After riding the Specialized for 12 (or so) months, about 8 of which were spent living up to the Specialized's reputation amongst friends of "bikes for fat dudes" as my waistline increased and my average speed crawled to depressingly low double digits.
Look, it was a bike that served me well when another broke and I needed a quick fix for the Ingkerreke Commercial Mountain Bike Enduro in Alice Springs, and it did me well there despite not quite being right.
It also had a whiz around the Flight Centre Epic (Elite Women Special Unknown Pregnancy Division) and numerous other state and club races.
But I never loved that bike. It was always a bit too long, a bit too high, a bit too heavy and a bit too...Specialized.
So, I am very very very lucky on this exceptionally first-world blog, to introduce the Rocky Mountain Vertex, special RLC Sport edition. Size small, a inch shorter in the top tube, a huge amount smaller in the standover (the Specialized was much more like a barn door)
 |
| Doing jumps...'n shit. |
 |
| A rare couples ride to try out the new rig. |
 |
| Introducing the Rocky Mountain stealth machine. Thinking of calling him "Rochas Martinez". Any better name options you have will be considered, just let me know. |
It's much lower in the front end, which I haven't yet 100% got the feel for on my one quick trail ride yesterday (it was also 34 degrees on the trail, making for not that much feeling-of-awesomeness anyway). Featuring new SRAM XX1—seems the goods so far with a huge cassette covering pretty much all bases. Also with one of the first 2013 Lefty Hybrid forks in the country fitted using the Project 321 awesomeness system by RLC Sport, and awesome P321 wheels. 8.85kg with race saddle and post. I'm currently running a boat anchor seatpost and saddle though, as new ones are in transit.