Old 02-08-18, 08:51 PM
  #115  
robbyville
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Palm Desert, CA
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Bikes: Speedvagen Steel

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Originally Posted by dmcdam
Congratulations on your dream bike! Ride reports next please!
Thank you!

Got out for 30 miles today. Nice little spin... It's kind of hard to describe, it's COMPLETELY different from my Domane and any other bike I've had before. First thing I noticed is that with my Domane you felt a nice little road buzz, when hitting pot holed or lines in the road, you felt them and of course as carbon will do, the feeling was muted a bit but when you felt it, it was kind of in a "hollow or plastic" kind of echo buzz. The steel bike with carbon seat tube mutes the road feel in a different way. I didn't feel that hollow kind of road buzz, it felt almost like a more solid ride in a car (I don't know if any of this makes sense, I need to find a better way to describe). More luxurious and solid perhaps, it's like when I went from my Camry to my small Lexus, just more planted even though I still feel the road. It was really, really nice though.

The geometry is very different from the Domane, when I was doing the fitting, since we were changing things bit by bit maybe I didn't notice how different it would be (also probably because I was 3 weeks into a bout of Mono so hadn't been on the bike and probably shouldn't have been travelling lol). The front end is definitely tighter, and my saddle drop is almost three quarters of an inch higher than previous, plus I have a tiny bit of toe overlap on the front wheel which I've never had on a bike before. I can really tell the difference in how I'm positioned between the two wheels which was one of the drills that Sacha had me doing during the fitting for probably a half hour or more to get the balance between the two. Standing on the pedals was completely different from the Domane as well. I'm not a big guy, and probably have never felt flex in a bottom bracket but this thing feels so cool and rigid when standing. I'm sure it has more to do with my position than the materials used.

I set up my saddle height and distance from the bars based on the pdf they sent me from my fitting (when buying a complete bike from them they do this for you before it leaves the shop), so it felt perfect right off the bat. I needed to adjust the angle of my saddle a bit but that's about it. I may need to adjust the placement of the brake levers on the bars as well since I felt a little more pressure on the hands than I'm used to but I'm going to wait until tomorrow and see how adjusting my saddle affects things.

Overall though, it's pretty darn incredible (not that I would say anything different after going through all this). I'm supposed to be doing a century on Saturday, but not sure that I'm in shape for it having been off the bike these last 3 weeks, with only a few weeks in between that and 6 weeks off from mono. Either way though I'll do at least 60 miles and see how I feel.
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