The Condor has landed….

Built for comfort rather than speed but very pleased with it, and superb service from Condor and FedEx.

Just need to actually ride it now….

But most importantly, what colour bottle cages? I’m thinking black just cos a matching red may be tricky to find?

Nice. Black.

Vwrey nice, black cages here too.

Yeh definitely black. Nice bike, if it was me I’d desticker the wheels.

Photographed in a proper gear too 🙂

Yep black or stainless to match the mudguard stays.

Love them, definitely would be my commuter, if I had enough money that I didn’t actually have to ride to work.

Elite Ciussi gel look good on metal frames – I have one on my commuter & it looks “right” even has red & white accents for the frame:

I think the Ciussi Inox stainless one might be a bit retro for your bike, I have one on my modern steel road bike but i’m tempted to try these for size instead, don;t think they do a black one though:

Thanks guys. Black was also the view of a mate who has been round to admire it already. That first Ciussi looks just the ticket.

So glad I went for the custom colour option. Always wanted a Ferrari Red bike.

King Ti cages. Expensive, very light for a metal cage and look absolutely fantastic.

That’s lovely.
🙂

So, now for a brief update after it’s first proper ride.

It IS comfy. Especially at the back end. Partly the step up to 28mm tyres but also no doubt the frame. A pothole is still a pothole, but the normal road “chatter” just got smoothed out. I felt much less tired and battered after the ride than on my old alloy Defy. A bit of experimental honking up a 10% climb in a silly big gear did suggest that there is a bit of flex if you really want there to be, but not a problem.

Hydro discs are great. Descending on damp, narrow, muddy lanes the brakes scrubbed speed easily. Though I did skid a couple of times as traction went sooner than I expected. The 105 gears shifted how they should. Glad I didn’t go to the extra expense of Ultegra, to be honest.

The Ksyrium wheels are lovely – quick to get up to speed and reluctant to let it go. My mate commented that I was keeping up on the downhills without making any apparent extra effort.

But what goes down has to go up. About 3,000 feet of “up” today. Now I’m a good stone and a half above an ideal riding weight, but the Fratello did feel it’s 22lb weight a bit on climbs. The silly big 32 tooth cog on the back meant I could get up them, but my mate was definitely disappearing up the hill ahead of me even quicker than usual. But it wasn’t bought for speed or to help me be a climbing god, so I’ll just have to lose a few pounds next year and deal with it.

A couple of niggles – the Lizard Skins bar tape is very tacky but felt quite thin, and I need to juggle with the position of the levers as it’s a struggle to reach the brake in the drops. Luckily it stops brilliantly from the hoods. And the cable/hose routing to the rear looks a bit of an afterthought compared to internal brake routing through the front fork.

Am I pleased with it? Oh god yes. Worth every penny, as was the extra for the custom paint colour. And the guys at Condor made parting with all that money a real pleasure.

Two other things I learnt today – there is a cake called a Paris Brest, so as a wannabe audaxer it seemed rude not to. And when you fit new clipless pedals to your new bike, just back off the release tension a bit. It wouldn’t be good to be unable to clip out on your first ride and perform the topple of doom scuffing up your knee, elbow and new shifter. 😳

Ooh that looks lovely.

I’d have the bars tilted back a bit and the shifters moved back down.

Nice!

Definitely black cages – just benn thought the same dilemma myself, and decided that unless an exact match was possible, a contrast would be better.

oh thats nice

Lovely looking bike, Condor do know how to create beauty especially when it fabricated using steel.

+1 on the black elite ciussi cages.

enjoy 🙂

It’s managed to avoid being ruined by those mahooooooosive hoods! I like!

Black cages. Obviously. I’d go for Spesh Rib cages with the built in multitool. One less thing to carry.

It’s managed to avoid being ruined by those mahooooooosive hoods!

They look awful & feel awful too unless you have hands like shovels as the hydraulic hose makes it so wide at the contact point

*looks at shovel hands* 🙁

Black arundel carbon. Nice bike. Shifters a little jaunty for my tastes.