It’s been long past the four month point were I promised a review of how the Crossbow has fared. With work getting in the way I’ve not had enough time to do as much ridding or writing as I would have liked and do justice to the bike.
As I’m going to be giving the bike a good work out in the next six weeks over the hills of Exmoor and an actual race I’m going to reserve a full review till then. In the time I’ve had it I can say nothing has broken, the cables have stretched as you would expect and I’ve not had to remove the tyres. as I’ve not had a p******* in that time.
Changes I’ve made to the bike so far are SPD’s, Brooks saddle and a rack for contact point comfort and commuting. Last week I finally got round to fitting the 34tooth inner ring I had mentioned, a much easier job than I envisioned as there was no need to remove the chainset. The FSA 34t was out of stock so I’ve gone with a Stronglight ring, which seems fine, although the OCD in me is dismayed at the mismatching silverness of the ring. More importantly how does it ride? Good in a word, smooth shifts, no extra noise and as you would expect slighter lower gearing helps spin more up the hills and spread the gears. I’m pleased to have it for the hills. I’ve forgone swapping out the 12-25 cassette for a 12-27 as the gains really don’t seem to justify the out lay on a cassette which only seems available in Ultegra.
Now I have to get back to bicycle tour planning, can anyone recommend a good bicycle friendly youth hostel or B&B in Newquay?
