SubscribeYears ago when I was a wannabe-roadie I’d built myself a pretty nice bike (for the day) out of a Bianchi frame and a full set of 2nd-hand Campi Chorus. I loved that bike and rode it like a boss. Until one day it was stolen from my garage where it was u-locked to a beam in the garage. The thieves actually cut through the beam took the bike and my unicycle that was also in the garage. It was a sad day.
Insurance paid to replace the bike (less my deductible) but at the time, it was near impossible to find street bikes in Toronto. Mountain bikes were all the rage: hard-tail, no suspension, rock hoppers. I made the mistake of following the trend and got a bike that I hated. It was slow, heavy, and poorly fit. I tried over the years to “fix” it: different stems, seats, wheels, saddle… nothing helped. Eventually I ditched it and wrote of mountain biking as “not for me”.
Last fall I ran a 1/2 marathon trail run and really enjoyed it. Loved it in fact! Podiumed (3rd in my age-group). It got me thinking about Xterra racing, but the spectre of trail riding and my bad memories played on my mind. Still the curiosity was there…
This weekend I had the opportunity to play with a Scapin Oraklo 29er.
Wow! This is not the mountain bike experience that I remembered at all. 1st I had it out for a short shake-out on the road. Checking my cleats, saddle height, and just generally getting used to the bike and suspension. On flat roads I had this bike up to over 40 km/h. The stiffness and responsiveness of this bike is something that really caught me off guard: more than once on the roads, accelerating away from an intersection in a fairly big gear, I was popping the front wheel off the ground.
After tuning the bike a bit to fit and adjusting the suspension to my weight, we took it for a 25 k trail ride. Nothing too technical, because it’s all new skills for me, but we did manage some offroad, some easy trail, some road, even a little non-trail (by mistake) exploration. Beyond my timidness of being on a loaner bike and not having any experience with trail riding, this ride was great fun. There was nothing that I could throw at this bike that it didn’t seem completely able and comfortable to handle – I’m sure it is able to do much more than I’m currently comfortable attempting 😉
I can’t say that I’m any kind of mountain bike expert, but this Scapin Oraklo was super-fun. Definitely a ride that I’d consider for addition to my stable if I were to get serious about offroad and/or xterra racing.
The folks at Blacksmith Cycle are the North American distributors for Scapin. If you’re interested in more info on this brand, this bike, or others they carry, please reach out to them. They’ll treat you right! Tell them Rick send you 🙂
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