Lapierre’s aluminium ’crosser appearance nice, its shiny end nearly identical out to the francaise des jeux pro team livery. sculpted tubing and an aggressive stance promise a few va-va-voom, whereas sensible elements and rubber hint at decent off-road performance. its backbone could be a sizable down tube that encompasses a lot of on your hourglass head tube via a few ultra-smooth welding, and supports the wide bottom bracket shell.
before we hit the trails, the bike did show decent road manners, in the solid and stable feel we’d expect issued from a cyclocross machine on tarmac. a smart cockpit with compact drop bar and stem length that enabled quick direction changes was reassuring, and of course the bar offset the further reach on your shimano 105 shifters.
however even with only 35psi in schwalbe’s wonderful racing ralph tyres, we may feel obvious vibration being transmitted in the curved knife-like seatstays, that the saddle did very little out to cushion. the seatstays did aid response though, and as we began threading in the singletrack the firm ride mattered less clearly as the sharp handling created short work of any surprises lurking within the whole woods.
the rims are dressed in quality schwalbe racing ralphs
the most important frustration was the wheelset, that, complete with tyres and cassette, weighed in on a lower than svelte 3. 55kg ( 7. 83lb ). that further rotational mass created acceleration sluggish, despite the racing ralphs’ best efforts. avid’s shorty 4s are nice stoppers, however sit closer out to the rim than we’d like, typically rubbing when it gets mucky – and don’t rely upon the secondary tektro brake levers utilizing a crisis.
mud clearance isn’t generous with the rear, and albeit the driveside keep has got a cnc’d plate behind the chainset out to produce house, there’s a chainstay bridge and front mech cable pulley which can collect mud.
we wonder where this bike is pitched, as there will be mudguard eyes upon the fork, however none with the back, and simply a down tube bottle cage boss. the sturdy frame and decent spec is let down by normal wheels – it may create a sensible initial cyclocross bike, however its road versatility is restricted.
