Ozy's Corner: Human-powered Commutes

It has been quite sometime that I want to set a nimble XC-race without losing the comfort of pure XC or event trail bike. Since I have owned one of the best AM for quite sometime and still very much like it; hence, I convinced myself that I should seriously consider this XC-race bike to counterpart my speed-buddies during BSD back country side touring.

Now, it came to the question which frame I should go with. There were Anthem and used-Racer-X came into the picture. Then about 2 months, I was struggling to find a reasonable (size, color and price) Anthem and Racer-X with no luck at all.

Therefore, I started to look for another alternative and I saw a review on sepedaku.com and Cycling magazine about Collosus-SX3; so, why don't I gave a shot to try this one. I quickly contacted the bike shop to get this bike frame and luckily enough; they promised me to get the bike in couple days. But, I am still not quiet sure that the bike will fulfill my expectation as it does with Racer-X or Anthem.

While waiting the frame arrival, I am curiously looking for opinions from other cyclist who have owned or experienced with Collosus SX. Most of them were suggesting me to go with Collosus AX, since it has longer shock travel and ready for All-mountain trips; but I have the AM already.

Soon enough, the frame was ready to be picked-up when they called me on Saturday afternoon. I quickly call my friend to help me setting up the components in the evening. The bike was ready to go at 2030hr for the first try out at Jalur Jatiasih on the following Sunday morning. I've just can't wait for testing this new baby born ;-)

Make the story short, I arrived at JJ around 0700hr and waited for several other friends who came for the 6th Anniversary of Jalur Jatiasih MTB track. At 0830hr, we started the trip and plan to attack a shorter track, so we can come back to the base-camp by 1000hr for "tumpengan" ceremony.

I was in the first group along with mas Yadi and Martha (BFEGTB athletes) because I want to push them a bit faster to give my new baby a bit of tests ;-) Even though, it's only 10KM traveling distance, I was able to feel its responsiveness on the single tracks, the easiness to do little hops, efficient pedaling during climbing and good stability during decent loosen track ("grand canyon" drop).

Similar with my former Santa Cruz Blur Classic, during hard braking, the nose was diving a little bit too early. I am suspecting this is due to the Manitou R7 which lacking of a slow compression control. Perhaps, this is also a factor of shorter top tube and wheelbase comparing to other bikes in similar size. I will change the fork with higher spec and see what the different. However, rear-suspension platform remains active under braking, it seems that the "VPP" design is working well here.

So far, I have no hesitation to give a good overall review of this frame. Furthermore, I have tuned the steering geometry by putting a new medium-rise handle bar to replace my scandium flat bar, which had stretched my riding position on racing attacking style most of the time. Thus, I have to pay with suffering lower back pain if I am going for longer traveling.

A slightly issue is the 31.6 seat post diameter which rather difficult for Indonesian market to find a good and light one, especially for XC purpose; hence, I currently use the FR/DH version with more than 100 grams penalty. [30 Jan 2008: According to my fellow friends, the stock should be plenty in bike shops]

The frame was setup with 2008 XT transmission, BB7 stopping device and Mavic Crossland. Wonder about her weight, it's definitely lighter than my Blur LT which has equipped with lighter components. I will have several more trips to see how this baby behave on different types of contours, like Puncak, Telaga Warna and JPG.

See you in next review.