Raleigh Airlite 300 Tiagra 2012 - buy?

[Malaconotus]

Can I throw my new bike up for discussion?... http://allcitycycles.com/bikes/mr_pink

It has done about five very excited miles around the roads near the shop yesterday in the snow, and having waited six months for delivery, I absolutely love it. It very, very satisfyingly combines the compliance and comfort of my current audax/sportive bike, an 1995 Reynolds steel Dawes Horizon, with the kind of immediate accelaration, stiffness, and power transfer of the new carbon and alu road bikes I've test ridden (Specialized Tarmac, Allez, Cannondale CAAD10 etc.) I'm a very big chap (6' 5", 19 stone) and I get a lot of flex in the bottom bracket on most steel bikes, causing the front mech to rub whenever I put any power down. The oversized downtube, shorter chainstays, and huge bottom bracket really do seem to make a big difference. It also fits like a glove, a result of an awful lot of modelling and swapping stems on other bikes etc.

It's going on the scales tomorrow. My guess is 20lb, and that's for the 61cm frame. At £1,799, it's arguably overpriced for the specification, as it has one or two more steps in the distribution chain to get here. I'm lucky to get a trade price and a bike to work scheme that goes over £1,000, so it's made ti affordable for me while the price is into custom build territory almost for others.

With Tektro medium drop brakes and a frame designed very carefully to optimise clearance there is a good 10mm clear above the stock 28mm tyres, and I'm planning to run 30mm Marathon Racers and SKS full length guards. I'll also siwthc the rear from an 11-25 to a 12-30 but it is, after all, a bike designed to be ridden fast and athletically so I actually want a 32" bottom gear as I have 18", 22", and 24" bottom on my other bikes. It also seems to climb much more efficiently than anything I onw already and the 32" feels as almost as easy as the 24" bottom on the Dawes.

It has no rack eyelets, so it's saddlebag or bar bag only, but i have other bikes for when I need to carry more. It goes in quite a different direction to the other US vogue for 650b randonneur bikes, but for me i think it will be the perfect audax/sportive ride.