Bought one of these through cycle scheme in February largely on the strength of this review and I haven't regretted it for a moment - it's just so much fun to ride! My reasons for picking a 'cross bike were:
- I'm carrying too much weight at the mo, so I needed a bike that's strong throughout
- I hadn't ridden a drop bar on the road before and, as I intended to commute the bike I was nervous about low speed brake control in traffic. The extra set of brake levers on the top of the bar was therefore a selling point.
- I've got a friend nagging me to do 'cross!
On the first point, strength, the wheels have already passed with flying colours. I was going downhill, fairly fast (I'd guess about 25mph) on Streatham Common and I could see an old lady walking ahead of me. I didn't want to go past her on the tarmac as it might scare her and there was an obvious risk of collision but on the other hand I didn't want to brake and lose momentum, so I went off onto the grass. Big error. The ground was much harder than I'd expected and kind of corrugated. The vibration just about shook the teeth out of my head. I applied as much brake as I dared and just waited for the bike to stop. I got off and nervously inspected the wheels and was amazed to find not even a loose spoke. That's solid.
Now I'm riding with Dulwich Paragon on Saturdays (joining next week) and I paln on losing weight over summer and racing in 'cross this Autumn/Winter. So the Vapour has really opened up a whole new area of cycling for me.
The only change I've made is to swap the original tyres for Schwalbe Marathons (not exactly sportif but a good solid commuting tyre) so that I could keep the original ones for actual offroad use.
My thanks to David Arthur for the review and to Herne Hill cycles for a great set-up.
Posted: 07/06/2010 18:33
