Scenic Route

Two weeks and two-hundred miles in, and I’m still having trouble finding superlatives strong enough to match my feelings for my new bike.

Two weeks ago I rode the bus downtown, stopped at an ATM, then waited on the doorstep at Full Moon Vista Bike and Sport for them to open. Less than a half-hour after opening time, I rode out on my new Trek Portland.

I rode straight home so I could finish kitting it out with accessories. They’d installed the fenders at the shop, but I had to install my cyclometer, pump, lights and rack. Actually, I swapped Yellow Bike’s rack and taillight to it temporarily since the Portland’s rack wasn’t due in for another week.

Taking the long way to work that day, we jumped our first curb together on Park Ave at Berkeley where an ambulance and a fire truck had traffic stopped in all four directions. A few miles further on I tested the top speed while drafting a Lincoln Navigator—34.1 MPH and still had gears to go! Bike commuting is great!

The fit

Bike fit is the marriage between a machine that’s slightly adjustable and a body that’s slightly adaptable. From the pre-testride fitting, we had the bike pretty close. I also knew that I’d have to adapt some as well.

One thing I’d noticed on the test ride—pain in the right hand beginning around 10 miles—returned. I tried shifting around, but decided I was right during the test ride, and that the bars needed to be rotated down some. I did that a week ago Saturday and spent four hours in the saddle the next day with nary a twinge.

That left the saddle position. I put up with it for a week, then swapped Bike’s Thomson Elite setback seatpost and its Terry Fly CroMo Gel saddle. A few tweaks and it was golden. This bike now fits perfectly. I can tell just by swinging a leg over it. I’m in perfect balance, perfect comfort, and that leads to perfect control. Not to mention perfect happiness.

The ride

There’s magic somewhere inside this bike. An aluminum frame with no suspension whatsoever shouldn’t ride this nice. Bumps I’m familiar with, where I’ve had to lift my butt off the saddle, almost disappear. Little undulations in the pavement are entirely gone. Major potholes aren’t bone rattling. Yet, there’s always good road feel.

A lot of it is the 28mm tires. There’s also the carbon fork. And finally, the touring bike style long chainstays. But the sum is far greater than the whole of these parts. There’s something else, and all I can think of is magic.

The handling

Making its debut on the last Monday Night Small Ring Ride of the season, the Portland had already given me enough confidence that I had no compunctions about flinging it with abandon into a twisty steep descent. It corners completely without drama. It’s so predictable you could fax it in to the turns.

It settles on a line nicely, yet is undisturbed when obstacles ahead require a change of line. It’s like it has a five-foot rudder stuck into the pavement. It’s that difficult to disturb.

The Portland’s touring bike heritage really shows on the way home from the grocery store. Loaded with nearly 50 pound of foodstuffs, it rides and handles as if it wasn’t there at all.

Both my other bikes become wobbly, twitchy and tippy when loaded. Not the Portland. The only time there’s even a hint that there’s a load on the back is when I put a foot down at the stops. It just feels a bit heavier. Pulling away from a stop fully loaded can be an adventure on my other bikes. On the Portland, it’s ho-hum boring—in a good kind of way.

Low-speed handling never gets talked about, so I will. I can ride the Portland, straight and true, down to 3.5 MPH before sawing on the bars sets in. I spent an afternoon trapped in bike path hell when my speed rarely exceeded 7 MPH. And on the Tuna, we practice low speed maneuverability. Here, the longer wheelbase makes really tight turns difficult. I also get a bit of toe-overlap with the front wheel—mainly due to the fender. Neither is an issue worth filing under bad manners, just something to be aware of and compensate for.

I will break 55 MPH on this bike. It’s only a matter of finding the right hill. On a recent ride, 46.8 was thrilling only for seeing the big numbers on the cylcometer. The ride quality never changed. No weird vibrations cropped up. Nothing changed with the handling. Laying the bike into a corner at that speed was no different than doing the same at 25. It just used a little more lane.

The stop

The disk brakes are truly something. I still have to get the rear one sorted, but even so, they are wonderful. Just the feel of them when I squeeze the levers is a joy. The fact that they stop, and damned fast if I want, is nice too.

In the wet, there’s no change in the way it stops, save some noise from the rotors. It can sound like a truck stopping. I know on automotive brakes you can put this goo behind the pad to tone it down. If it bothers me, I may experiment.

The only niggle is that either the rear caliper’s return spring needs more tension or the mechanism needs some lubrication. The caliper doesn’t always fully release. It doesn’t drag, but the pads rub a bit. A couple of minutes at the shop should fix it right up.

Edit: As it turned out, in its two years of sitting unridden on the shelf, the lubrication in the Portland’s brake cables dried out. Recabling the brakes cured the problem. I’m sure it’s only because of the tighter tolerances with the disc brakes that it was an issue at all.

The go

Kick it in the ribs and the Portland has plenty of scoot. It takes everything I can give it and transforms it all into forward motion. And again, there’s no fuss about it. No odd flexing to the frame, no wandering back and forth or rocking side to side under hard acceleration. It just goes. Straight ahead. And pronto.

I probably had too high an expectation for the drivetrain. It’s only marginally smoother and quieter than Yellow Bike’s. I’ll take it, for sure, but it’s not the silent, liquidly smooth that I expected. Maybe 105 is overhyped, maybe Sora gets an undeserved bad rap. Maybe I can set up a drivetrain better than the shop. That’s not to say it’s clunky or loud. It just not that much different than Yellow Bike’s Sora.

Except, of course, I have two more cogs to play with at the rear.

The look

One thing I hadn’t appreciated, and that doesn’t come through in the photos, is the finish level of this bike. The paintwork gleams under several layers of clearcoat. The polished bits sparkle. The welds aren’t as nice as on a $7000 bike, but for $1700, they’re not bad at all.

There are things on the bike that are really nice that don’t need to be as aesthetically pleasing as they are.

The fork crown and dropouts are just beautiful—the crown in its minimalism and the dropouts are embossed just a bit.

The spacers under the stem are carbon fiber and are finished just the same as the carbon fiber fork tubes. They could be plain painted aluminum and they’d look just fine. In glossy clear gelcoat carbon fiber, they look fabulous.

Underneath the top tube, in a place where you can see only if the bike is upside down, there’s a carved and embossed lug reinforcing that joint. A plain one would do.

The crankshaft is a hollow tube, open on the drive side. And it’s polished on the inside. You need to get down to its level with a flashlight to see inside there, but they polish it anyway. Finally, the rear dropouts have a curve to them that probably isn’t needed from an engineering standpoint.

I love details like these.

The SKS P35 fenders (mudguards to you lot) complement the whole thing nicely. They’re far superior to the ones I put on Bike last year. They aren’t quite to the level of the super-premium brands, but they’re certainly no slouch in the fit and finish department. And mercifully, they don’t rattle or squeak.

Finally, in the flesh the Tubus Cosmo rear rack is just stunning. It looks nice in the pics and all, but on the bike, it’s beautiful. At the Tuna last night three riders (yes, 3) actually complemented me on the rack. Not bad for something I bought strictly for utilitarian reasons.

The rest

Put together, the Portland is a bike that’s pure joy to ride and I’m proud to be seen on. It performs better than I’ll ever be as a rider, and it’s a beauty to behold without screaming look-at-me. With the rack and fenders, there’s a certain understated sophistication about the look, and despite the rack, fenders and commuter stuff, it doesn’t come off as being Fred.

From my comfort on the bike, I expected it to be a good all-day bike as well. I’ve ridden it for four hours in bike-path hell, and I rode my first century on it. The 7:15 time on the century was due only to the engine, the winds and the climbs. The bike was happy throughout, and I was happy with it. Especially in the wind and on the climbs.

In summary, the Trek Portland is suberb all-rounder. Simply because it’s sold as an urban commuter doesn’t limit its capabilities at all. The good manners it exhibits in traffic are equally refined when hauling groceries, trapped behind beginners on the bike path, on high-speed descents and on all day century rides.

Racerboys may find it heavy at 23 pounds, (remember, the disc brakes are three pounds of that) but that’s still lighter than either of my other bikes, and lighter than most bikes actually sold (as opposed to available for sale.)

I have no qualms about recommending the Trek Portland for anything but all-out racing. Beginners will find it’s good manners reassuring, while experienced riders will appreciate it’s versatility, details and refinement. Whether for quick errands around town or transcontinental touring, it’s a fine bike to have beneath you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 3:22 pm EDT and is filed under Bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.