I like the Cannondale SuperSix 3 Ultegra, but with the brakes upgraded from Tektro R580 to Ultegra. Not affordable though...just the usual research driven cost escalation. As far as I can tell there are not any inexplicable price differences for new bikes. It is very much 'you get this if you pay that'. There may be differences between dealers in pricing (and there's always the used bike market).
Update #1: Also nice and even more expensive, the Cervélo S2 Ultegra or the new (and hard to obtain?) Cervélo S5 Ultegra.
From the ad copy for the Cervélo S5, a nice observation about the dominance of wind resistance at higher speeds:
The dominance of aerodynamic drag explains why recumbent bikes -- banned in conventional bike competitions -- are much much faster than uprigh bikes:
The IHPVA [recumbent bike] hour record is 90.60 km (56.29 miles), set by Sam Whittingham on July 1, 2009. The equivalent record for an upright bicycle is 49.700 km (30.882 miles), set by Ondřej Sosenka in 2005.
Sosenka's record is actually not the best for an upright bike, just the best for an upright bike without various aerodynamic tweaks like a time trial helmet. Still, the hour record for any upright bike isn't much faster, 56.375 km/h.
So what is my distance in an hour? Now and in, say, a year?
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