New Website Notice for Edinburgh Bicycle

Please note that the Edinburgh Bicycle Co-Operative now has a new website. To visit the new website, please follow this link.

If you have bookmarked a page from the old website, please update your bookmarked page so that you can go straight to our new website. Thank you.

The Edinburgh Bicycle website team.

Revolution Continental Race £399.95

The following review appeared in the July 2004 issue of Cycling Plus magazine.

Our Revolution Continental Race was compared with 2 other £399 bikes - the Dawes Giro 300 and the Diamondback R20. We have reproduced the whole review here. If you only want to read about our bike, the paragraphs relevant to the Revolution Continental Race are in red.

'SPEED ON A SHOESTRING
With prices still falling, this summer is the ideal time to buy yourself a budget race bike. Dan Joyce tests 3 entry-level racers at £400.

Buy now, sale must end! You know how we keep saying that there's never been a better time to buy a new bike. Well this time we really mean it. The shift of bicycle manufacture to Taiwan and China has seen prices falling for years now. And so last year's bike is cheaper, better, or both this year. But this could be about to end. China's growing economy means there's a shortage of raw materials, so we could see bicycle prices level out or even rise for a couple of years. That's the bad news.

The good news for the consumer is that, for now, bikes are still available at cutting-their-own-throats prices. Take starter road bikes.... Look at this collection of sub-£400 road bikes: not a heavy steel frame of 7-speed rear end between them. One even has a carbon fork.

The Dawes Giro 300 is Dawes entry-level drop bar road bike.

Diamondback are better known for MTBs and BMXs. Nevertheless, they have 3 road bikes and this is the £399 R20.

Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative have always turned out excellent value own-brand bikes, as previous C+ reviews can attest. They offer 2 road bikes: the Revolution Continental (£300, Sora, aluminium frame, 7-speed rear end) and this, the Revolution Continental Race. Like the other 2 bikes in the test, this has a 16-speed drivetrain. And this is the one that gets the carbon fork.

FRAME AND FORK
DAWES 7 DIAMONDBACK 8 REVOLUTION 9
Although there are differences, the frames of all 3 bikes are fundamentally the same: TIG-welded 7005-series aluminium, with an integrated threadless headset and a replaceable dropout. The tubes are butted at the ends so there's enough material to join them safely. And they're all oversized, especially the down tube to prevent flexing.

Oversizing is necessary because aluminium is about a third as stiff and about half as strong. (Loosely, stiffness is the material's resistance to being bent - from which position it may spring back - while strength is resistance to being permanently bent out of shape or broken.) Happily it's also about a third the weight so even though there's more material here, these frames compare favourably to skinnier steel frames in terms of weight.
Despite less than featherweight components, total bike weights are all 11kg or less (with pedals). If even these seem heavy, remember that for time trialling at least, your riding position, tyre choice and level of vim are more important than nuances in bike weight. I went significantly faster in a local 10 on the Dawes than on a sub-9kg bike the week before.

The Dawes has eyelets for mudguards, so you could press it into service as a winter trainer or commuter. Even though it's marginally longer frame than the Diamondback, the distance between the front centres (bottom bracket to front axle) is still a little tight - not tight enough to cause overlap without mudguards but (depending on your foot size) probably enough with them.

The Diamondback makes no concessions to non-race use. There are no braze-ons for mudguards, and that's just as well because with the shortest effective to tube length and the shortest front-centres distance, there's no room for any anyway. With clipless pedals and a UK 8 (Euro 42) shoe there was nevertheless about 1cm of clearance to the 23mm tyre - which is fine for me.

The advantage is a slightly shorter reach, without recourse to a shorter stem, which allows a better fit onto tri-bars (if you fit them). The Diamondback's top tube profiles are distinctive. Whether they make a difference is moot, but at least the flattened top tube is comfortable for sitting on.

The Revolution Continental Race is a rebadged frame, Just like Edinburgh Bicycle's Courier. Either way, it's the lightest frame and fork package in the test. The carbon fork helps as it's always going to be lighter than a hi-ten steel one, which is what the other 2 bikes here use.

The Revolution has a longer effective top tube length than the Dawes and the Diamondback, with a correspondingly longer front-centres distance which means there's more toe clearance, and even room for mudguards - which you can fit as there's an eyelet on the carbon fork.

HANDLING
DAWES 8 DIAMONDBACK 8 REVOLUTION 9
Frame tubing, geometry and tyre sizes are much the same from bike to bike, so you'd expect them to handle much the same - and they do. The difference in reach is evident between the shorter Diamondback and the longer Revolution, but you could nix this simply by switching the latter's 11cm stem for a 9mm one.

The Revolution's carbon-bladed fork is a significant step up from the hi-ten of the Dawes and Diamondback. Partly it's psychological: 'look I've got a carbon fork!' But there are real benefits. While there are different grades of carbon fibre, which will have different levels of strength and stiffness, you can be confident in saying this at least: carbon fibre is as strong and stiff as steel and it's lighter than aluminium. Moreover, as its name says, it's a fibrous material that has 'grain', and it can be built into structures that are strongest in the direction of the greatest stress. Conventional wisdom says that you should end up with a lighter fork that's still laterally strong and stiff, but a bit more compliant than a metal counterpart. I think that I could feel that slight muting of road vibration when riding over patchy rougher-surfaced tarmac on the Revolution.

All 3 bikes use 23mm training tyres (well, the Revolution's are nominally 22), and this is a good compromise for a training/racing bike. There's little, if any loss in speed compared to narrower tyres and you get greater comfort. Faster racers will nevertheless benefit from a tyre upgrade on any of the 3 bikes. Subjectively, the Maxxis Detonator tyres on the Diamondback felt the fastest and most supple - possibly because they don't come with a Kevlar or hard rubber breaker strip. The bike had been assembled with care (as had the Revolution), giving it a 'tight', 'well tuned' feel. As the Diamondback's shorter reach fitted me best, and it had the most comfortable drops this could be the bike I'd pick first for racing. With minor tweaks, the Revolution would be equally good. The Dawes is hindered by its cassette choice (see below). For training of general use, the choice would be: Revolution, Dawes, Diamondback.

WHEELS
DAWES 6 DIAMONDBACK 7 REVOLUTION 8
The wheels of the Dawes were out of true, and not especially well tensioned, when it arrived. As an indifferent nipple key artist, who's better at correcting big kinks than fine-tuning, this was a source of minor irritation to me. Having said that, this is something your dealer would sort out for you. Also, the rear hub was spaced slightly wide, which meant that refitting the rear wheel involved holding the dropouts apart - which wouldn't be a problem with a steel frame, but not ideal with aluminium. Again your dealer could solve this by respacing the hub.
As with the rest of the bikes on this test, the Dawes gets an 8-speed cassette hub. This builds into a stronger wheel than a screw-on-freewheel hub because the bearings are closer to the ends of the axle. Rigida Nova rims are what you would expect at this price, and they're shod with Schwalbe Blizzard Sport tyres. These have a puncture-resistant strip, which is useful for training. However it isn't designed to protect against high-speed pinch punctures when your rear wheel whacks the sharp edge of an unseen pothole - as I found to my cost.
The Diamondback's wheels have unbranded alloy hubs laced to unbranded alloy rims. Nevertheless, the rims do feature a wear line - which would perhaps be more important on a winter trainer, which the Diamondback isn't, than a race bike but it's good to have them anyway. The wheels were true and tensioned okay. The rear hub has a rubber seal too, which should keep its bearings turning sweetly for a bit longer. The Maxxis Detonator tyres are, for racing at least, arguably the best here.

The Revolution also gets true well-tensioned wheels. They have the same Rigida Nova rims of the Dawes, but this time laced to Shimano Sora hubs. I wouldn't expect these to be lighter than the other hubs, but I would expect them to last a bit better; they're reasonably well sealed. The Vittoria Roma is a training tyre I couldn't find in the 2004 Vittoria catalogue. To all intents and purposes, it's 22c width is no different from a 23c. A Kevlar breaker strip should prevent too many punctures, especially on wet winter training rides.

EQUIPMENT
DAWES 7 DIAMONDBACK 8 REVOLUTION 8
All 3 bikes use Sora STI shifters and for such budget controls they're excellent. A thumb-operated button-lever on the brake hoods moves the chain to the smaller chainring/smaller sprockets, while sideswiping the brake lever shifts the chain the other way, against the derailleur spring. It's easy to use with your hands on the brake hoods but it's awkward to go up through the gears when you're on the drops and your trying to wind things up.
I'd always thought STI or Ergopower shifters were a bit fragile. Not so. The rear control on the Revolution, had been absolutely battered in transit. The plastic was scuffed, the rubber brake hood torn, and the control was rotated 45¾ around the bar - from which position I was unable to shift it back without undoing the binder bolt. So by the looks of things Sora controls can be stamped on and survive. (Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op point out that they would, of course, immediately replace a customer's bike that had been damaged like this in transit.)

Although the controls are identical on all the bikes, the drivetrains are different. The Dawes uses Shimano's new sub-Sora budget groupset, 2200, for its derailleurs and chainset. Production versions of the Dawes get a 13-26 cassette. This is better for training or for hills, where that 26t sprocket will easily earn its keep. It's less good for time trialling though as the steps between gears are that bit bigger, and more importantly you've lost the 12t big gear. A fitting glitch meant that our Dawes came supplied with a mountain bike 8-speed cassette, Shimano's HG30 which is an 11-30. The 2200 rear mech is only supposed to cope with up to a 26t sprocket, but it ramped the chain onto the 30t sprocket okay. Since the 2200 rear mech will work with both a triple and a double chainset, it easily wrapped the extra chain length.

The Diamondback gets a Sora chainset and Sora derailleurs which is an improvement over the 2200 kit on the Dawes. Its cassette is a 12-23, which is good news for would-be time triallers. There's a strong argument for a 12-21 for racing, however, having the 23t sprocket means that you're not busting a gut on every climb. The Diamondback is best suited to the double chainset that all the bikes get, since it's focussed more clearly on racing.

The Revolution gets Sora mechs, like the Diamondback but not a Sora chainset - although that's a bit heavier anyway, so it's not a huge loss. Like the Diamondback, it gets a 12-23 cassette. This is more a problem on the Revolution because, like the Dawes, it's a more versatile bike. To exploit its versatility as a racer, trainer, recreational, and even audax bike, it really needs a road triple chainset. (Advice taken: the Revolution Continental Race now comes equipped with a triple chainset. Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op.) That way, it could keep its tight 12-23 cassette for racing but it would gain a bottom gear of about 35" for climbing, thanks to a 30t inner chainring. The alternative would be to switch the cassette to 12-25. This would give a slightly easier bottom gear (41" versus 44) but it would mean sacrificing the 14t sprocket and having a bigger jump in the gears there - which is itself a compromise for time trialling.

All the bikes get the same Tektro dual-pivot sidepull brakes. They're good value and work well; no need to change these. None of the finishing kit was especially noteworthy, beyond the fact that the Diamondback gets the drops I liked best.

The Diamondback doesn't come with pedals, whereas the others get alloy platform pedals with clips and straps. In the interests of fairness, they were tested with the same clipless pedals and weighed with none.

Cycling Plus Verdict
For your £400 all 3 bikes here give you: an aluminium frame, selected parts of a Shimano Sora groupset, and a double chainring. It's a shame that none get a triple chainset, given its usefulness for hilly areas, and less hard-core riders. (Advice taken: the Revolution Continental Race now comes equipped with a triple chainset. Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op.) It's feasible to fit one at this price range: both the Giant OCR3 and Decathlon R Series 7.2 do. The real surprise is the Revolution's carbon-bladed fork - 3 similar bikes, 2 with hi-ten forks, 1 with a carbon fork. Which one will most go for.

The Dawes is a good bike in even more exulted company. If you overlook quirks like the 11-30 cassette that ours inexplicably had, and fixable flaws like rear hub spacing, it's more versatile than the Diamondback. Clearances are tight, but you could fit mudguards. On the other hand, its slightly cheaper kit than the other 2 means it's not such good value.

The Diamondback is a cracking entry-level racer. It's not so good as an all-round entry-level road bike - not just for the lack of mudguard braze-ons, but for the lack of room. But one man's 'lack of versatility' is another's 'uncompromised performance'; as a racer, it wears its double chainset without reproach, and likewise it has the right cassette, it fitted me best out of the box and has the best feeling tyres, so felt the most race-ready. However, it's not the best on test.

Easily the best value here is the Revolution - take that budget-beating carbon-bladed fork for starters - plus its components are a step up on the Dawes and at least on a par with the Diamondback's. Braze-ons and room for mudguards make more types of riding feasible too. I'd like a slightly shorter stem, a road triple, maybe different tyres. But when you consider what your getting, at what price, this feels like nit-picking. It's a bargain.

DAWES OVERALL RATING 7/10
Good, versatile road bike with, by comparison, slightly second-tier components.

DIAMONDBACK OVERALL RATING 8/10
Stylish, uncompromising entry-level race bike. Just add tri-bars.

REVOLUTION OVERALL RATING 9/10
Astounding value all-round road bike with a carbon fork. Now beginners can join the boys with the black stuff.'

back to review index