SRAM Red drivetrain vs carbon aero bars

Buy the bike with the RED component kit. The carbon aerobars will not make a hill of beans difference comfort wise.

Get the bike with the Sram... even for $100 more, you are coming out with a better deal.

thanks, good to hear.  for some reason i thought the carbon bars might dampen the vibration to my arms/shoulders/neck which starts aching before my legs are done.  probably the carbon frame on my friend's bike is doing the bulk of the dampening and not the handlebars then?

This is the one I'm looking at:
http://www.bikesdirect.com/products/kestrel/talon_sramred_tri.htm

seem like a good deal?

that bike doesn't have a red grouppo, it has red front and rear derailleurs, nothing else. In fact, it's got fairly cheap brakes, Sram's cheapest 10s chain and cassette (in an unusual size for a tri bike), their cheaper shifters, and a not so great wheelset.

It looks to me like that bike was speced out so their ad could say "RED COMPONENTS" without actually giving you any of the benefit thereof.

I'd say it's about a wash between those 2 bikes (assuming the other you were talking about is Talon SL), other than the shimano vs sram drivetrain, everything else looks the same, as you said. Carbon damping vibration is a load, but so is the belief that Red derailleurs shift better than Ultegra (provided both were installed and adjusted properly). Even Shimano vs Sram doesn't mean that much, since this isn't a road bike, and the shift pattern is the same.

I doubt anyone in the world, beginner or not, would notice a performance difference between those two (then again, $100 isn't that much compared to the rest of the bike, and it gets you the most expensive [mechanical] derailleurs ever made, if bling means anything to you).

thanks fausto, i figured they would be pretty close since the price was basically the same.  if there were any performance differences it would definitely be slight enough that a noob like me wouldn't notice it.  $100 is insignificant enough compared to the whole price of the bike that if the carbon handlebars makes no difference, I'll pay it just for the few SRAM components that I probably won't notice other than the cool looks

this company always goes cheap on the wheels since you just can't get prices like that with real tri race wheels.  i'm getting SRAM S60 front and an aero disc cover from wheelbuilder for the stock rear wheel which I heard is basically as good as a $600+ rear disc.