I don't know any answers to your questions, but looking at the geometry, I'm impressed. It has a slightly longer chainstay than the LHT which is nice. The trail for my size 49cm is 6.3cm which is about the same as the Trek 520 I'm riding which means it will still handle relatively faster than a LHT(6.91cm) in my size. You can run it as a singlespeed and a multispeed. Looks like it even has a mid-fork eyelet for a lowrider front rack. The only thing that would suck for me is the standover is high b/c of the horizontal top tube. I never really considered the Speciale as a contender to a Trek 520 or LHT, but looks like I overlooked it.