While the combination of strength and low weight that carbon boasts means that it’s quite rightly the material of choice for top-end road bikes, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a superb ride out of something else.

As Trek have shown with the release of the Émonda ALR, alloy bikes are far from done and there are still plenty out there that are competitive with carbon, and in some cases it’s definitely a smarter choice to opt for a high-end aluminium frameset rather than a lower end carbon one. Why? You can achieve comparable – or lower – weight, with bags of stiffness and an engaging ride quality, in an affordable package which may free up some cash to spend elsewhere on the bike.

Plus, even though carbon bikes are very strong, metal ones are less brittle. It might sound like a contradiction, but where a carbon bike might crack or even snap under impact, you can dent a metal frame and still ride it (depending on the severity, of course), and they’re much easier to fix/cheaper to have fixed. That makes high-end alloy frames a popular option for the cut-and-thrust of amateur racing.

With that in mind, we’ve picked out six of the best high-end aluminium frames on the market. Let’s crack on.