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| I added a Flybar Garmin mount to move the GPS out of the way of the stem, my thought was that is where I would put the map or cue sheet. Also, note the carbon stem and bars I swapped out. |
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| Bosses for 3 water bottle cages (or accessories), I'm not a fan of having a cage below the top tube as it's not accessible while riding, but it's nice to have! |
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| Full length cable housings to keep the dirt out and shifting smooth, also note the flattened top tube shape. |
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| Rear disk, 30 tooth low gear, and note the flattened seat and chain stays, those flatter tubes give an amazing ride! |
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| Here's the top speced item on the bike the Enve CX carbon disk fork, tapered tube, integrated cable holder. The color is race car flat black (just like the flat black hoods on the classic mopar muscle cars!) |
First off why did I buy this bike? Early this year I was trash talked by a
friend to sign up for the Dirty Kanza 200,
letting my ego get the best of me, I signed up and did no specific
training for it other than my usual schedule.
Unfortunately, my usual training schedule has me prepared for Leadville
in August. With all the cold weather and
rain this spring, I was way behind on training come June 1. However, I’m 3 for 3 at Leadville and had no
reason to believe I couldn’t finish the DK200…
Since this isn’t a write-up for the DK200, I’ll just say that it was the
worst day on the bike I’ve ever had, so bad in fact, I was going to quit
cycling forever! That was miles 65 to
113, thankfully things turned around, and I finished the race in 18 hrs 55
min. I didn’t even need several days to
forget the pain and suffering, I woke up the next morning and was hooked! This
gravel thing was addictive and all I could think about was when could I do
another race, and of course I need a better bike!
Over the next few days I started researching bike options,
and I quickly came across Salsa’s Warbird, I was sold instantly, inspired by
and designed for the Midwest gravel scene!
I instantly felt a personal connection to Salsa for already anticipating
my needs and making a specific bike geometry to fit it! So the big questions: Can I get one, will it ride as great as they
say it will, and finally can I afford it?
Luckily, one of my two favorite bike shops, Monkey Wrench
Cycles in Lincoln, NE had several bikes on the sales floor. Which was a great find as these things are
rare online, especially in the common 56cm size I need. So that week, I made the drive to Lincoln and
test rode a 55cm, (no 56 in stock), I could
instantly feel the things I knew would make it great on the gravel: more
upright/touring geometry, longer wheelbase (no toe overlap to front wheel), and
for Alum it felt amazingly soft, definitely not the harsh ride I expected. (I’m not a fan of aluminum frames at all) However,
I’ve never taken CX bikes seriously and the CX bike I did DK200 on was Alum and
I survived ok, so I figured I could live with an Aluminum Warbird. Besides that, I was barely scraping the money
together, so Ti wasn’t even an option. I
was amazed on the test ride at how soft the bike felt, so there really must be
something to the flattened oval tube shape that Salsa promotes as softening the
ride. Hard to believe, but it felt
good. So after the test ride I’m sold,
can I get one? Lucky for me, there was
still nine 56cm bike left in-stock at Salsa, and one now had my name on it!
So, I immediately changed a few things about the bike before
even riding it. Here’s the changes I
made and why:
·
The Clement X’plor USH tires that were on it
would have been a great tire, but I didn’t need them as I have plenty of other
tires sitting around. So those went straight
to ebay as new take offs. I know several
guys that love the tire, so a great spec from the factory.
·
In taking the tires off I was horrified at the
rim choice on the bike! I’m sure this
was due to availability, hopefully it
was a situation where these were the only rims Salsa could get to even making
selling this bike possible. The Sun
Assaults are 13.3mm wide…! Really? On a gravel CX bike, way too narrow, this is the only real “shame on you Salsa”
part of the bike. This is the sort of
thing that causes good tires to ride terrible and potentially damage the
reputation of the bike, not a good thing for the first year of production…! Fortunately, I kept my set of Stan’s Alpha
340’s and swapped out the wheel set immediately.
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| Sun Assault rims in the middle 13.3mm wide, compared to the Stan's Iron Cross rims which are 19mm wide |
·
My 340 alphas were already set up tubeless with
Bontrager CX0’s.
·
I’ll note that I love the orange anodized hubs
that came on the bike, so I ordered some Stan’s Iron Cross rims and am building up an ultimate set of wheels for this bike. Here's the wheels just after re-lacing (spokes are not tightened up yet):
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| Original hubs, spokes, and nipples rebuilt onto the Iron Cross rims, 16 spokes were cut and re-threaded, 32 spokes used as is, and 16 had to be made new. Besides the rims, total cost of $18 for spokes (and I rebuilt them myself). |
·
Next, I swapped out the seatpost, stem, and
handlebars to all carbon. To help
finance this bike I parted out my old CX bike on ebay, but kept the high end
components. I had specifically bought
these carbon parts for Kanza to help soften the ride up. And they certainly help, EC70 post and bars,
and an EC90 stem. Very nice combo. Only downside is that the bars are narrower
than the cowbell 2’s I took off, the wider bars were a nice spec, and this is
probably the only real loss I made in these swaps.
·
I also swapped the seat out to my favorite (that
I’ve found thus far) Fizik Aliate VS,
the WTB Vector was not for me. No fault here though, seats are a personal
preference item.
Those are some big changes, but the ride of the Aluminum
frame will still be obvious, especially for me as these are the same components
I had on my previous CX bike.
The Ride and Handling:
Night and Day difference!
If this was a blind ride test, you would have a hard time convincing me
this is an aluminum bike, it is stiff, but it doesn’t have that bone jarring
harshness to it that I associate with aluminum frames. Certainly, I noticed this difference on the
test ride, but now that I have a few hours in the saddle it’s spectacularly
comfortable. The geometry is right in
the middle of my old CX bike, which I’ll call traditional geometry (Orbea
Lobular) and my 29er Giant XTC mtb. The
Warbird still gives you a stretched out road bike feel for being more aero and
fast, but yet has this uprightness to it that gives you the confidence and
aggressive feel of a mountain bike. It’s
perfect, the control you want for gravel, yet aero with a touring feel for long
hours and distances. It’s a very elegant
design and well executed by Salsa.
Odin’s Revenge in Gothenburg, NE was my next big gravel
event. 150 miles of back roads gravel,
dirt, and MMR’s, pretty much the exact playground you would expect a gravel
race to be! The bike handled superbly, I
had high expectations for it and it delivered.
Here’s some of the scenario’s I ran into that tested the bike out to the
maximum:
·
30+ mph descents on washed out and rutted
dirt/gravel MMR’s. I felt confident at
all times, the bike stuck to the road like a race car, I found myself pushed to my confidence limit,
and had to remind myself to stay off the brakes. Sweeping turns especially pushed my own
limits, the bike was going where I told it to, I just needed to learn to trust
it!
·
Rock side bounce stability, if you ride gravel
you know what I’m talking about, even on an average gravel road, you’ll hit a
rock, not even all that big, and your tire jumps sideways and the whole bike
gets sketchy. Not the Warbird, yes you
still get bounced, but you don’t lose temporary confidence in the bike, you
just keep riding, it’s no big deal.
·
Deep gravel and soupy dirt, these power draining conditions also cause
average CX bikes to wander and destabilize.
I still had to pay attention in these conditions, but the Warbird was
right at home, “keep pedaling he told me,
I’ll stay upright, you get us out of here!”
·
Probably the most amazing thing is that this
bike doesn’t feel like an Aluminum bike,
there’s no bone jarring feedback from the Warbird, the bike has that
stiff race bike feel, but doesn’t beat you up with it. The flattened oval frame tubing is magical. I originally thought this was a brand new
design, but it turns out Salsa has been working on this for some time… I have noticed similar tubing shapes on the
Chili Con Crosso. I don’t know how long
they have been working on this tubing shape geometry, but the result is a long
hour comfortable ride. Kudo’s Salsa!
So, are there any downsides to the bike? I really don’t have much, but here’s a few
things I noticed, really though, I’m not sure they even qualify as negatives…
·
When standing up and grinding out a steep climb,
I found you have to watch your weight distribution to keep the rear wheel from
spinning. I broke the rear wheel loose
multiple times when standing, just lost traction, didn’t cause any problems,
obvious fix was to not lean over the handlebars so far.
·
Note to self: don’t have too much confidence in
high side winds. This is not really a
fault of the bike, late in the race, I decided to bomb a steep descent and
forgot about the crosswind, I nearly got pushed off the side of the road. This incident is really due to the gravel
surface, 35c wide tires, and 20+ mph wind, but it was certainly scary as there
was a 20 foot drop off into the ditch!
·
I think a few more negatives would have showed
up, had I kept the bike at factory spec.
The narrow rims would have added bad handling characteristics, as would
have tubes in the tires. My carbon
upgrades certainly helped damp the road vibration, but honestly, I feel they
were only the icing on the cake!
·
The wider Cowbell bars would have been nice, but
honestly, I don’t think they are needed, I felt plenty stable on
·
After 11 hours on the bike and 150+ miles, this
is all I got, so maybe the bike is perfect.
Lastly, the bike turns heads and gets noticed, I don’t have
to even tell you that, you already know the sparkly bright orange frame and
flat black fork are as flashy as a race car.
The bike is specifically designed for gravel, any gravel junkie knows this also, and if
they haven’t already seen one, they are now looking at yours. I would venture to say even the “custom frame, single speeder, and I think
I’m the most unique individual you’ve ever met” person is jealous of this
bike! After all, it is a Salsa, and there’s no argument they are the coolest
name in the gravel scene.
So I’m really not sure how this bike can get any better, but
if there is a way, Salsa will find it and we’ll all look forward to it in 2014.
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