The remedial work on my Swift has begun. While I can see the potential of this bike and have moments of almost sublime riding on it, it has always just failed to deliver. Talking to Sam Alison*, the man behind Singular, I have ordered new rims to lighten up the rotating mass. I’ll be running Crest rims, tubeless, when they arrive and with any luck it will help with acceleration and make the bike less ‘hard work’. Fingers crossed!
Meanwhile, this weekend it occurred to me that in many ways, the Swift shared an awful lot of features commons to my crosser. Now, readers of this blog will know how much I am in love with my cross bike which is fast, comfortable and simply a joy to ride. Well, I thought it might be prudent to set the Swift up as close as possible to the Jake. Looking at the two bikes there seemed to be little difference and I was all set for incremental adjustments of maybe a couple of mil, this way or that. In the event the first measurement threw up a massive difference in reach of just shy of 4cm. I have been using a Thomson layback seatpost on the Swift and an inline FSA post on the crosser. As the latter seems like a greyhound straining at the leash when I ride it, and the Swift a little like a middle aged labrador – willing to get up to speed but just give me a little time ok? – it seems like a good idea to move the saddle forward so I can get power down quicker. To this end, a nice shiny Thomson inline seatpost has just arrived, courtesy of those nice people at Merlin Cycles who may not seem to have the most comprehensive range of stock on the planet but what they do have is well priced and it is delivered uber quickly. anyway, this is part one in the remedial project. Next on the list is a shorter stem, coming down from 100mm to… erm… something shorter than 100mm is the plan. I just don’t know how much shorter yet so watch out! If I know you, I’ll be on the scrounge to borrow maybe a 90mm, 80mm or 70mm stem any time now!
Also on the wish list is a nice new pair of Swift coloured carbon forks but I have been told to hold my breath on this one. I am therefore gently turning blue while stuff goes on behind the scenes.
*Sam Alison – all round nice guy or so it seems. He is very helpful and really cares about his product.
* Re my Swift being like a labrador – it is atypical because I know other people with Swifts who ride like ballistic missiles so it is all down to setup, not an intrinsic fault of the bike.
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