Orny's Cycling Journal

Among the bikes I test rode a while back was the Volagi Liscio, which despite having a cool name wound up being very disappointing. But the main thing that differentiated it from the other bikes I’ve looked at is that it had disc brakes.

Disc brakes have been standard on mountain bikes for a while, but the technology never made the leap to speed-oriented road bikes. One obvious reason for that was a big weight penalty. However, several manufacturers have come out with new versions that could conceivably work on a road bike without weighing it down to a crawl.

In fact, some industry pundits have proclaimed that it’s only a question of time before disc brakes completely replace rim caliper brakes as standard equipment on all road bikes. For advantages, they claim that disc brakes offer better performance in wet conditions, and modulate better—that is, they aren’t as suddenly “grabby”—as rim brakes.

For those reasons, I was anxious to test ride a road bike equipped with disc brakes. What I experienced caused me to swear off disc brakes forever.

Now, I can’t attest to wet-weather performance, since I didn’t ride in the rain. Whatever! It’s not an issue for me, because I try to avoid riding in the rain… especially on my primary road bike!

As far as weight goes, it’s difficult to judge. The Liscio was heavier and more sluggish than other bikes I’ve tested, but I couldn’t pinpoint whether that was due to the extra weight of the brakes or in combination with other factors. Certainly, though, there’s some penalty for that excess weight.

As far as modulation goes, I’d put it like this. If I were to rate stopping power in terms of percentage points, rim brakes have about four settings: 40% stop, 65% stop, 90% stop, and emergency over-the-bars 100% stop. Not a lot of modulation between settings, but great stopping power.

I didn’t really notice much more modulation in the disc brakes. After all, how many different levels of braking power can you perceive? But the kicker was that after all that talk of “better performance”, when I grabbed the brake in an emergency stop, the disc brake simply couldn’t stop the bike. In terms of percentages, it felt to me like the disc brakes offered the following levels: 20% stop, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%. And that’s where it topped out: at their best, disc brakes only offered 60% of the stopping power of regular rim brakes.

So the choice here seems to be this: you can have lightweight brakes that work great everywhere except in the rain, or you can lug around heavy brakes that are very predictably only 60% effective in all conditions. That doesn’t sound like a formula for universal acceptance to me!

So disc brakes get two thumbs down from this rider. Cycling is dangerous enough as it is, and I can’t imagine why anyone would buy a road bike with brakes that don’t work.

So as I was saying, after a very short acceptance test ride, I bought my new bike last Monday.

Of course, it rained Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday and Friday and Saturday, too. But finally it cleared up last night, and stayed clear for half the day today, which was enough to get a 61-mile shakedown cruise in with the Quad Cycles folks.

Mind you, it wasn’t exactly ideal weather for a ride. After all that rain, there’s been a lot of flooding. But worse than that, the wind was blowing at a sustained 30 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph! Not only did that make biking difficult to begin with, but it also brought down a ton of wet leaves, wet pine needles, and whole branches of trees. It was a bit of an obstacle course out there.

But this post isn’t about the weather, but about the bike. For those who care, it’s a 61cm 2006 Specialized Roubaix Expert Triple. That means a couple things.

First, it’s a Roubaix. They’re designed for long distance riding, and are especially designed to handle rough roads. I have to say that even at 120psi, where you’d feel the road painfully on most bikes, the Roubaix rode like buttah, but without feeling like you were riding in an Oldsmobile. Responsive, but compliant.

Second, it’s 61cm. Bike stores don’t carry *anything* in 61cm. That’s Jolly Green Giant size. So it was going to be a special order right from the start, which meant I was probably going to pay list for it. But the sizing feels great; it’s the only bike out of all the ones I test rode that actually feels comfortable and natural, where I wasn’t constantly conscious of the bike’s fit. It just feels right.

Third, it’s a 2006. I rode a couple 2005 Roubaixs, but they didn’t knock my socks off, so I took a couple extra weeks and waited for the 2006s to come out. Well, actually, I snuck a few looks at the 2006 line on some UK sites, since they were released there earlier than in the US… But eventually they were released in the US. The differences are noteworthy: a different wheelset, carbon fiber cranks, a more attractive paint job, and—most importantly—the newer 10-speed Shimano Ultegra group instead of the old 9-speeds that they had on the ’05s. Of course, since I ordered the bike as soon as it was available, that’s another reason why I wound up having to pay list for it.

And the triple. A lot of riders think having three chainrings is wimpy, and that the few ounces of weight savings is significant. They’re cracked. First, I’m used to my hybrid and its mountain bike gearing, which ranges from 29-108 gear inches. In other words, it’s got crazy low gears. And I do a lot of mountain climbing, so I need low gears. The Roubaix double—same price, by the way—only goes down to 36 gear inches, while the trip goes all the way down to 30, almost as low a gear as my hybrid had! Second, I’m rapidly becoming an old man, and I stopped falling prey to the brainless machismo thing more’n a decade ago. I need those low gears. The third reason might surprise some people: the triple has a much higher high gear than the double! The latter tops out at fairly moderate 112 gear inches; the triple has a high gear that reaches all the way up to 120 gear inches. So not only do I get a much easier low gear, but I also get a much bigger high gear!

Now, the bike is all carbon fiber: frame, forks, cranks, even the seatpost! Hence its nickname of “Plastic Bullet”. When you tap the frame with your fingernails, instead of a metallic ping, it sounds like you’re tapping a plastic cup. But it’s light, and it climbs like a gazelle.

The one big change from the hybrid is my saddle height. The guys at the bike shop set me up with the saddle a full inch higher than I had it set on the hybrid, which is an immense change to my pedaling stroke. I can’t say it’s better yet, but I’ll give it a shot for a while and see how it works out. I will say that my chafe points moved, but that’s probably just a situational thing. So far the saddle is working out very well, which was another one of my big concerns moving to a road bike.

So how did it ride? Well, it’s smooth, sleek, and strong. I really feared moving from a fairly mooshy ride to a tighter frame, but the Roubaix really eats up the ground shock. It really was a pleasure to ride.

The one overriding thing I felt was that I had a lot more power at my disposal than I ever had on the hybrid. I don’t feel like I’m riding at my limit most of the time; at any point I could jump, with a lot more high-end speed than I had before. It’s a really nice feeling of power.

Of course, it comes at a bit of a price, and the price is my vanity slash ego slash machismo. Because the bike’s so much more capable, it really shows my weaknesses more. When I’m on, I can jump and ride with the best of ’em, but if I’m tired or blown, there’s no jump in me at all. So training’s going to be even more important, so that I can call up that additional capacity whenever I need it. But that feeling of power is really nice…

The only other thing I need to mention is that I also outfitted the Plastic Bullet with a new cyclometer that I’ve been lusting after for at least two or three years: the Ciclomaster CM434. It’s outta control geekery. It goes way beyond the usual trip miles, total miles, average and max speeds, and riding time. It’s got (are you ready for this?) current altitude and incline percent; max altitude and incline; total height climbed and descended; current, max, and min temperature; and current, average, and max watts output.

So that’s the ride report for the big shakedown cruise. Ironically, it is exactly five years and one day since I took the Devinci hybrid out for its 50-mile maiden voyage out to Framingham and back.

Oh, I suppose I should mention that the Devinci will live on as my commuter bike. There’s no way I’ll be leaving the Plastic Bullet chained up in any public place, and the Devinci will do good service in the rain and snow. Soon it’ll sprout fenders and panniers and all the accoutrements of a true workhorse. We’ve had some wonderful times, but after five years and sixteen thousand miles, I think it’s happy to relinquish its days of hard riding and long miles.

Happy day! Hopefully the weekends will continue to be tolerable weather, because I’d really like to take the Roubaix down to Great Blue Hill and give it a real serious climb to chew on…

Big weekend for cycling, even if I didn’t do any long rides as such…

First, Saturday night was a party for all the Quad Cycles riders who participated in the Mass Red Ribbon Ride and the Pan-Mass Challenge. Graciously hosted by Jeff Ichikawa at his loft, it featured a barbecue and good conversation with Bobby Mac and a dozen or more riders. And we also got to see lots of photos taken during the two rides, some of which will appear shortly on my cycling photos page.

We also had a viewing of the three hundred photos that Joseph Santos took during a Quad Cycles training ride on August 19th. Joseph has a sweet Nikon D70 DSLR isn’t afraid of using it, and so the photos page will also be graced with one or two of his shots soon, as well. The updates are coming fast now!

The photo you see at right, however, came from the official Pan-Mass Challenge photographers. It’s the first close-up shot they’ve taken of me in my five years of participating in the event, but it was really worth the wait. You can click on the photo for bigness, or you can just head on over to my newly-revised cycling page, where it’s the featured element. Verra snazzay, I must say!

You can also get to my 2005 PMC ride report from there, although I didn’t tell you that! The writeup is complete, but I’m still adding and arranging the photos that go with it before I announce it to the public. So feel free to check it out, but come back again later to see the additional photos I’ll be adding!

But wait! There’s more!

I was in the bike shops this weekend, and one of the things I did was finally replace my five year old Shimano cycling sandals. They’ve served me very well—about 12,000 miles worth!—but they’re getting a bit stinky, rusty, and worn, so I picked up replacements, which I’ve actually been looking for since before the PMC. They’re almost identical to my old pair, but I’m having a bit of difficulty with the new cleats, which are being obstinate about clicking in and out. That’s okay, though; they’ll work their kinks out soon enough.

In addition, last week I thought about the list of big-ticket items I’ve been jonesing after since getting a steady income: a new laptop, digital camera, GPS, bike, iPod, cell phone, CD player, speakers… You get the picture. When I thought about it, something became obvious: I can buy any of those things during the winter except for the bike. Bikes you have to go test ride, and you can’t get a decent test ride in January, so…

This weekend I started out test riding the two bikes I’ve had my eyes on. I’ve long wanted a light, fast road bike that also had a more relaxed fit and more supple ride than a racing bike. Racing bikes are twitchy, skittish, rough, and not even remotely ergonomic. I found two bikes that made a good compromise between speed and smoothness, climbing ability and all-day comfort. And this weekend I tried them out.

I tried them both out at two different dealers. I did a 9-mile loop around the crater-strewn roads of Belmont that include Park Street hill via Spring Street on Saturday, and a 12-mile loop in town that included Summit Ave today. Both were good tests of the bikes’ ability to deal with flats, wind, climbing, insanely rough roads, urban traffic, descents, and so forth. I put each bike through about 21 miles and nearly two hours of riding.

Months ago, I was pretty sold on the Specialized Roubaix. It’s really the first bike of its kind, that intentionally tries to produce a softer ride and more relaxed position within a bike that still can cook. But in the weeks leading up to my test ride, I discovered the new Cannondale Synapse, which has received great write-ups that make it sound as compliant as the Roubaix. It also is a much prettier bike. But the more I rode them, the more I was sold on the Roubaix.

The Synapse Ultegra isn’t a bad bike, and I might well choose it in the absence of the Roubaix. It was definitely more responsive and faster off the line and in sprints than the Roubaix, but it also transmitted more road noise to the rider. As I say, it’s a beautiful looking bike, but ultimately looks are secondary to comfort and fit, and neither shop I went to could provide me with a test bike any larger than a 56cm frame, which is kinda like putting me on one of those tiny bicycles you see clowns perform on. The final negative is that the wheelbase was so short that in a turn the front tire could hit my toes as I pedal, which is something I really want to avoid.

The Roubaix Comp Double, on the other hand, rode a bit like an Oldsmobile. It was plush and absorbed road shock, almost to the point of having a bit of boaty bounce as you ride along a straight, smooth road. It sure didn’t want to sprint or shoot off the line, but once it was spun up, it felt like it just wanted to keep going. The seat was far superior, but the clearcoat carbon finish is a bit ugly. The position is much more upright, and I tested the 58cm model. There was plenty of clearance between my toes and the front wheel when cornering, and the Roubaix had a little display of what gear you’re in on the shifter-cable, a nice design feature that the Synapse lacked.

So I’m very much leaning toward the Roubaix right now. Of course, I have to let Rustem at Quad Cycles have a crack at me, but I really don’t think he carries a bike that’ll knock the Roubaix off the top of my list. And I’m out of town next weekend (on a trip you’ll no doubt hear more about), so it’ll be a couple weeks before I jump, anyways. I might also wait a few weeks to see what Specialized says about the Roubaix for 2006.

But even if I can’t jump just yet, it’s nice to have some time to think the decision over, and it definitely was a blast trying out some new, happy wheels.