Im shopping for a new bike/frameset mainly for crit racing and occasional group rides, however still undecided which one. I have narrow down my choices to this 4 here are the geometries. I have not included the bike names so there will be no bias towards the brand.
Seems like 3 and 4 would be the most aggressive for crits. The wheelbase on 2 seems a bit long. Not an expert at interpreting geo though.
You are not going to like my answer: forget about geometry charts, groupsets and the like. Instead, test ride all of them and more. Get the one that feels best to ride. If you are between sizes, make sure to ride different ones.
You can race crits on basically any bike and most aggressive bikes, especially once you put deep wheels on it, will be very good tools for the job. I’d make the decision based on which bike is more fun to ride, and this is not something you can determine on paper.
Similarly, my two finalists for road bikes were a BMC Teammachine and a 3T Strada. The Teammachine was a Porsche 911: it was fun in corners, had long-distance comfort, had aero features, but wasn’t and all-out aero bike. It did everything very well, but was not excellent in one category if that came at the expense of other properties. The 3T Strada wants to go fast. It is still very comfortable, but it is more of a scalpel whereas the Teammachine was a Chef’s knife. In the end, I chose the scalpel.
Sizing is also a factor. Bike size isn’t just determined by your height, but also other factors such as limb length. Lastly, you will have to decide for yourself how specialized of a tool you want. A team mate of mine got a Specialized Allez Sprint fully decked out (aluminum frame, but with mechanical DuraAce groupset and carbon wheels). He told me it is horribly harsh to ride, but that it is quick. Doesn’t sound like the bike I’d want for myself.
Could do what I did (but not recommended): I was looking for a MTB racing bike. I test rode a Santa Cruz blur. Loved it. Ordered one. Local bike shop got in an Epic Evo base model. I bought that too. So now I have two new bikes and one large credit card bill.
Id say look into an agressive alu bike like an Allez Sprint. If you’re in the UK i’d suggest a Kinesis Aithein - It was my main bike for years and I loved it!