Continuing from yesterday - it was a grand day out with Redbride easy to get to. With my experience of late on conventional Giant Escape 2 hybird for the past three years covering a couple of thousand miles with the only demo of a pedelec limited from a local Giant retailer to an uninspiring Giant Twist step through limited to a up and down a flat road.
The guys running the show were most helpful and had a good eye for sales. Impressions of the bikes are a bit of a blur matching the downhill speeds of the first hill drop of the racing circuit, and the variety of bikes up for grabs. Due to the nature of the course found the 29er models more inspiring due to the speeds from that initial drop. Another factor of the course was the differing gearing offered by each bike and the relatively rapid hunt for the right gear in quick succession on each part of the course for each different bike. Generally the crank drives were easier to get round than the the hub ones with the 3 sprockets up front - This is where the Eiger excelled with the simpler to get to grips with NuVinci hubs gears but with the grunt on offer there was some room for error on all bikes. All the Kudos range looked very smart with their street sleeper Mountain bike looks and all conquered the testing return leg back up the steep hill with ease, along with a lap round the trail sections.
The KTMs (eRace P 27.5 and Macina Action 29) came along later and both seemed better set up as they already seemed to have a few miles under their demo belts (Some of the Kudos bikes still has plastic wrappings on) and I must admit the KTMs weher by nature or ran in a bit more/set up previosl, were a step above and performed admirably with what ever I threw at them on the track and off road. Within a short time the eRace P demo had been sold so I was glad to have the opportunity to get a go.
A surprise was a Haibike full suspension model (forget which one but it was apparently the cooking model - but still with a boys toys lego tecnic look) I had a lap or two but it came up with an error so reset it on the fly - it still got round the course without seeming to miss a beat but handing it back to pitstop guys they sadly diagnosed a flat battery and a missing magnet which meant it was grounded for the rest of the day:-(
All in all a great day - a felt like a kid in an pedelec sweetshop with no need to fear any slopes or check the direction of the breeze - Each bike I tried would handle what I need which is 20-30 mile mixed bag of terrain (approx 60-80% road rest cyclepath/trail) but as I had already grabbed the arm of Col at Fli on Friday for the bargain KTM eRace 29 P demo my mind was made up and Tues I become orange, black and bionic.
