New Bike

I have been considering a new bike for a couple of years. I have been riding a Giant Roam 2 hybrid and like it very much. I was looking for another hybrid geared slightly toward pave trails. I wanted many of the same features such as flat handlebars and hydraulic disk brakes but with a carbon frame. It seemed none of the manufactures made such a bike.

Last year I just decided to upgrade my bike with a better groupset and brakes. Several hundred dollars and a day later Specialized introduced a bike along the line I was looking for. Just like some people are not a fan of Toyota, Ford or Dodge, I am not a fan of Specialized. They are perfectly good bikes but just not my type. Add that to the hundreds I put into my bike and I was not ready to buy.

Fast forward to this year. I stopped into my favorite bike shop (couple plus hours from my house). They sell Giant bikes and the shop was where I purchased my Roam 2. I just stopped to browse since I was in the area for another reason. In the past year Giant has started making the FastRoad CoMax. It was just what I was looking for. Hybrid, carbon fiber at a reasonable price point, I fell in love with the bike. The nice thing about this shop is that they have everything in stock. I had tried several shops to see the Specialized bike and most indicated they could order the carbon version. This shop had the carbon bike in stock in all frame sizes. The display model was too small but the salesperson wheeled my size out of the back room in under 2 minutes. Next he said, let's get this adjusted for you so you can try it out. A couple of laps around the building and I was sold.

I have only had a chance to take it out a couple of times. It is immediately very apparent this bike is fast. I don't generally concern myself with speed but from time to time I find my nearby trail without other users and only a short time for a ride. When this happens I will push a bit harder to see what I can do with a moderate effort. One particular stretch is identified by my Strava app. It is a bit over a mile long and I have apparently ridden it 188 times since I started using Strava. Most of those times it is a casual pace but I have pushed it somewhat several times. My first ride on the new bike I made a similar effort to see how it compares to my old bike for speed. The new bike was an astounding 20% faster!

The bike comes standard with a narrow road tire. I asked the shop to replace these with a bit wider tire, 35mm. My Roam has 40s. The only aspect of the bike I don't like is the saddle. I installed my Brooks saddle (B67) from my old bike and ordered a new Brooks so I can have one for each bike.