Thursday, September 11, 2008

Test Ride: Time RXR Uteem

I got to test ride this bike today, let me tell you that was a big mistake. I'm assuming I will most likely never own this frame, and therefore I'm destined to be somewhat dissatisfied with whatever bike I may be ridding now and some good length of time into the future. While I have seen this bike before I didn't get a chance to ride it the first time.
Now its back, and they even found a way to cram two more TIME logos onto the bike, by equipping it with a matching TIME saddle. I could go on, and on about how the paint job is border line ugly and definitely way over the top, but that won't change how I feel about the way the bike rides. All of my aesthetic quibbles won't suppress my nagging urge to ditch my frame and put all my parts on one of these. Even as I was ridding it I found myself often looking down at it to vanquish my disbelief.
I felt like I was riding in a real life BSNYC dream bike shout out. The bottom bracket on this thing is so stiff, that all 145 pounds of me couldn't flex it a millimeter. A huge difference from my bike. This thing climbs effortlessly and just plain feels remarkably efficient. But what really got me is, how damn comfortable this thing is. It just glides over rough pavement.
The only thing that can really describe ridding this bike is:

"To put it simply, this bike climbs like a squirrel, descends like a greased squirrel on a luge, corners like a decagon, and accelerates like a methamphetamine-addicted rabbit. (Or like a Porsche being driven by a methamphetamine-addicted rabbit.) Overall, the effect of getting on this bike is like getting on one of those moving walkways in the airport--you feel like you’re going twice as fast, and you feel twice as smart as the idiots who didn’t bother getting on the walkway and just kept walking on the regular floor. And getting on any other bike afterwards is like when you get off the walkway and feel as though you’ve just stepped onto another planet with a completely different gravitational pull." -BSNYC

2 comments:

brettok said...

It's not borderline ugly... it's just ugly.

erik k said...

haha, I guess I just say that because somewhere out there there is a roadie who thinks its the coolest looking bike ever, and I don't know maybe in the context of a race.