or… These wheels were made for racin’
You may be more familiar with Lapierre bikes from the Tour de France. Their bikes are found under the haunches of the best dressed team in the peleton, Francaise Des Jeux. FDJ also has a cyclocross team and had the only rider to break the Belgian’s stranglehold on the top 5 spots at the world championships in 2006. Well here’s the bike that 4th place Francis Mourey was riding last year with a sweet new paint scheme for 2007.
I have been diagnosed with a pretty bad case of weight weeniedom. My excuse: I am only a scant 130lbs myself and hefting 20+lb bikes over barricades, up hills, and through the pack takes a larger percentage of my scrawny leg power than those endowed with more “normal” proportions. Fortunately, all of my prayers have been answered with this sweet little package from France. My 51cm frame weighed in at just 1190g! The frame is made of oversized scandium, a lighter, stronger aluminum alloy, and comes stock with a Ritchey WCS full carbon fork. This fork is a real deal pro level fork unlike the squirmy, heavy, part carbon forks that are coming on most stock bikes these days. It is also the lightest one on the market that I know of weighing in at 480g uncut and with the compression plug. As I started transfering parts from my old bike over, I noticed how truly purpose built the frame is. The top tube cable routing is smart, keeping your cables safe from harm when shouldering and out of the mud on nasty days. The non-integrated headtube allowed me to properly face the frame and install my favorite Chris King headset. My days of throwing away integrated bearings after every couple of muddy races are over. There are absolutely no uneccesary braze-ons, no rack or fender mounts could be found. It doesn’t even have water bottle bosses! Lapierre’s definition of a cyclocross bike is obviously straightforward: A bicycle made for 60 minutes of brutal competition at a time without compromise.
“Sounds cool but how’s it ride?” Well, I recently got to test it at a local Cross Crusade race just outside of Portland. This race was set on a very hilly course with sharp off camber turns, steep power sections, and a jungle-cross section with a log barrier. The conditions were exceptional with sunshine on Sunday and enough rain the week before to make the dirt really tacky. The steering initially felt very sharp and took a second to get used to. It goes where you point it and exactly when you point it. The fork did a great job absorbing vibrations in the trail and could only be made to chatter with a very stiff handful of front brake. Then came the log…Holy high bottom bracket Batman! Did I mention that the BB on this thing is a full inch higher than my previous bike! I found myself riding this section when 90% of the other riders were dismounting. The only foot dabbing was due to my own foibles and inability to maintain speed while fully oxygen deprived. Around the 45 minute mark in a race is a perfect point to evaluate a bikes individual ride characteristics. The Lapierre was noticeably stiffer than steel bikes I’ve owned, both in pedaling and shock absorption, but slightly easier on the back than lower end aluminum bikes I’ve had. The pedaling efficiency along with the 16.5lb race weight was a god send on the steeper sections of the course. It felt like going uphill became easier as it got steeper.
The bottom line: Recreational riders need not apply. If you like cyclocross bikes because they have room for fenders and you can load them up for touring, then keep looking.
If you have a stable full of bikes and want the edge when it comes to competitive cyclocross, if you ride your rollers while watching glitchy videos of cross races narrated in a language you can’t understand, if a perfect Saturday night for you involves going to bed early so you can “visualise” yourself going head to head with Sven Nys before race day. This could be the bike for you. It is the lightest, fastest, and euro-est bike I have ever owned.
Veloshop has Lapierre bikes in stock locally.
Link to geometry in excel format.
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