Took the bike out for a quick shake down ride today and the first thing I noticed was how twitchy it is at low speeds compared to my Canyon CF7. It's not necessarily a bad thing; at higher speeds it feels super responsive, which I like. Acceleration feels pretty similar to my CF7, but I can hold higher speeds easier. The rigidness of the frame definitely comes through when putting power down and it feels very rewarding. Nothing really noteworthy about the Elite Helix Drive wheels, they look great and gave me no issues.
So I know a lot of people are worried about reports of it being really stiff, but I didn't think it was that bad. Is it stiff? Absolutely. Does it rattle your teeth out? No. It feels similar to an aluminum frame in that regard. I do have to add that the surface I was riding on was probably a 4/10 on the roughness scale, but I did seek out some good size bumps and smallish pot holes that let me know that I wasn't on my Canyon. The tires did most of the grunt work when it came to the little stuff, but they could only do so much on the larger bumps/holes. I'm currently running Pirelli P Zero Race clinchers with TPU tubes. I have the TLR versions on standby if I feel like switching to Tubeless for a smoother ride.
For now I'm pretty happy with how the build turned out, this is my first Di2 setup and it took some getting used to. The bike it's self had zero issues or rattles, just a noisy chain, stiff from fresh wax. I can't wait to put more miles on it, now that I'm pretty confident with how it performs. I'll update again at about 500 miles.
by Fredboy
1 Comment
These bikes look good and I hope the build quality is likewise. But from the visual standpoint, they are really good