn’t cost me anything extra to go through my shop. They are not an Allied dealer either. Worked out great and they got a little $ from Allied by doing it.