Looking for both scientific and unscientific opinions here. I know there are multiple threads that discuss new bikes and such. However, I thought I would jump into the Leadville thread since that’s the main purpose of the bike for this year.
I believe I’ve narrowed it down to the Trek Supercaliber and the Scott Spark RC World Cup . Given the Supercaliber was just officially unveiled late in the XCO season, there aren’t many first hand reviews. The unknowns give me pause especially since their technology (while not completely new) has not been fully proven out in the field. 60mm of travel would seem to be pretty ideal for Leadville (I think? Maybe?) and it does have room for 2 bottles. The Spark does have the 3 position lock-out which gives 70mm of travel with the ability to go to 100mm. I guess the main part I’m questioning is that the Spark is still lighter even with more travel. Unless the Supercaliber pedaling efficiency is superior when locked out, I think I’m leaning toward the Spark.
For reference, I’ve also considered the BMC FS01 (almost 2lbs heavier than the Spark!!!) and Specialized Epic EVO. We don’t have any Pivot dealers and Canyon is online only…and I’d prefer to touch and feel before a bike purchase.
Anyway, wondering if anyone has any first hand knowledge of either bike. Any other suggestions? Figure we’re 6+ months out and always fun to keep the conversation going.
I’ve got the spark RC and can’t speak for the Trek (which certainly looks interesting). I zip tie a 2nd cage to my top tube for a 2nd bottle position. It’s looks kinda dumb, but works really well and I’ve been doing it for a couple years with no issue. I don’t know how well the Trek locks out, but the twin lock on the Scott is awesome. Fully locked is like a rigid bike, perfect for road or climbing out of the saddle when it’s not too rough. Middle setting is good for most everything else except chunky downhill (fully open for that).
The scott pedals amazing. I did a gravel race on it this past Saturday. Locked out maybe 20% of the time for the smooth sections, but used the middle setting most of the time. Averaged over 21 mph for 60 miles. I just don’t feel like I’m losing any pedaling efficiency with the scott suspension. Leadville has several sections that are very similar to a gravel event where you just need to put good power down.
@grwoolf very helpful! Thank you! I think the pedaling efficiency under lockout is the only thing I’m still pondering. Out of the saddle bob was a concern and you’ve definitely helped alleviate that. Thanks again!
I will be on a Supercaliber for Leadville. I guess what gave me some confidence in the SC was its use in the pros (albeit limited as you mentioned) along with Treks lifetime frame warranty, and some videos Trek posted of the cycle testing they did on the frame. I would think they wouldn’t send it out to race if they weren’t fully confident in it. Just for reference, from a quick search online it looks like Scott has a 5 yr frame warranty.
I raced against a guy on the new Trek a few weeks back. It was a 60 mile ish marathon event and the terrain was very rough, very rocky, overall. He seemed to suffer no ill effects of 60mm of travel going through the rough rock gardens. I was impressed. I think this would be an ideal Leadville bike but I have not ridden it so take that into consideration.
I have ridden the Spark and almost bought one but decided to get a Canyon Lux instead. I was skeptical of the online only model but I am soooooo glad I pulled the trigger on the Lux. I have never ridden a more capable bike than the Lux. Yes I know it’s my bike so I’m going to do the “my bike is the best” thing everyone does on the internet but in this case, it’s true!
True story, I bought mine and took it out the first weekend on an off-road group ride. It got a lot of looks and a couple of guys asked to ride it. After the ride one guy ordered the CF SLX Team 9.0 in XL and the other took about a month and ordered the same bike in L. No exaggeration and there is a high likelihood of another order being placed soon. We are all doing Leadville in August and 3/4 of us (and maybe 4) will be on the Lux.
Very stable without locking it out but with the lockout it’s perfect for PBville. I actually swapped out my dropper lever and my suspension lever and I absolutely love the setup…
Last year was my first leadville. I wanted to know the watt/kg as I was chasing sub 9. What everyone told me was 3.6-3.8. I went into the race at 3.4 and finished in 8:23. My buddy who is incredible at descents and handling had a watt/kg of 3.0 and finished in 8:28. Needless to say there are so many other factors that go into play…mainly nutrition. My opinion is the 3.5-3.8 range for sub 9. 4.0 is a guarantee sub 9 unless you have lots of problems. As for bike choice, I rode the Spark RC team and couldn’t be happier. The fork travel may be a little excessive, but there were a couple times during the race where I bottomed out. I put my second bottle on my back middle pocket and had no problems. In my opinion, weight and the ability to have a nearly rigid lockout is key. I was probably locked out close to 75% of that race. The better the lockout, the better the power transfer is to that rear wheel.
I’m also curious about your w/kg comments. That’s pretty incredible based on my research and others weighing in on the topic. Were you and your buddy at 3.4/3.0 at elevation or sea level?
@Stringwise thank you! The Lux is very intriguing. I don’t know anyone who has one…and my personal anxiety is not capable of buying a bike I haven’t at least looked at live. Ha!
From what I’ve seen, those are great times at those w/KG’s. Actually, those are just great times, congrats. You mind me asking about weight to get an idea on raw watts? What corral did you guys start in?
I’m doing the Tahoe trail in July looking to get a better coral in leadville, does anyone have any beta on that race and what to expect terrain wise?
Also for leadville, what do most people do in terms of bottles vs hydration pack? I feel considerably faster when I’m not lugging around my pack, but I require more fluids than most and dunno if even thinking about bottles and refueling at aid stations is even something to consider…thoughts?
My apologies everyone. I need to clarify my last post. My 3.4 watt/kg was at altitude. Not just any altitude, but leadville altitude lol. I’m a Leadville native. At sea level that would be a 3.8 watt/kg. I should get my facts straight if I’m going to go on a rant like that haha. My friend at sea level would have been 3.36. Living and training at altitude has its perks so I’m sure that helped. With that said the 3.8-4.0 at sea level is probably a better target to shoot for. However the 3.3-3.6 range is still doable if you have a good day. I was 165 going into the race so I struggled a bit on the flats, but found some pretty good groups to ride with. If you are at 3.8 now in February I still think sub 9 is in your future! Good luck! As far as the bottle vs hydration pack argument goes, it’s all preference. I used bottles except for the Columbine climb and descent. I did that because I new that “in training” it was hard for me to drink going up that long climb. And it was even harder to drink going down! It is much easier if you have a tube to suck on. Columbine is still so early in the race, so it absolutely crucial to drink, and eat (if possible) during that stretch. You don’t want to fall apart that early in the race.
I’m currently planning on doing both. Haven’t fully figured it out yet, but I’m going to use hydration pack in areas where it’s hard to drink. Probably Columbine. I’ll try and update once I’ve done all my research.
I have done Leadville with bottles only and with a USWE pack only.
I think the best option might be a combo of both. Something like 3 bottles on the starting line (some people will argue for 2 and I can see it), grab your hydration pack at the dam, ride up Columbine and back down, drop the hydration pack and go back to 3 bottles to finish. I think that’s what I will do this year. My bike holds 2 bottles and I put one in my back center jersey pocket and drink it first.
I wasn’t really a fan of the hydration pack on a number of levels but I am still considering running it again at least for Columbine.
I did the Leadville stage race last year using a pack. I use packs all the time in long hard races and I typically prefer them, but the altitude had me constantly gasping for breath and it made it really uncomfortable to try to suck liquid from a pack. I could get liquid down much better from a bottle and I’ll probably go with bottles exclusively this year. I also like that it’s easier to see how much I’m drinking with bottles (I tend to under-drink with a pack). Much of the columbine climb is fire road and it shouldn’t be too hard to drink from a bottle going up until you hit the steep stuff. Going down is a different story.
I did Leadville last year on a hardtail Niner Air 9 RDO built up nice and light. It has some compliance built in and I thought overall handled the course really well. The roughest section of the course is the descent on the way back after the Powerline climb. I got rattled around a lot on this section a lot and really had to let the bike float underneath me as I stayed off the saddle.
After some thought I decided to get a Trek Supercaliber this year and will almost certainly ride it for Leadville. It will have a slight weight penalty over the Niner HT, but it should be minimal. I’ll pre-ride in June, so it will be a good test to see how the bike feels on the Leadville course. I’m sure it will feel great but the question remains whether I will actually be faster on it over the course of a long day.
Ultimately anything from a HT to a low-mid travel FS is going to work. There are always going to be some trade offs. At the front of the pack in 2019 there were a lot of hardtails with Grotts, Simmons, Stetina, King, and McElveen all on one. But Morton, Howes, Grant and Wells were on full suspension.
Assuming the weight is close or the same, there is going to be minimal difference on the Leadville course between the high-end short travel full suspension bikes and likely differences in performance are going to come down to how well you have your suspension dialed in and how effectively you use your lockouts. There are a lot of great bikes to choose from nowadays. I ended up choosing the Supercaliber not just because it looks like a great bike, but because I have an amazing local Trek dealer who have helped me out with all my bikes over the years, including my Niner’s.
For pack vs bottles, it’s another one where there isn’t a specific answer. I started with bottles last year (3 at the start), switched to a USWE for Columbine, and then back to bottles on the way back. I was happy with this and will do it again. I did start with three bottles this year and I might do two next year. However I was happy I had three because one bottle ejected descending Powerline. Everyone around me yelled, but I didn’t need to stop because I had enough fluid still. The error I made was having a full bottle in my downtube cage when I hit the descent. It was a larger Camelbak bottle and they are top heavy when full. Either a smaller 500ml bottle, or a less full bottle, would have stayed put in the Silca cage. I had thought about this in training when I also had a bottle eject, but race brain got the best of me and lucky it didn’t matter.
The Lux is nice and a great value ($/spec). I demo’d one at Outerbike. Liked it alot but it just didn’t fit me well. XL was a little too big and L was too small. Geometry just wasn’t right for me. My son ended up buying one and loves it. I ended up looking at the Scott Spark and Orbea Oiz and eventually bought an Oiz.
I also used a Niner Air RDO HT for Leadville. For me it is the perfect Leadville bike. Never got uncomfortable and I was able to pound on the pedals on the climbs when I was completely shot without losing any efficiency at all. Except for the descents on Powerline, Columbine and Sugarloaf my fork was kicked out. I do recommend a 50t though as I only had 32x42 so my cadence on the steeper parts of climbs was like 50-60 ando normally like to spin at 90 rpm!
Depends on how many bottles you can carry on your bike. I rode a full sus, with space for only one bottle cage. So I also had a 1.5L pack.
If I had space for 2 water bottles, I would have run 2 bottles instead.
The volunteers at the neutral aid stations at pipeline, twin lakes and columbine are great. Bottle refills in about 15 seconds. So unless your counting seconds, you don’t need to worry about water refills.
Do you get your special needs bags back? Never done a race with one not sure how that works, but I feel like I’ve heard for Ironman you are sacrificing what’s in there.
Yes they do a great job of getting them back to you. They will be near the start line the following morning. I had no trouble getting everything back and it was all untouched (didn’t end up needing anything).
