cleavel
11-24-2008, 01:41 AM
Hi,
Thought I'd report on how life has been with my Attack for the past 14 months. The bike spent most of that time as my race bike. Therefore it was only ridden by an old man on Sundays. ;)
The bike did pretty well on the numerous criterium courses of Southern California. Unfortunately the engine wasn't as good on a few occasions. :o During the SoCal Masters 50+ Criterium Championship I managed to clip both pedals on the L-shaped course. Other than that, I found the bike to have the right amount of turn-in quickness and tracking stability to suit my preferences. YMMV. :) Also, the bottom bracket seemed solid -- transferring what little power I could produce to the rear wheel.
I rode the bike in the local mountains a couple of times and I found that it placed me over the pedals and between the wheels just right. I could stay in the saddle on steep sections and push hard from the back of the saddle without lifting the front wheel off the ground. My only problem on those rides was the uneven braking with the carbon clincher Roval (Specialized) wheels that I was using. The "pulsing" of the brakes caused me to be fairly cautious so I never really hammered the tougher corners.
I ended up riding the bike a few times at the end of the season on training rides and I found that the more I rode it in "real life" conditions the more I liked it. I started balancing that against the mental problem that I had with the bike (and for the first time in my 30+ years of racing) -- I started thinking more and more about not wanting to crash a $6K frame during a race. In short, I made the decision to look for something that might ride about as well as the Attack while being easier and cheaper to replace. That bike is another story though. The key is that the Attack is now my daily ride and I put some older Mavic Ksyrium SLs on it so now I had much more predictable braking.
So today I did the 'B' ride with my club. About 100K round trip from my house with a bit of climbing. There is a particular 3 mile stretch of road that is always fun. They repaved it this past summer and it really upped the cornering speeds. On my soon to be departed Look I could really test the limits of my technique and fear. Today I did it on the Attack:
http://www.pbase.com/cleavel/image/106303581/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/cleavel/image/106303584/original.jpg
As you can see it is a twisty road with a fair amount of elevation change. The bike felt GREAT! It tracked even better than the Look and a couple of corners where I could feel the front end of the Look giving up the Attack held the line with solid and predictable steering.
In the end, now that it's my daily ride, I'll see how the bike does on the variety of roads that I get to ride and I'll see how it holds up to roughly 6K miles per year of riding and training.
Thought I'd report on how life has been with my Attack for the past 14 months. The bike spent most of that time as my race bike. Therefore it was only ridden by an old man on Sundays. ;)
The bike did pretty well on the numerous criterium courses of Southern California. Unfortunately the engine wasn't as good on a few occasions. :o During the SoCal Masters 50+ Criterium Championship I managed to clip both pedals on the L-shaped course. Other than that, I found the bike to have the right amount of turn-in quickness and tracking stability to suit my preferences. YMMV. :) Also, the bottom bracket seemed solid -- transferring what little power I could produce to the rear wheel.
I rode the bike in the local mountains a couple of times and I found that it placed me over the pedals and between the wheels just right. I could stay in the saddle on steep sections and push hard from the back of the saddle without lifting the front wheel off the ground. My only problem on those rides was the uneven braking with the carbon clincher Roval (Specialized) wheels that I was using. The "pulsing" of the brakes caused me to be fairly cautious so I never really hammered the tougher corners.
I ended up riding the bike a few times at the end of the season on training rides and I found that the more I rode it in "real life" conditions the more I liked it. I started balancing that against the mental problem that I had with the bike (and for the first time in my 30+ years of racing) -- I started thinking more and more about not wanting to crash a $6K frame during a race. In short, I made the decision to look for something that might ride about as well as the Attack while being easier and cheaper to replace. That bike is another story though. The key is that the Attack is now my daily ride and I put some older Mavic Ksyrium SLs on it so now I had much more predictable braking.
So today I did the 'B' ride with my club. About 100K round trip from my house with a bit of climbing. There is a particular 3 mile stretch of road that is always fun. They repaved it this past summer and it really upped the cornering speeds. On my soon to be departed Look I could really test the limits of my technique and fear. Today I did it on the Attack:
http://www.pbase.com/cleavel/image/106303581/original.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/cleavel/image/106303584/original.jpg
As you can see it is a twisty road with a fair amount of elevation change. The bike felt GREAT! It tracked even better than the Look and a couple of corners where I could feel the front end of the Look giving up the Attack held the line with solid and predictable steering.
In the end, now that it's my daily ride, I'll see how the bike does on the variety of roads that I get to ride and I'll see how it holds up to roughly 6K miles per year of riding and training.