I took Leo out for a first ride this morning on my normal 22 mile loop with 1800ft climbing around Wildcat Canyon. It rode like a road bike, it rode like a Rivendell. The setup is quite a bit more upright than my Black Mountain had been, so if I felt like sitting up, that was easier. In full tuck, the stem was closer to my face than I was used to, but I was still able to get wherever I needed to go. I didn't notice anything objectionable about the long chainstays, and the handling was exceptionally stable, so possibly the long chainstays helped achieve that. On this loop, I decided to go "full send", as the kids like to say, on a ~10min segment from the top of Inspiration Point to the top of Spruce. It's a roughly 3.5 mile segment winding through the Berkeley hills. It's a fast, gradually descending segment, dropping about 200 ft total. To make a good time you have to carry momentum and power out of every turn. There's one very short very steep ~15% climbing section that you can climb at ~20mph if you sprint hard. It's a good benchmark road section. Absolutely every roadie in the East Bay knows it, and there are roughly 10,000 Strava times to compare yourself against, running the spectrum from cruisers to pro-level racers. I did a personal best on the Leo Roadini, at 8:24, 19 seconds faster than I did the day before on my Legolas (with knobbies) and was in the top 6% all-time. Considering how many of those top 6% were done on <18 pound crabon race bikes, I think Leo qualifies as 'plenty fast'. The best part of that result was that I was 2 seconds faster than the best time of our best racer on the high school mountain bike team. Matt just finished 5th in the State in Varsity boys, so any time I can put up a time better than him, I celebrate.
Bill call-me-Leo Lindsay El Cerrito, CA On Friday, May 25, 2018 at 8:27:02 AM UTC-7, Bill Lindsay wrote: > > My Black Mountain Monster Cross and this Leo are set up quite differently > in order to play different roles in my stable. > > If you want one of each and want to set them up differently and want to > use them for different kinds of rides , you’ll like them both. > > If you want one of each and want to set them up the same and want to use > them for the same kinds of rides and want them to provide significantly > different cycling experiences on the same routes, you’ll likely be > disappointed. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
