# MX Leader first ride report



## jroden (Jun 15, 2004)

I got my nearly new leader frame built up and it was sitting around until the salt gets off the road, but the roads looked pretty dry today, so what the heck, out we go for a little allen wrench fiddling with position ride in the hills. Nice enough day, maybe 38 and not much wind. Slight problem in that a water main is being installed across the street (yeah! no more well water) but the road was about a half inch deep with mud from all the machines, so much for my clean bike.

In any event, I have to say I really like the ride of this bike. I have always rolled my eyes when cyclists talk about "stiffness" in parts and how they can tell the difference, but I must say the frame is quite a lot stiffer at the bottom bracket than my Corsa and that I can notice it pretty clearly. You can even tell by flexing it sideways with your foot, this is a very stiff bike. 

Climbing hills out of the saddle, this bike does not flex much at all, the wheels seemed to be doing the bulk of the flexing. Having all new components with genuine Shimano cables rather than some bulk stuff from the shop really is nice, everything works so smoothly. My bars even have new and non-filthy tape for the time being. 

Beyond that, this bike has the same solid, slow steering feel that I enjoyed with my Corsa. For whatever reason, the geometry of this bike fits me well and I felt right at home on the new bike, despite some changes in the geometry making it sit a bit taller.

Sometimes I read people describe that their bikes just zing up the hills for them, sorry to report that this bike seems to require about the same amount of pedaling as all the other ones, but the good news is I did not feel the extra weight made a difference.

So, the new MXL has been out and about and gotten some mud spattered on it. I think I am going to like this bike a lot. I'd buy it again, I know my pals will laugh that I spent good money on such a tank of a bike, but to heck with them. I expect it will have been through more than one of the circles of hell by this time next year, otherwise I'm getting too old and boring to own such a machine. My Corsa stayed while about 6 aluminium frames came and went over a 10 year period, I expect this bike will do the same. If my son keeps growing at this rate, he'll fit on it some day.


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## Ramjm_2000 (Jan 29, 2005)

*Nice post...*



jroden said:


> I got my nearly new leader frame built up and it was sitting around until the salt gets off the road, but the roads looked pretty dry today, so what the heck, out we go for a little allen wrench fiddling with position ride in the hills. Nice enough day, maybe 38 and not much wind. Slight problem in that a water main is being installed across the street (yeah! no more well water) but the road was about a half inch deep with mud from all the machines, so much for my clean bike.
> 
> In any event, I have to say I really like the ride of this bike. I have always rolled my eyes when cyclists talk about "stiffness" in parts and how they can tell the difference, but I must say the frame is quite a lot stiffer at the bottom bracket than my Corsa and that I can notice it pretty clearly. You can even tell by flexing it sideways with your foot, this is a very stiff bike.
> 
> ...


But a pic is worth a 1000 words, let's see that dirty Merckx


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