FWIW, I just rode 100km (moderately hilly, headwind kicked up coming home) in 3h 27m on Great Lakes Sam. If I'd been on my Rivendell Road or my Heron Road, my subjective guess is that I'd have been 3-5 minutes faster, but maybe not. That headwind coming home really sapped me. On the Riv Road the bars are lower and farther away, so my position is a bit more efficient. If I wanted, I could drop the Sam bars down a bit. The stem on Great Lakes Sam is 1cm longer than the ones on my other 2 Sams, so it's closer to my road bike position. I'm not convinced it's better.
In the recent Sam Hillborne thread I gave the weight of my latest Sam frame and fork, and the frame is among the heaviest I've weighed, but the fork is surprisingly lighter than some others. The Sam does not ride "heavy" in my experience. At 125 pounds and putting out 100-150 watts, I only feel swing in an especially noodly frame (Terraferma Corsa 650B, for example). But I do feel (and see) fork flex (or lack thereof) over bumps. We have a lot of roads where there's a notch in the pavement every 10 meters or so ... ka-thump .... ka-thump ..... ka-thump. I can't take more than a couple of minutes on those roads on 26mm tires at 70psi. On 32mm tires at 40psi, they're almost tolerable, but I still ride the edge of the road where the ka-thump is a bit less. On 48mm tires at 28psi, they are close to unnoticed, especially with the Sam's fork (as compared to the BreadWinner it replaced). Today's ride confirmed how I feel about the Sam - super comfortable and gives up next-to-nothing in speed. Ted Durant Milwaukee WI USA -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/1e709965-356c-4f13-9355-fa71953c8781n%40googlegroups.com.
