^^ Was good to see you again and nice to meet Andrew also. Had hoped to have time for more of a chat at the end but some unresolved tech problems from work left me hanging on a flat mobile phone plugged in to the side of a laptop on a coffee table trying to get my computer remote server access connections working for the weekend before the IT support went home. Nothing ever goes quite as envisaged !
Had a good time at the show and well worth the trip up. I had realistic expectations after last year. They'd made more of an effort with the test track this time, especially the small ramp at the end, although there were non-electric bikes feeding in from another side of the track and some tandems which kept causing congestion and turning challenges at the top so did get a bit of a scrum at times round that part.
I finally rode some Bosch bikes. A Haibike AM full-sus job (can't remember which model), along with the Endeavour BS, Impulse Ergo and new Xion Pro Connect.
Overall impressions - from standpoint of being relatively spoiled already -
1) The standard inverted Bosch Haibike did little for me. The shifting was especially poor (may have been down to the setup) and you can't really get much of a handle on what it's like off-road in those conditions. The assist in Sport mode felt a bit 'urgent' and clinical but it did climb well when I took a run at the slope from standstill at the bottom. Too short to tell how it would feel after a few hundred metres of climbing though.
2) The Kalkhoff Xion Pro Connect was ... OK, although it was a large frame and far too high off the ground for me. This presented a few challenges when I hit a bottleneck of stationary bikes at the top of the ramp. Managed to hang on to the railings to turn the bike back down the slope when the coast was clear as mounting & dismounting wasn't an easy affair ! Ride-wise it was responsive enough, felt nicer than the Bosch drive and the bike was well constructed. But not as good as I'd hoped it would be. It wouldn't tempt me away from my Impulse C11.
3) Impulse Ergo - with automatic Nuvinci, cadence thing etc. Biggest disappointment of the day for me this one. I tried one of the Nuvinci Sahels in Cornwall and was undecided about whether I liked it but after trying this here I've realized the Nuvinci Ergo thing definitely isn't for me. I ran it on power mode but the bike seemed to lack guts and I wondered which profile it had been configured with. There was no-one from 50cycles there to answer. Perhaps if it is configured at the controller to 'Sport' mode it would make a difference but if it's already configured like that then it must be down to the Nuvinci hub. More importantly I wasn't happy with the ride on 'automatic', which is one of the big selling points and the lack of conventional gears just seemed to take a lot of the fun away from riding and make me more detached from the bike. However, the "press auto-pilot, click off and take what the bike gives you" thing will no doubt appeal to some. I had no trouble climbing the ramp with it - but I can probably take a short ramp like that pretty easily on an unpowered MTB in a fairly high gear. It was impossible to work out what sort of gearing was actually being selected with all the electronics.
4) Endeavour - this was the 350W Bosch bike. I liked this best out of the bikes tried. It was very capable, a pleasure to ride and the assist was delivered well. Of course it's the most expensive bike 50Cycles list
. If I were to swap out my Agattu for another Kalkhoff bike, to use as a bike for pleasure rather than all-round utility, it would be this over the Pro Connect without a shadow of a doubt.
I also eyed up the Keyde motor and heard the 'whine' people talk about for the 1st time. Still struggling with this at the moment. Along with the idea of turning a lightweight 'fast-bike' into a mid-range hybrid / utility bike weight in exchange for the occasional assistance.
... and so to the "Other Side" for a 'taste of the other' ...still working towards whether I could give up electric for a regular bike if my cycling becomes more fun than necessity. Electric has given me a taste for speed that is very hard to kick.
I've been wanting to try out some lightweight road bikes for a year too and not had a chance. Getting anyone to let you demo premium bikes is extremely hard away from a show like this. You had to have a show ticket also to gain entry. So I'd pre-registered for a slot on the premium road bike track which was in a separate hall across from the main show entrance, swallowed my finer feelings and took along some "appropriate" gear to change into to ride the bikes as instructed - basically, "no lycra and you won't be allowed on the test track" ... so more like riding in my underlayers !
rolleyes
. But swallowing my apprehension and brazening it out ....
It was a very different atmosphere to the eBike track, with lots of hands-on advice going on at the trackside, swapping out of pedals, micro-adjusting seats and stems and all the usual footering about. The thing (which is the bane of solo peoples' lives) was a "group" from the same club hogging bikes (of my size range) for ages and swapping them between each other to go off racing until I managed to intercept and break in to actually get a ride... along with others monopolizing all the assistants' time in groups. They were polite enough and seemed oblivious but there's nothing worse than blokes in packs muscling in on things like this (well, let's be honest, in many situations but the key thing is that having more of you doesn't make you entitled to take over the joint - it's felt just like most gyms in that respect !). And not everyone wants a fast bike to ride in a huddle. In the end my underlying trepidation at even being there turned to polite assertion and all was sorted.
Unlike as advertised, no toe-clips and, surprisingly, M324 SPD dual pedals being used on the Treks which was a big bonus as I don't have road shoes/pedals without a road bike but as fate would have it was wearing some Shimano MTB shoes with compatible cleats. Some older punters were stoically braving the sea of lycra in their 'trouser clips' and (I am pleased to say) were being allowed on the bikes. If I'd known they were going to relax the rules .... guess you just never know.
STILL waiting for any of Treks / Fondriests to come in, and increasingly frustrated, I relented and got hold of the only other 54 in there ... which had a flat ! After yet more faffing about holding the forks up whilst they tried to change a tube (and failed to get the pressure in with the track pump) the guy hurriedly took a wheel off another bike and fitted it. So I got on what was a bit of a baptism of fire... a Ceepo triathlon TT bike with Rotor Q Rings. Full time trial geometry but with standard drop handlebars, flat pedals, crazily responsive handling... and some fancy SRAM shifters you double-click or single-click depending on whether you want to shift up/down. Which basically scared me senseless and I felt very unstable on it at first. Especially seeing as I am not experienced with drop handlebars at the best of times, these being virtually impossible to practice with round my parts (chicken... egg ...). It was also supremely uncomfortable.
Nearly scared me off but I persisted and Tried Trek Madone 5.2C & Trek Domane 4.3C. The 1st with Ultegra and the 2nd with 105 if I remember right. The Madone was a really nice bike. Lifted with 2 fingers, shifted really well, felt - basically 'right'. Cornered well and was SO easy to ride and climb with compared to a hack. Really wish I'd had a speedo on the bike but it felt FAST and very low effort. Nowhere near as fast as the other nutters on that track were riding though. I couldn't really open the bike up on account of a credit card at the desk and a fear of (the endless) sharp corners at every turn. I guess it's called lack of experience and the caution that comes with a limited bank balance.
The thing which really got me was the v-brakes. After my hydraulic rims & discs on e-Bikes/MTB they were a bit terrifying. I still just can't get past the idea of relying on those things if you came up against an unexpected hazard at speed. Or how long those wheels would last on the roads round here before some cracked up tarmac took me out or sent me flying.
The riding position was of course uncomfortable and unnatural compared to a MTB or a Dutch bike. But not as bad as I thought it would be. The Ultegra shifters / levers were, however (as expected) leagues nicer than the cheap Shimano stuff I've fingered about with in showrooms and it did reinforce the feeling that I couldn't hack a road bike with anything less. Shame there were no Di2 things to try out (that I could see anyway ... didn't bother looking at Bianchi bikes as at £3.5k - £5k they were far enough removed from reality for me to be irrelevant use of time !). The Fondriest bikes had Ultegra too if I remember right and by well gone 2pm I wanted to get over to the e-bikes so passed up on them. They did look very nice though.
Overall ... would I want to go out riding a nice Trek road bike ? Definitely. Not as intimidating a prospect now. It would also free me of the burden of feeling beholden to a battery on a long ride without having to ride a 20kg beast on light assist. I think I might even be OK with some harder climbs and long rides on a bike like that, where it's just a slow endurance on tarmac on a regular mountain/utility hybrid bike with touring type tyres. As to whether it would be practical in any way, the jury is still well out on that. The state of Britain's roads is not really compatible with encouraging road cycling, especially for the relatively inexperienced ! But it's given me a much better handle on things and answered a lot of questions I had before and that's the big benefit of going to a show and getting involved actually riding bikes.
