Saturday, March 5 I got to go meet up with the Specialized roadshow and test out the new Roubaix. The meetup point was at Stone Brewery in Escondido, 30 miles north. I rolled up wearing my neon Specialized jacket I wore around three weeks at SBCU and was recognized by one of the designers that was down here to show off the bike on the ride.
I got sized up on a 58, excitedly I checked the storage box to find it fully loaded with all the emergency supplies. The 58cm model comes with 44 cm bars, I ride 40 cm bars so I was perfectly comfortable riding the pavement but that's personal, and that came in handy later.
I had ridden the new Roubaix before but not clipped in and just around Coronado alleyways, and never clipped in so this was going to be my real first good ride on one. I had also never ridden around Northern the county. The ad for the ride said we were going to do the elfin forest which I had heard of several times before but never ridden so I was excited to go. As soon as we hit the road I started testing the bike out. The new future shock on top of the steer tube under the stem really made a huge difference. We started coming down the hill and I tried hitting every man hole and pothole I could and it was amazing hits in pots that would normally jar and pump my wrists were absolutely nothing. Because of the rain everything was green and beautiful. After several miles of winding paved roads we wind up on a dirt road that eventually stopped at a gate, a few of us hopped the equestrian pass at the gate and continued up a dirt climb that had several features that I knew would making descending tricky. When we came to the end of the trail and regrouped. I was the second to descend the trail. This is when the wider bars came in handy. It really was a trail all the features I had a challenge climbing over became the parts the suspension just soaked up on the way down. It was incredible, it felt like I was mountain biking, there's no way I would have let the brakes go like that if I was on one of my road bikes, the constant tire patch made it feel like a samurai slash down the mountain. As we regrouped with the people that didn't want the extra credit climbing we started riding back and I continued to take the roughest path possible. When I was chatting with the designers I found out one of them was from San Diego, City Heights actually to be specific. Also he was a track cyclist whose favorite bike is one he got from a European olympic team frame builder that is basically one of the bikes raced in Rio, also he had a bunch of rad tattoos and I recognized him from my time at SBCU. On the ride back we took a slightly different way than before. A few times I stood up on the pedals in to climb and felt incredible responsiveness, it just does what I want. I noticed a positraction feeling when I was cornering that felt great, this bike is a game changer in everyway.
This is THE bike to have for putting in miles and an awesome all surface road bike. With the perfect fit you could ride this bike for hours on end. The shock is fully active so your constantly saving energy from fatigue on this platform versus any other road bike. There is room for much fatter tires on there but I was impressed how the 26c tire package off the shelf handled what I threw at it.
I got sized up on a 58, excitedly I checked the storage box to find it fully loaded with all the emergency supplies. The 58cm model comes with 44 cm bars, I ride 40 cm bars so I was perfectly comfortable riding the pavement but that's personal, and that came in handy later.
I had ridden the new Roubaix before but not clipped in and just around Coronado alleyways, and never clipped in so this was going to be my real first good ride on one. I had also never ridden around Northern the county. The ad for the ride said we were going to do the elfin forest which I had heard of several times before but never ridden so I was excited to go. As soon as we hit the road I started testing the bike out. The new future shock on top of the steer tube under the stem really made a huge difference. We started coming down the hill and I tried hitting every man hole and pothole I could and it was amazing hits in pots that would normally jar and pump my wrists were absolutely nothing. Because of the rain everything was green and beautiful. After several miles of winding paved roads we wind up on a dirt road that eventually stopped at a gate, a few of us hopped the equestrian pass at the gate and continued up a dirt climb that had several features that I knew would making descending tricky. When we came to the end of the trail and regrouped. I was the second to descend the trail. This is when the wider bars came in handy. It really was a trail all the features I had a challenge climbing over became the parts the suspension just soaked up on the way down. It was incredible, it felt like I was mountain biking, there's no way I would have let the brakes go like that if I was on one of my road bikes, the constant tire patch made it feel like a samurai slash down the mountain. As we regrouped with the people that didn't want the extra credit climbing we started riding back and I continued to take the roughest path possible. When I was chatting with the designers I found out one of them was from San Diego, City Heights actually to be specific. Also he was a track cyclist whose favorite bike is one he got from a European olympic team frame builder that is basically one of the bikes raced in Rio, also he had a bunch of rad tattoos and I recognized him from my time at SBCU. On the ride back we took a slightly different way than before. A few times I stood up on the pedals in to climb and felt incredible responsiveness, it just does what I want. I noticed a positraction feeling when I was cornering that felt great, this bike is a game changer in everyway.
This is THE bike to have for putting in miles and an awesome all surface road bike. With the perfect fit you could ride this bike for hours on end. The shock is fully active so your constantly saving energy from fatigue on this platform versus any other road bike. There is room for much fatter tires on there but I was impressed how the 26c tire package off the shelf handled what I threw at it.
Here is the data from the ride, nothing crazy but a route I can't wait to take again!
https://www.strava.com/activities/887744676/
https://www.strava.com/activities/887744676/
if you are looking for a new bike, test one of these out. Cheers!
RSS Feed
