Gr, I didn't think you were knocking my Grandis; I wanted to hear what you thought about ride quality and tubing shape of Columbus Max tubed bikes. I think the MX Leader would have a more comfortable ride than my Grandis, noting what you say about riding yours on cobblestones. We have poor road maintenance where I live throughout the city and I would say I wouldn't want to ride my Grandis on cobblestones for very long. I had naively thought that bikes built with Columbus Max tubesets would be the same in their use of tubes and you opened my eyes. I saw a Merckx MX Leader time trial bike on eBay and it used the same Max top tube as my Grandis. So they went for stiffness on that application but not road. Thanks for interesting comments.