Over the past few weeks I’ve been able to churn out some decent miles on this little steed. Commuting (52 miles round trip) a couple times, a level “C’ group ride and a couple longer rambles out in the boonies by myself and camera.

The ride is much different but much the same as my all carbon Lemond road bike. The fitting was the not the same as I believe Renold’s proportions are a bit different than mine. The top tube was a tad short which I helped with a longer stem but never could get the saddle to handlebar drop right without messing with the handling. So the fit was different BUT what surprised me was the fact the ride wasn’t as much different as I thought it would be. I was very prepared for very slow handling and slow response from the fatty tires. Both of these were slightly different but not enough for me to notice without thinking about it. Often when you get on a new bike the handling is so off that steering catches you off or the acceleration seems to zap the energy from your legs.

As I spoke about in my preview of this bike, the handling is amazing. Very steady but not super sluggish. Riding no handed is a treat, diving into corners is very steady and predictable but not feeling like you are struggling to push the bike into that corner.

There were a couple downsides of the bike, but neither had anything to do with the wheelsize. The interesting shifter set up caused a couple nice bruises on my knee where I would hit the rear shifter on the top tube when I was standing up out of the saddle pedaling. The other issue was the front shifter. It wasn’t very easy to get to when I really needed it. In a heated group ride we were preparing for the sprint and reaching down between my legs to pull up the shifter to get to the group ride wasn’t very graceful. In the shifters defense the bike wasn’t intended for heated group rides.

The wheels and tires I feel were part of the large positives on this bike. The Fatty Rumpkin tires were plush but able to handle a decent amount of pressure for low resistance. The Stans ZTR wheels I swapped over to try this bike out were AMAZING. Their weight and stiffness I don’t believe will be able to matched by another 650b wheel that is so durable. I encourage those running fatter 650b touring tires to run the Stans rims. They are made for mountain biking so they will take a licking and keep on ticking.