My first post Christmas ride on the Ph.D. ended up being a bit of a disaster as the rear Mavic Aksium wheel ended up being totalled within a few yards of setting off when the hub suffered a failure that lost one of the flat spokes.  All rather annoying – and the wheel’s now in for repair at Tredz in Cardiff, pending a view from Mavic on what went wrong (and hopefully supporting a warranty repair).

So having been back in work for a couple of weeks without the freedom of being able to cycle to and from, I’ve been slowly losing what little sanity I have on the Stagecoach South Wales bus service from the village.  It didn’t take long for my better half to take pity on me and say I was allowed to get myself a new thrash about bike for winter riding – leaving the skinny rims of the Ph.D. for better weather.

Through a process of impressive upward management, persuasion and, alright, eventually begging, I managed to get my budget up from the original Kona Cinder Cone level that I was looking at.  After a quick scout on Google, I managed to find a 2008 Orange EVO8 reduced in the January sale at Sunset MTB around the corner from my office.  How could I resist?  I really miss riding the EVO2 – 10 years is a long time to be in the same saddle after all – and so I dropped in to take a look.

Anyway – here’s the lowdown:

Size 19″
Frame 6061-T6 Custom Butted Aluminium
Colour Champagne
Fork Rock Shox Recon Race Air w/Motion Control 100mm
Rear Derailleur Shimano XT Shadow
Front Derailleur Shimano LX
Shifters Shimano LX R Fire +
Crankset Race Face XC Evolve Triple X Type
Cassette SRAM PG950
Brakeset Avid Juicy 3 160/160
Hubs Shimano Deore 475 Disc
Rims Mavic XM117
Spokes WTB S/S Black
Tyres Kenda Nevegal/Blue Groove 2.1
Headset Tange TG8
Stem Orange Stalk +
Seatpost Stick Up
Saddle SDG Bel Air
Handlebars Supercross +
Pedals Shimano SPuDs

The guys at Sunset are typical of a good dealer: Not snotty; not pushy; warmly welcoming, and; good at what they do.  They didn’t have a 2008 bike up and running, but put one together for me during the day and swapped out some of the components that weren’t really my bag.  All in all, a very good purchasing experience and probably the best I’ve had from an Orange dealer since the good old days when I still had access to Stif’s.

So you can expect some more posts as I get back in the Groove with the daily commute again.  Suffice it to say that I’m chuffed to nuts so far <grin>.

Lucky I didn’t see any carbon road bikes…

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The bike basics:

Frame tubing – Kona 7005 Aluminum Butted
Fork – Kona Carbon
Headset – FSA Orbit #8BE Integrated
Crankarms – FSA Gossamer MegaExo
Chainrings – 30/39/53
B/B – FSA MegaExo
Pedals – Shimano A520
Chain – Shimano 105
Freewheel – Shimano 105 (12-25, 10spd)
F/D – Shimano 105 Flatbar
R/D – Shimano Ultegra
Shifters – Shimano 105
Handlebar – FSA XC-180 OS flatbar
Stem – FSA OS-150 LX
Grips – Kona Race Light
Brakes – Avid SD 5
Brake – Levers Avid FR 5
Front hub – Mavic Aksium Wheelset
Rear hub – Mavic Aksium Wheelset
Spokes – Mavic Aksium Wheelset
Tires – Continental Ultrasport 700 x 23C
Rims – Mavic Aksium Wheelset
Saddle – Selle Italia X2 Man SE
Seatpost – FSA SL280
Seat clamp – Kona Clamp
Color – White

I went for the 58cm frame given that I’m about 6’1″ – or at least used to be the last time I checked. I still need to make some slight adjustments to the setup as it’s being run in given that I can tell there’s a slight difference in my riding position to the Orange, and it feels a little too upright to be comfortable on longer rides. To be honest, this is probably more due to the fact that I need to stick some bar ends on there which would give me a similar stretch position to that of the setup on my Evo2.

I’d read elsewhere that the saddle was something to replace, but for the life of me I can’t quite see why. If you’re used to being in the saddle, then it performs well and its fairly comfortable. It’s no Gel saddle, so don’t expect Saturday-night-in sofa quality, but it’s far more comfortable than any race saddle I’ve been on.

How fast is it?

Acceleration is better than my expectations. The 7005 frame remains a solid platform to put some power through in a straight line, and it can hold its own against road frames at the lights from experience. Over distance, in comparison to the Evo2, the lighter frame and bigger gears mean that I’m able to sustain a higher average speed over the same distance. Here’s the same route on the two different bikes. As you can see, the PhD was quicker on average, and I wasn’t really pushing it that day.

Kona PhD Speed Profile (mean: 15.1 mph)

Orange EVO2 Speed Profile (mean: 13.6 mph)

What about Vibration?

On the whole the road vibration isn’t all that noticeable on the front end. You can feel the road through the saddle more than you would on fat tyres, but it’s not too distracting. What’s more distracting coming from MTB territory is that all those big hills and patches of debris/crapola you’d normally ride across without thought suddenly become life threatening hotspots on skinny rims.

Anything else on the handling?

Steering is responsive and pretty light – a product of the fact that the bike is ridiculously light in its own right. In fact I’d go as far as to say that it’s pretty frisky if you’re coming from an MTB background. I was out in high winds on the way home from work on the PhD and it felt pretty skittish on the road as I avoided the inevitable Cardiff potholes (actually, it’s probably more accurate to describe them as sink holes)

Gears work OK for around here. I haven’t done Big Hill territory yet (that’s Big Hill in South Wales folks, not Alp d’Huez type Big Hill), but I suspect that the range would be pushing it on the inner front ring. It’s just about comparable to the middle ring of an MTB, so if you use granny gears a lot for climbing long drags, then you’ll probably struggle for a while until your legs get used to the different pace/power output required to drive yourself along.

That bigger outer ring is great on the flat and on the descents too, although for my riding it suits the flat better.

Can you stop as well?

Brakes are pretty good Avid spec. They definitely stop the bike, but as the Kona owner’s manual says, they may not stop *you* – you’ll need to hang on and be ready to shift your weight if you need to decelerate quickly.

So in general, it’s all good.  It suits my commute to work really well, and offers me just enough challenge to make it a different ride home up the hills over my trusty old Orange.  I have, however, one slight problem that I need to deal with at the moment. On the supplied tyres I’ve managed 2 flats already, and have now cut a sizeable chunk out of the rear tyre thanks to Cardiff Council cutting back the Hawthorne hedges around the lanes, and then not bothering to use a road sweeper afterwards [probably a different, outsourced department :-/ ]

I reckon that a pair of Specialized Armadillos should do the trick. More on that when I can take delivery of some new tyres.

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Route Data

Last Saturday saw pretty good conditions at the start of the route, which deteriorated towards the Northern end as snow and skin-smarting hail set in and the temperature dropped a couple of degrees (and remained low).The problem with the route was that my 9 year old original Mega9 Shimano chain decided it had had enough of being punished in winter weather and popped a link. Now this wouldn’t have been so much of a problem had I actually had a chain tool with me at the time, as losing a link is within tolerance – but I didn’t – so an unexpected walk to Ponty ensued in search of <oh the shame> a Halfords to pick up a new chain tool.Thankfully, after negotiating Ponty’ frankly RIDICULOUS roads and pedestrianisation schemes, I eventually wound up at Halford’s Bike Hut (helpfully located on the 1st floor of their store) and got things sorted. Big thanks to Tom at Ponty Halfords for doing the work whilst I had a mozy about the store – even if he did say that it was nice to see an Old Skool bike :-/ I think I’ll be needing my free bus pass soon.The rest of the day was marked by contrast to the first half as I took NCR 8 back in towards Cardiff, which is strewn with broken glass and litter all over the place down through the lower part of the Valley. It’s a pretty desperate and depressing place in winter weather, where (puts on Urban Geographers hat) successive former Welsh Office and Local Authority plans have sought to gentrify the larger urban areas in order to revitalise the valleys and surrounding towns. It hasn’t worked yet.The final stretch was a bit of a ‘mare as I’ve pretty much burnt out by the time I’d got back towards Radyr. This is what happens when you take a couple of weeks off and eat Floridian junk in between. Still, looking forward to taking a similar route again next week.

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I haven’t seen many reviews for Kona’s top flight hybrid, but know someone who has the 2006 model and think it’s rather swish. Once I get my sweaty palms on it, I’ll do a full review.

My Orange won’t be put out to pasture just yet. Despite what my local bike shop told me, I still think it’s got a few miles left in it yet for XC use. It’s a pity the PACE RC35s on it got a bit flat-spotted on a somewhat amusing fall, although they’re still in pretty good nick otherwise – even after all this time.

Upshot of the story is that although it’s possible to spend an absolute fortune on bikes – in the case of the Orange EVO2 with the Pace forks, it was completely worth it. I have no doubt that I’ll buy another Orange as funding allows, but I suspect the likelihood of me being able to afford either of these babies [1], [2] is pretty remote.

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