Rich Rothwell, M Steels newly sponsored team member specialises in endurance mountain bike riding and racing. He spends significant time training on the road as well as off. Here he reviews the endurance focused Specialized Roubaix SL3. You can read more about his riding and racing on his blog: www.richyroth.com. Anyone with any questions on endurance racing can contact Rich through the shop or his blog.

Specialized Roubaix SL3: Perfect for a Northern Classic

Newcastle and the surrounding areas share a lot more in common with Belgium, the original home of the Northern Classics, than you may at first think! It’s often cold and wet, the roads are sometimes grimy and slippery and, (this is particularly true after two tarmac munching winters in a row) the roads are in a bit of state! Often potholed and usually gravely, riding a pure racing bike requires fast reactions as well as strong fillings.

For this reason, I thought it would be interesting to test ride the 2011 Specialized Roubaix from M Steels. Inspired by the infamous Paris Roubaix classic, the bike is designed for comfort, control, and speed over long distance on rough roads. These attributes suits me perfectly being a mountain bike endurance racer who often has to put in long training rides on the road.

The FACT 10r carbon frame and carbon monocoque fork are stiff yet compliant. This is achieved by the carbon lay up in general but aided by the Zertz seatstay and fork inserts. These elastomer inserts improve vibration damping and, whilst it would hard to attribute too many ride characteristics to the Zertz, they are definitely a contributing factor to the bikes exceptional comfort.

Efficient comfort is also built into the frame by the seat tube tapering down from the huge (and stiff) bottom bracket area. This resists twisting where you don’t want it and comfort where you do; the tapering allows a slim seat post to be used which provides a degree of comfort.

Steering accuracy is bolstered by a massive headtube; this design is cropping up everywhere, on mountain bikes as well as road bikes. You can also see some internal cabling here which aides the bike’s clean lines and also reduces cable maintenance as there are fewer points for grime and water to work a way in.

Transmission and braking is provided by 10spd Ultegra. For the mountain bikers out there this is like XT for road bikes! It performs perfectly, has a quality finish and is light weight. Furthermore, Ultegra is to Dura-Ace as XT is to XTR – a substantial hike in price brings a performance increase, but only by a very small margin and for most serious enthusiasts, Ultegra is as great balance between price and performance.

So that’s the theory. How does the bike ride in the real world? My first real road test was around 90 miles of steady endurance pace with ten four minute long, hard efforts thrown in as the mood dictated. I headed out of Morpeth for a fairly flat first half to the ride; down to Amble, along the coast to Alnmouth, and through to Bamburgh. Into a steady wind the bike urged me to keep the pace up and I was able get right on top of the bike for the efforts. Turning west for the second half of the ride, and the return leg, and the terrain got more challenging, but more to my liking. The big climb out of the back of Alnwick is steep and testing but I felt comfortable accelerating over the brow of the hill. After a moor top traverse, and now in the dark, the road descends steeply. Here I really started to develop an appreciation of the bikes geometry and super smooth handling… Perhaps it’s the forgiving frame or maybe it’s the relatively long wheelbase but the bike felt incredibly stable descending, even on wet high speed tarmac. After breaking my jaw on a road bike a couple of years ago, my road cornering confidence had suffered slightly. However, on the Roubaix, I was pushing the front wheel hard into the ground with complete confidence. Personally, this was a revelation and really endeared the bike to me. I was also very impressed by the latest incarnation of the Ultegra brakes which have great sensitivity and masses of stopping power. Brake hard and late…. push into the apex…. accelerate out. These sections are where the Roubaix is at its best and, should you run into gravel or broken road, the bike glides over the rough stuff with a floaty but engaged confidence.

Several ‘rolls’ in the road followed, including the ‘honesty’ climb out of Weldon… you get what you see and it’s a good test of what you have left after an endurance ride into deepest Northumberland. I arrived home pretty spent, partly to do with a bike that encouraged me to push on the flats as well as up and down hill. For someone who likes bashing out long fast road rides in the north east the Roubaix is a great choice of bike. Perfect for a Northern Classic you might say!

I will be riding the bike for the Captain Cook Challenge in March (http://www.bcne.co.uk/captain-cook-challenge-ride). This 80 mile sportive includes Rosedale Chimney, one of Britain’s steepest roads with 33% sections. This will be part of my lead in to the UK 24hr Solo Mountain Bike Championships to be held 7th and 8th of May in Newcastleton. I would suggest that the Specialized Roubaix ideally suits hard endurance training and the long hours required in the saddle leading up to an event like this.

If you would like to organise a test ride on a Roubaix, Tarmac, or Secteur road bike, get in touch with M Steels. If you intend on spending some long hours on the road it pays to be sure you purchase the right bike for your riding style.