Merlin Extralight 2002 Model Road Bike
Posted by: Admin
on Sep 07, 03 | 8:46 pm |
Profile
(By far the) Best Bike I ever used. They say that a pair of shoes that has not been paid for will always squeak. This no doubt explains my first experience of a Merlin titanium framed bike. It was lent to me by the American Bicycle Company as a trial bike for Den Store Styrkeproven. It was just what was needed for a race that's more than 330 miles at a stretch -- extremely light but also with some flexibility to give a little comfort. This particular bike must have known that I could never really afford it, so it developed a creak.
The frame alone, a 2002 Merlin Extralight - with double-butted titanium tubes (thicker at the joins than in the middle), aerospace technology apparently, with its hidden head-set (new for 2002) - costs £1999.Then you' ve got the 9-speed Dura-Ace group set, the type they use in the Tour de France, I'm told, and that's £1100, and the Reynold Ouzo Pro carbon-fibre forks (at £245) and Spinergy Xaero Wheels, another £5-600 and a few other fixtures and fittings. About £4,500 worth of bike in all.
And the bloody thing creaked. Mind you, by the end of the race the bike wasn 't the only thing that was a bit creaky. The Selle Italia Titanium Flite saddle left my rig feeling decidedly strange for a couple of weeks. (One friend of mine who did this race had problems down there for eight months, but he's a father of three now so it obviously rose to the occasion eventually. I've had my children, but luckily I didn't have to wait that long. That's what I'm saying anyway).
When I took the Merlin out for a training run it sounded as though it was about to disintegrate in a vortex of ball bearings and cogs at any moment. Each person who looked at it came up with a different theory: 'Oh, you're bottom bracket's knackered, mate', they said in BikePark (and how true that turned out to be.). So they changed the bottom bracket, but the creak just continued. 'It's your cranks, you'll need them tightening up,' said somebody else. 'Must be the spokes.' and, being a fourteen stone fatknacker I imagined them all concertina-ing down and dumping me headfirst onto the tarmac at 35k an hour.
But that never happened and as it turned out, even with the creak, the bike was a joy to ride. To begin with it weighs just 8kg. Titanium is extremely light and it has 4 times the durability of steel apparently but it is much less harsh than aluminium, so you don't get shuddered to death on every piece of gravel in the road. The gear-changing (STI ergo-levers) was easy as pie and it was fine heading uphill. And there was plenty of that, like a 100km hill. It handled well at speed heading down the other side -for nearly two hours it was all downhill all the way and we were cruising at over 40km/hour.
But the creak never went away. Obviously a bike this discerning knows that a cheap bloke like me was never going to buy it and was showing its disapproval.
The American Bicycle Company (0870 241 4478)
Available from....
http://www.bikepark.co.uk/
