# Paris vs FP Quattro



## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Looking at these two frames in a Di2 build. Can someone please tell me what the differences are. What about ride differences. I do not know much about how different carbon fibers would effect ride. Just trying to learn before making a decision. Thanks!

Norm


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## TallKYRider (Feb 18, 2012)

From what I have read, the only difference is the carbon stiffness. The Paris has a stiffer carbon, but from I have researched, the everyday rider would never know the difference. I current have a FP3, which the Quatro replaced and has the same carbon. I am 6'4, 240 and really push my bike and it is very stiff. Unless you really know what you are you buying, I would recommend the Quatro, but you should ride both to see what you like. Good Luck.


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## socal-k (Feb 21, 2012)

I test rode both last week. The Paris is lighter and absorbs a little more road shock. The difference, however, is marginal. I bought the Quatro. Upgraded it with Mavic SR and a Fizik saddle.


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## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Socal and Tallky,

I have not ridden either yet. LBS does not the size in stock. Going down to talk to them in the next couple of days. Going to take the components from my madone and put on the pinarello. One thing that I noticed in the owners manual they talk about a 200 lb. rider and more frequent inspections with a weight limit of 240 lb. I currently weigh 190 and plan on getting down to 180, but the 200 number has me a little concerned. Any thoughts? I have not talked to LBS yet about this.


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## socal-k (Feb 21, 2012)

hamsey said:


> Socal and Tallky,
> 
> I have not ridden either yet. LBS does not the size in stock. Going down to talk to them in the next couple of days. Going to take the components from my madone and put on the pinarello. One thing that I noticed in the owners manual they talk about a 200 lb. rider and more frequent inspections with a weight limit of 240 lb. I currently weigh 190 and plan on getting down to 180, but the 200 number has me a little concerned. Any thoughts? I have not talked to LBS yet about this.


I weigh 195 lbs. @ 5'8" (lifted weights a little too much too long- LOL!) with no issues. I originally bought a 54. LBS switched me to a 53 for a much better fit. I also started out with Mavic Cosmic Aero wheels. They look great but weigh a ton (1800 grams). Swapped to Mavic SRs with carbon rear spokes- look trick, amazingly light and forgiving.


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## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Talked to LBS today, they do not have any I can demo. They have a FP7 that I can demo but it is a few years old.

Same thing with the weights. Do not look I weight what I do. Hopefully, I can get to 180 this year. Going to be doing a fit on March 8th to determine the proper size. LBS wants to do the fit on my madone then determine which size frame to go with. Both bikes have the same geometry so it is still a toss up but I am leaning towards the paris due to nano carbon. LBS needs to look into a few things like which fork comes with each bike. Onda 1 or 2. If they did away with the ribbing in the frames. I know what the dogma has but not the FP or Paris.

Norm


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## Nicole Hamilton (Sep 5, 2010)

I just ordered a white and red 2012 Paris with the Campy Chorus group from Competitive Cyclist last Friday. It's a heck of a package deal on what amounts to a Dogma with a few extra ounces. (It also helped that CC was able to knock the price down some more on the phone.) Having been riding Campy for 38 years, I wasn't going to change now and that ruled out the FPQ. But I also thought the Paris was just a better deal and that it had more attractive paint than this year's Dogmas or FPQs.


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## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Agree on the paint. Did you get to take it for a spin yet?


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## Nicole Hamilton (Sep 5, 2010)

hamsey said:


> Did you get to take it for a spin yet?


I only ordered it on Friday and probably won't have it 'till the end of next week or the beginning of the week after. CC has to get it from Gita, then ship it to me in WA.

But I test-rode a 2011 Campy Paris in the same size frame in December, so I think I have a pretty good idea what to expect, which is to say, a bike that climbs like crazy. In the meantime, I've been burning up my credit card over at Amazon for the rest of the bling it needs. One special, but completely indefensible treat: the red Garmin 500 package. (Hey. It's a red and white bike. What fool would put an otherwise completely identical blue Garmin on there, just to save $100? )


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## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Time to break out the red paint


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## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Nicole,

Did you get to take it out for a spin yet? Thoughts?


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## Nicole Hamilton (Sep 5, 2010)

hamsey said:


> Nicole, Did you get to take it out for a spin yet? Thoughts?


LOL. I like it. But I've been holding off saying much until I had enough experience to report.

I ordered the bike from CC on Feb 17, they finally got it shipped it out on Mar 3 and UPS delivered it on Mar 8. It came in a big box with everything zip-tied to a big sheet of cardboard. Mount the seat and handlebars, put the wheels on it and add pedals and you have a bike.

It's a pretty bike, though I confess I was surprised to discover it's all a MATTE finish. Somehow, I expected glossy. Caveat emptor and all that and, anyway, it does look great, just different than I expected. But it did mean returning the glossy CF water bottle holders I'd ordered through Amazon for matte finish that might actually go with the bike.

It's been raining pretty much every day and the next 5 days are forecast to be more of the same. I really am a fair-weather rider, especially with a pretty new bike, so I've only been able to do two rides so far, 14 miles the day I got it, and 25 the day before yesterday. I'd have done more on that second ride but it started raining again about 12 miles from home, though fortunately not constant nor heavy. On the first ride, I had the saddle too high by about 1 cm. But I live at the top of a hill and decided living with it on a short ride was easier than going back up the hill. I'd mistakenly set the height by measuring from the center of the BB as was marked on fitting charts; I should have remembered to measure to the top of the pedal at the bottom of the stroke. It mattered because the XTRs I put on the Paris are thinner than the XTs on my Paramount and because the bike showed up with 172.5 cranks instead of the 170s I'd been promised. (J.D. at CC promises that if I'd like to swap for the 170s, that's not a problem. He's promised they'll get me the parts and pay for any LBS to do the swap. I haven't made a final decision, but I expect I'll likely take him up on that.)

On that first ride, I was getting random clunk sounds in the crank and I could feel them in my right pedal, usually as it came up through 11 o'clock. I suspected my pedals weren't sufficiently torqued. I'd hand-tightened only as I'd overlooked getting an 8mm bit for my ridiculously expensive torque wrench. But after getting the proper bit and checking the torque, I don't think that was a problem. Fortunately, the clunk sounds were almost totally gone on my second ride. I got only a few and they were much less pronounced. Maybe it was torque on the pedals and I fixed it. But I'm more suspicious of either cockpit error, that I'm new on this group and wasn't always trimming properly, or that the BB wasn't sufficiently tight but is self-tightening as I ride. But as long as it goes away, I guess that's all that matters.

There are two things about the bike that I already absolutely love. First is the Campy Chorus group. My Paramount's Nuovo Record group only has 5 sprockets and isn't usable with extreme chain angles, meaning I really only have 8 speeds, 4 on each chainring. In addition, the granny gear is and always has been hard to get in and out of. I love the 11 speeds and being able to use them all from either chainring. It's wonderful to be able to adjust up or down in such small increments and so easily. The indexed shifting is such a nice improvement from friction levers on the downtube.

I also love the way the Paris climbs. Hills are just plain easier on the Paris. There’s one at my 10-mile mark that often has me breathing hard by the end on my Paramount. On the Paris, it was quite noticeably easier.

I'm still a little anxious over the question of frame size. I'm still sorting out fleeting sensations of the Paris being a little small at times, e.g., riding upright with my hands on the flat parts of the bar. When I stand on the pedals, it feels like I’m out over the front wheel more than expected. But I suspect most of that is just that I'm so used to my Paramount that I just need to recalibrate my expectations of what things are supposed to feel like. It would really help if I could get more time in the saddle to reassure me and fewer rainy days where I sit inside and worry. In the meantime, I've been busy with my dressmaker's tape, comparing the two bikes.

They measure out surprisingly close. The big difference is the wheelbase. The Paris much shorter, about 98 cm, compared to 103.5 for my Paramount. This makes some things hard to compare but it also points up a couple differences in the Paris that I actually intended and got. One is that it really is a more agile bike. It turns quicker. (But, possibly more due to the dramatically lessened weight in the wheels, there's much, much less gyroscopic stability; it's harder to ride "no hands" because it's not a self-righting.) The other is I have a better reach to the handlebars and especially to the levers. My Paramount has a long reach, which is exactly why it came with extension levers as standard: You need them because the primary levers are little far out. On the Paris, it's quite comfortable to be on the hoods; I don't feel so stretched out.

I confess I'm not yet happy with the saddle. It's at the right height but may be too far forward by a little under 1 cm. But I'm also suspicious I'm so spoiled by 38 years on a Brooks Professional (what they now call a Team Pro) that I'm just never going to be happy until I buy a new one. The Most Oscelot doesn't offer much support in the rear. Even though I promise, I'm really not fat, it feels a little like I'm pouring over the back of this one.

As long as I was buying a new bike, I bought new bling for it, including a Garmin 500 and USB-rechargeable Cygolite headlight and taillight. The Garmin is fabulous. I should have bought one a long time ago. I love the way you can customize up to 8 fields on one screen. I'm also glad I bought the 500, not the 800, for the size. The Cygolites are also very good and seriously bright. On my first ride, I had the headlight, a Cygolite 400, on the default (medium) setting, aimed more-or-less straight ahead. I promptly got a complaint from another rider that I was nearly blinding him. I had to admit he was right. I now have it aimed down a bit and set to blink.

Finally, one minor Pinarello policy glitch that kind of annoyed me and still does. When I tried registering my frame on the Pinarello site, they declared that I was only eligible for 2-year warranty because I hadn't registered within 10 days of the purchase. Well, wait a second. You can't register a frame until you have it and know the serial number. But the dealer didn't even get it within 10 days of my order. I myself had only had the bike for 2 days. It did get straightened out with the help of my dealer, but it was an unwelcome reminder that Pinarello seems to be going out of their way to remind you that they have no intention of standing behind their products one bit than they have to. For such a high-end brand, their attitude about warranty plainly sucks. I think most Americans expect more. (But this was also a factor in my decision to insure the bike, including insuring it against crash damage, with a rider on my homeowner's policy.)


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## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Nice write up. Thanks for the heads up on the warranty issue. Definitely will talk to my dealer about this. Please adjust your review if need be after you spend more time riding. Garmin 500 is an excellent computer. Been using mine for a couple of years now and have not had any issues with it.

Going to be a couple more weeks until I take delivery of my paris. With the matte finish is it more defficult to clean?


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## Nicole Hamilton (Sep 5, 2010)

hamsey said:


> With the matte finish is it more defficult to clean?


I suspect so. In only 2 rides on a brand-new bike, it's not like I've had a lot that needed cleaning. But it seems like greasy marks that would wipe off a gloss finish seem to wipe _*into*_ the matte finish. And I don't imagine it should be waxed.


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## Nicole Hamilton (Sep 5, 2010)

*My new Paris*

We got a break in the rain out here in Redmond today so I got a 3rd ride on my new Paris, this time doing 32 miles, which got me out onto the new section of the Burke-Gilman just past Log Boom Park. (Wow. Very nice trail now.)

The Paris is starting to feel like _*my*_ bike. I moved the saddle back a few mm and that helped a lot. Amazing how such a small change there can make such a big difference in comfort. My worries about whether I'd chosen the right size frame subsided a lot today. The 51.5 looks like it was a good choice for me at 5'9" with a 32" inseam. I was able to replicated the seat position relative to the crank and between the seat and the handlebars that I had on my Paramount pretty much exactly.

The jury's still out on that Most Oscelot saddle, especially considering it's plastic, meaning however it feels when new, it's not getting better. So I'm still cogitating over buying another Brooks. But now that it's positioned right, the Oscelot's not bad and I'm okay to wait and see how I feel after a few hundred miles.

I really am loving the Campy Chorus 11 group. It's SO nice having so many gears. And the ergo levers are so convenient and easy compared to friction shifters on the downtube.

I'm still on the 172.5 cranks but I decided to request the swap. J.D. at CC is sending me a 170 which should be here Monday or Tuesday. I'll get that swapped at the LBS; CC will reimburse me the cost. I decided there was just no payoff in keeping the 172.5s. I really do worry about my knees, I know the 170s work fine and that was what Cyfac's fit software recommended as well. Maybe I could go faster on 172.5s but why would I care. Anyway, a thumbs up to CC for being easy to work with on the swap.

My new matte white on the outside, matte carbon on the inside water bottle cages showed up today. Wow. These are perfect on the bike. And, btw, the paint is growing on me. This is a pretty bike. But I have confirmed that matte paint does require special care. You cannot wax matte paint.

I'll post pictures in a few days.


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## Steelguy (Apr 25, 2010)

Such great posts - thanks so much, Nicole. Breaking in a Brooks used to be a real hassle, getting neats foot oil over everything, not to mention the toll on what the Italians delicately call the soprasella. A friend of mine broke in his Brooks by working it over with hammers. What's your secret? It's wonderful to hear the pleasure you take in bikes - Enjoy !


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## Nicole Hamilton (Sep 5, 2010)

Steelguy said:


> Such great posts - thanks so much, Nicole. Breaking in a Brooks used to be a real hassle, getting neats foot oil over everything, not to mention the toll on what the Italians delicately call the soprasella. A friend of mine broke in his Brooks by working it over with hammers. What's your secret? It's wonderful to hear the pleasure you take in bikes - Enjoy !


I don't remember breaking in my Brooks Pro as being much of anything. I do remember people _talking_ about breaking them in as if it was a big deal. But I don't remember my own experience that way. I didn't do anything, I just rode it. That was 38 years ago, so maybe I'm forgetful, but even today, it's not like it's soft anywhere.


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## hamsey (Aug 16, 2010)

Nicole,

Any photos? Still awaiting for mine to be built up (hopefully next week). Just want to see what yours looks like and get some ideas. 

How is the Garmin working for you? Which heart rate monitor are you using, if you are using one. I have been using the premium Garmin strap. It's ok but I like my polar strap better so I swapped transmitters. Tried it out last night works with no problems and is more comfortable. Polar strap does not stretch and get distorted like the Garmin.


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## Nicole Hamilton (Sep 5, 2010)

hamsey said:


> Nicole, Any photos? ... How is the Garmin working for you? Which heart rate monitor are you using, if you are using one.


Yes, finally! I've just started a new thread with a link to my Photobucket album at http://forums.roadbikereview.com/pinarello/my-new-pinarello-paris-275683.html.

I'm loving the Garmin. I should have bought one years ago. I'm using the Garmin "Premium" HR monitor that came with in the red bundle. I did notice one time it was reading way off (about 60 bpm when it should have more than twice that.) Power-cycling the Garmin fixed that. I'm glad I didn't bother with the 800. I like the size of the 500.


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