Eat, Sleep, Ride Madone 6.9 SSL

After starting the "Pimp Crusty's Ride" comp a couple of months ago, it was apparent that we hadn't left enough time to run the comp, then get Crusty's bike before Christmas.  The Christmas break is important, as he will spend the week in cycling nirvana, Mt Beauty, where he will be riding some of Australia's best road climbs.  So although the competition continued Crusty needed to order his bike. 

The good news is, everyone who put an entry in for the "Pimp Crusty's Ride" comp has won themselves a Bontrager Multi-tool valued at 59.95 and just needs to come in store to pick it up.
So while the competition rolled on, the Eat, Sleep, Ride machine was dreamed, then designed by Crusty himself.  The results arriving last Friday just in time for our weekend  photo shoot.  With the photo shoot starting at 4:30 AM Saturday, building his dream bike before hand was going to be a big task, and wasn't complete until 11:30 the night before.

The build is pretty straight forward, and you will notice that Di2 did not feature, despite electronic shifting being the buz amongst the road fraternity at the moment.  The frame is a 6.9 SSL Trek Project One that has had the Rouleur paint scheme customised to lime-green/ black/ pearl white.  The cockpit is all Bontrager XXX Lite with a SRAM Red drive train and the amazing Bontrager Aeolus D3 wheels. The tubular version.   Add all this together and you get yourself a bike that tips the scales at 5.95 Kg's.  That's no typo folks!  With the all new carbon Shimano Ultegra pedals, and 2 x Bontrager XXX Lite bidden cages, the bike packs on a bit of weight and becomes 6.3 Kg's, but it's not about the weight. It's about the ride, and the ride is something else!!! Many super-light bikes tend to lose a lot in stiffness and responsiveness, not the 6.9 SSL.  Every little last bit of energy put into the pedals is planted into forward momentum with such efficiency it's staggering. 

We all know as riders that the bike can only make up for so much, but this bike makes up for quite a bit.  With the feather light wheels and tyres fitted to a remarkably stiff frame, you find yourself accelerating faster than you ever thought possible.  It also hooks into corners like it's on rails while pulling out with ease, the whole time giving you the sensation that you're gliding 10mm off the road.  It's tremendous... and even a little weird at first, but in the end you just realise you can rider harder, and faster around corners.  There is no doubt that a bike like this will in fact improve your climbing, fatigue you less on long rides, and possibly be 100% responsible for your next promotion. It's that good!