One word....Holy Cow. Okay that's two words, but neither Holy nor Cow alone really does this bike justice. So there you go. I took it out to ride the dirt trail which surrounds a local lake we have which contains mostly smooth packed dirt, a lot of newly spread gravel from the latest renovations being done and maybe one root and two rocks. The perfect testing ground for my new cross bike.
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| A Bianchi in the sun |
As soon as I got on it, I couldn't believe how fast, agile and stable this bike is. I was concerned that I would be wobbly on the skinny wheels and drop bars over gravel. I even tried pushing it in the corners to see if those skinny 32mm tires would wash out, but they didn't. The bike hugged the turns like it was on rails and the carbon fork absorbed all of what probably should have felt jarring. The Ultegra shifting was smooth as butter and the geometry fit me like a glove. While I didn't see much in the way of average speed savings on the lap from riding my mountain bike on that course, the amount of effort I had to put in was much less to achieve the same mph. I am loving this Bianchi bike and can't wait to take it out again.
I am even considering racing it in the last race of the local Cross series we have in about 3 weeks. I have never raced a cross race, nor even spectated at one live actually but, I imagine it will be really fun on this bike. Sure, I know I might make a fool of myself trying to hop over those barriers with the grace of a bull in a china shop. My hope would be that no one will notice my bumbling since they'll be so blinded by the beauty of the Italian workmanship that is Bianchi, that they won't even notice the rider falling all over herself trying to fake composure. But, if not, hey, there are like a million videos on youtube, what is the likelihood that someone would post it?
On second thought, maybe I should just go spectate the others and leave my bike in the car.
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