State Bicycle Company’s Carbon Road bike review: How much bike can you buy for 3k?

Arizona-based State Bicycle Company is best known for its affordable fixed-gear and city-going steel and aluminium bicycles. Recently, it has started offering carbon frames designed for gravel and road riding. The Carbon Road (to be a fly on the wall during the meeting where they came up with this name…) is the company’s new, dedicated road model, intended for performance riding and racing.

State highlights the inclusion of modern standards like a T47 bottom bracket, UDH compatibility and space for wider tyres (up to 32 mm, listed) that bring this bike in line with current trends, but all for a reasonable price. While top-level race bikes are priced above $5,000 - or often double or triple that - the Carbon Road sells, complete, for a somewhat more modest $2,800.

How does it stack up? I received a test bike as a frameset, with parts and wheels arriving separately, and got to see, from the very beginning, how it compares against its more expensive competition.

Design details

Testing top-of-the-line bikes is great fun, and a privilege, but for the amount of money these bikes cost, it seems fair to expect that everything should be perfect. It often is, which doesn’t make for a particularly compelling review. It’s much more interesting, however, to ride bikes that don’t cost an arm and a leg to see what decisions have been made to balance usability versus cost. State’s Carbon Road is, on paper, one of the least expensive bicycles I’ve tested, and I’m pleased to report it has provided much fodder for discussion.

The State Carbon Road bike looks every bit like a modern performance road bike. If you fit it with a one-piece cockpit - something State also sells - to fully conceal the brake lines, it would be virtually indistinguishable to most people from a top-end racing bike.

The bike’s silhouette is very current. It has an elongated, aero headtube and downtube, a slightly sloping top tube, and dropped seatstays. The geometry is fairly standard for a performance road bike; if anything, it’s on the racier end of the spectrum. My size L has a reach measurement of 399mm, and stack of 559mm, while the head tube angle is listed at 72.5 degrees.

The Carbon Road has glossy white paint with carbon showing through the logo, and a contrasting black fork, a scheme it calls “Panda Pearl”. The zero-setback seatpost is proprietary, with an aero profile, and is locked in place with a wedge-style clamp on the top tube. There is no setback available.

Specifications

The bike I received for testing uses State’s standard carbon layup (the company also offers a Super Light carbon option) and came with a SRAM Rival 2x build, DT Swiss aluminium wheels and 28 mm Vittoria Corsa tyres.

State ships complete builds with relatively short cranks and narrow bars (170 mm and 40 mm, respectively, on my size L) with each size, but doesn’t offer à la carte options if these sizes are not to your liking. Also available are a SRAM 1x build, a frameset-only option, and other spot upgrades, such as higher-end wheels and cockpit components.

The bike can be purchased with either a two-piece cockpit, which runs guide lines under the stem and into the headset or as a one-piece bar/stem combo that fully conceals the hydro lines. As there are no internal guides within the frame for these lines, they can freely move about within the frame and do so noisily. Even with some padding, I could feel them moving while riding.

The Rival AXS groupset (48/35T chainrings paired w/ a 10-36T) worked without issue, and continues to set the standard for affordable wireless shifting. Its only real downside compared to higher-priced options is some added weight.

The complete build, including bottle cages and pedals, weighed a very respectable (considering the parts used) 8.5kg.

Performance

I was somewhat apprehensive going into my first ride on the Carbon Road; sure, I was curious about how the bike would feel overall, but I was also concerned that some of the difficulties I had during the build process might cause problems while riding.

A few things cropped up while the bike was in the stand. First, the frame uses moulded headset cups for the bearings to drop into directly, without a metal crown race on the fork, or extra top or bottom press-in metal cups, etc. This design isn't inherently problematic; if executed precisely, it works very well. If, however, any of the surfaces aren't perfect, the headset will never turn smoothly as it should.

In this particular case, it took quite a bit of experimenting with shims before I was satisfied with the headset’s ability to turn drag-free. I suspect the bearings themselves might be part of the issue, though some of it may be due to my own shortcomings as a mechanic.

At any rate, I got the headset working, navigated the lack of padding or internal guides for the brake lines (making it prone to rattling and, over time, wear), and built the rest of the bike. I ended up using some foam I had on hand to pad the brake lines around the steerer tube, but something more purpose-specific would have been preferable.

The other troublesome points I encountered were the brakes - the mounts required facing to align the brakes properly - and the wedge-style seatpost clamp, which had a penchant for popping out of place whenever I tried to adjust the saddle height (this was particularly annoying while making adjustments mid-ride).

All in all, these proved surmountable, and while the State Carbon bike might appear to go toe-to-toe with a pro-level bike, there are definite shortcomings in the end result of the manufacturing and design choices at play here.

When I finally got the bike on the road, I occasionally felt disconcerting sensations from the headset that made steering feel vague; however, this feeling lessened the more I rode.

Occasionally baulky headset aside, I was impressed with the ride quality of the frame. While the ride wasn’t exactly plush, it didn’t feel like a bone-jarring aero bike from 10 years ago, either. The geometry provides a good neutral platform for riding hard, and other than the lack of a setback seatpost (something I would like to see State offer in the future), I got along well with the design. The seatpost offered some noticeable compliance, and the bike followed inputs intuitively. A larger, stronger rider may find the fork and front end too flexy, but this wasn’t an issue for me (I weigh around 67kg).

A fairly conventional front end with nothing proprietary means sizing and fit adjustments should be pretty straightforward for most riders, and while a one-piece cockpit is an option, I think sticking with a regular bar and stem is perfectly reasonable on this bike. It’s a little heavier, but it’s much less expensive and lets you swap parts easily if needed.

It’s always good to see a threaded bottom bracket (T47, in this instance), especially on a monocoque frame, and I ran into no issues whatsoever with the frame finishing in that area. Zipp’s Service Course handlebars, a Fizik saddle and DT Swiss wheels are all proven, name-brand parts that work well and suit the purpose of the bike adequately.

The biggest issue I had was with the 28 mm Vittoria tyres: they’re just too narrow. Since State explicitly highlights the 32 mm tyre clearance in the marketing materials for this bike, I’m perplexed why the company chose such small tyres.

I decided to try swapping on some 35 mm Continental GP5000 AS tyres I had on hand, and realised right away how much 28s were holding this bike back. Wider tyres provided added pneumatic trail that helped smooth out the sticky headset woes, and gave the bike more confidence and poise descending and cornering, as well as a boost in comfort.

The Continentals measure at right around 34 mm on the stock rims, and while the bike felt good in this configuration, there’s space to go even larger. This extra clearance was a welcome surprise, given the number of excellent wider tyres available these days and the clear benefits of utilising them. State has room to play with here, and I wish it would.

Aerodynamically, State makes no specific claims about the design's effectiveness. I suspect the bike has not been tested in a wind tunnel, but rather designed to “look fast.” I have no issue with this: looking fast matters, and wind-tunnel testing is expensive. Based on my time riding it, I would expect the Carbon Road to compare favourably to most conventional racing bikes out there with the addition of a deeper-section wheelset.

What State has put together here is an eminently rideable (and likely raceable, with some gearing changes) complete package, ideal for someone who wants a go-fast experience and is willing to overlook some slight deficiencies for the sake of reduced cost. I would certainly like to see the frames get prepped better before reaching the consumer, but it must be said that sometimes that’s the case with much more expensive frames as well.

Value

Bikes cost a lot these days, and I’m glad to see State, as well as other brands (several Chinese direct-to-consumer brands are offering extremely impressive builds right now), try to provide an alternative. Does the Carbon Road ride like a 5k bike? No, but it doesn’t feel like a box-store bike either. With better frame finishing around the headset and brake mounts, and a slightly higher parts spec, I see no reason a bike like this would hold anyone back at any level of competition.

For those curious how State can sell a carbon frameset for $1,400, the answer is straightforward. State purchased the bike (an “open mould” design) from Chinese company Speeder, added paint, and imported it to the US; thus, it didn't have to invest in the R&D and tooling costs that normally factor into a bicycle’s final price.

How do I know this? When I unboxed the test bike, it had a paper hangtag with Speeder Cycling printed on it, along with a handwritten model number, size and date, which match the Integrated Road Frameset listed on Speeder’s website. State isn't the only one doing this, but it's worth examining the path that makes it possible.

For the money, there aren't many options available on the market. It would be fairly easy to build up a Carbon Road with fancy parts and get it under 16 lbs, while still costing less than the $5,799.99 that an S-Works Tarmac SL9 frameset retails for.

Tech specs

• Frame: State Carbon
• Forks: State Carbon
• Size: L
• Weight: 8.59kg
• Groupset: SRAM Rival AXS
• Crankset: SRAM Rival 48/35
• Cassette: SRAM Rival 10-36t
• Wheels: DT Swiss A1800 Spline
• Tyres: Vittoria Corsa N.EXT 28mm
• Brakes: SRAM Rival hydraullic
• Bar/stem: Zipp Service Course handlebars; State aluminum stem
• Seatpost: State Carbon
• Saddle: Fizik Tempo Aliante R5