Product Reviews: My New Toys!

So, if you know me at all, you know where I am employed, and how I make my living. But for those who are living in the dark regarding those details of my life, let me fill you in. I am employed as a mechanic and service representative for a local bicycle shop here in Bloomington, IL. We do sell and service the products I review here. However, my employers are blissfully unaware that I am doing product reviews on these items which I have purchased for myself, with one exception. It’s also worth mentioning that I’m a life-long roadie, I’ve never gotten into riding off pavement. My idea of a perfect ride would have miles of clear, unbroken, smooth tarmac. But now, I just may have expanded my cycling horizons. What brought this all about was my elder daughter moving to central Michigan a few years ago. When we go there to visit, I’d often bring a road bike with me, and get a couple morning rides in there. But invariably, I would run into roads where the pavement would abruptly come to an end. I’d sigh, make a u-turn and go back the way I came, all the while missing my smooth roads back home. Now if you’re familiar with the bicycle industry of the last few years, you know of the recent development of the gravel bike. To the unknowing, this bike looks much like a road bike, but it has several differences that make it capable of cruising gravel as well as pavement. So then, why not get a gravel bike? I ordered one, and after a lengthy wait (thanks, Covid), my newest steed was stored in my garage with my other bikes.

My new bike is the Specialized Diverge (of course), complete with the new Shimano GRX Di2 1x component group. (I’ll try to give you an idea of what some of this means, but those details are of less importance than is how much fun I’ll have!) Specialized is the company producing the bike, Diverge is the model, Shimano is the company which manufactures bike parts, GRX is the gravel-specific components (shifters, brakes, etc), Di2 designates the electronic shifting variant of said components, and 1x denotes the the bike has 11 cogs at the rear wheel with only 1 in the front. Confusing? Perhaps, but let’s not get lost focusing on those details. Of course, a proper gravel bike requires different pedals and shoes than what my road bikes sport, so I also have new versions of those too! The pedals are standard mountain fare, Shimano XT trail pedals, almost universal in the mountain bike world. For my shoes, I broke with my decades-long relationship with Specialized and opted for a pair of Shimano’s newest gravel shoe offering, the RX8. The first weekend of October rolled around finally, and with all of my new gear, I planned to explore some local gravel, enlisting good friend Dennis to accompany me on my travels. He had ordered a bike nearly identical to my new one but in a different color, but it had not yet come in. My employer graciously offered him the use of a new e-gravel bike, the Specialized Creo Evo, for our three day weekend. (This “e-gravel” bike has a battery and electric motor which assists the rider, amplifying the rider’s input at three different levels, turning any rider into a much stronger cyclist!) I’ll give you my opinions of these products in a bit, but first, allow me to share with you my first three-day weekend of gravel searching.

Saturday morning arrived, chilly, and with rain looking imminent on the radar. This would be a short day on the bike, but an opportunity to see how everything would work. At about 10 am on Saturday October 3 we rolled out from Dennis’s house, he on his borrowed e-gravel bike, and I on my new steed. I quickly became familiar with the muted whine of the assist levels from Dennis’s borrowed bike, knowing when it took a certain pitch, I was going to be dropped like a sprinter on Alpe d’Huez. The first off-pavement excursion came two miles into our ride when we turned onto the drive at Timber Pointe to see some friends who were doing a 5k trail run. We chatted for a few minutes with Mike and Dave, showing off our new rides, and then made our way to the nearest gravel roads. Heading back north we heard a vehicle approach from behind, it was Mike offering some beers, if we had clean growlers! So, obviously, our next step was to ride back to Dennis’s house to grab a backpack and two empty growlers, and then back south to fill up! Then back to Dennis’s to drop off the beers, and off we were to play in the closest gravel. Just a half-mile from his house is a ”road” that runs north from East Bay Camp, gravel at first, then becoming nothing more than a couple of ruts through timber. This road is only a half-mile long, and it ends at PJ Keller Highway at a barricade that we had to crawl under! 

From here it was just 200 yards to our next gravel section. As we rode this I realized that these bikes were much more than road bikes with wide tires, they cruised down some really sketchy roads without a hint of that front-end wandering with which I was all too familiar on my road bikes! After this stretch of gravel Dennis wanted to really test the capabilities of the Creo, so we proceeded to the Mackinaw River north from Lake Bloomington to see what he and the bike could do on the climb. We crossed the river and made a u-turn. I watched as my riding partner reached down to turn the power level to turbo, the highest setting (thankfully, he was spending most of the ride on the lowest level of assist.) We started the flat run-in to the climb, upshifting, gaining momentum for the challenge ahead of us. On the flat section I could keep close to him, but when the road went up, it was as if I’d thrown out an anchor. I struggled, downshifting as needed, and watched as Dennis just flew up the hill. After the effort he slowed to allow me to catch up. When I did I gasped “When was the last time you beat me up that hill?” He looked at me incredulously, then exclaiming “I’ve NEVER beat you up that hill!” (Probably true, as while we are well matched as riders, I can almost always beat him on climbs) From there we rode to some friends’ house where we again showed off the bikes, and then back to Dennis’s house to end the ride. We had gotten drizzled on a couple short times, but it was worth it to try out the new bikes. Dennis quickly loaded his ride to Strava to see how fast he’d done the climb, to find that he’d set a HUGH pr, and had even taken a top-ten place, beating my pr there by one second! We then had to find the setting on Strava to denote the ride as an e-bike ride, so the ride wouldn’t be compared to others’ non-assisted rides.

Sunday we planned to ride further, having ridden only about fifteen miles the previous day. The morning broke breezy and chilly, delaying the ride start for these fair-weather cyclists until almost noon! We wanted to hit some of the nearby unpaved roads, the few that are near, anyway. So, we rolled around the west side of the lake, hitting the interloop to warm up out of the wind. About ten miles into our journey we (finally) came upon our first mile of gravel. Dennis, riding the e-gravel bike hardly slowed, while I felt the harder effort to maintain speed over the gravel. Out of the gravel, and onto paved roads we hit a stretch going north into the now-stiff wind, I heard the tell-tale whine of the Creo in full turbo mode as Dennis flew past me like I was standing still. A cow watched as we passed, turning its head to follow me as I rode past. I remarked to my bovine watcher, “He’s on an e-bike.” The cow nodded a silent acknowledgement, and returned to its grazing. We continued on familiar paved roads to our lunch destination in Lexington. After refueling and hydrating, I suggested we head north from town to ride some of the roads that had been de-paved for wind-farm construction traffic. After struggling to hold Dennis’s amplified wheel into the wind we turned back toward the lake, and rode a couple miles of gravel heading back south with a tailwind. Back on the county highway heading west, we decided to ride down a private lane (Dennis’s kin owns property in the area). This gravel was much less traveled, and was a bit looser. The bikes seemed more than capable and stable, but these two longtime pavement dwellers were a little anxious. We rode almost two miles in this and survived, learning that these bikes were more capable of traveling in those conditions than their pilots!

 

Moving on, we quickly came upon a gravel section we’d planned on riding. It was about a mile long...a mile of rocks the size of my fist. Very slow going as we tried our best to avoid the worst of the rocks here. As we left it I remarked that I wouldn’t drive my car on that road! This was the last of our unpaved stretches for the day. It was an educational day for us...we learned that not all gravel is created equal. Who knew? The first section was hard packed and relatively fast, the second was loose and required a bit more skill, while that last section was nearly unnavigable.

After our 38 mile ride Sunday, we wanted a similar distance Monday, but with a bit more gravel. (This stuff can get addicting!) We took a different direction this time, heading north and west to a few roads we had been eyeing as we anticipated the delivery of our gravel bikes. The first graveled bit was becoming a frequent route for us, just under a mile from Dennis’s house. At about five miles into our trek we encountered our first new gravel of the day, with the road going south to the Mackinaw River, and then a couple miles back to the north. Near the end of this segment there were some farmers harvesting, they stared puzzledly at us as we cruised past on a gravel road...on bicycles! About 2 miles further north and east was a road we’d been eyeing from our road bikes in the past, a road that was barely a dirt lane! We set our sights on this adventure, only to find that it had been “improved” to a gravel road recently. This meant the road hadn’t had enough traffic to pack the gravel down, making it so soft and loose we were sinking in, making it difficult just to keep moving. As we rode this mile of challenge, we approached from behind a man who was walking the road. It was Greg, a guy I’d worked with in the factory years ago. We stopped and chatted for a minute, he told us the road had been graveled only two weeks before. From there we headed to the wind-farm construction area, with its miles of hard packed gravel roads.

It was now lunchtime, so we made our way down several miles of hard gravel to Lexington to our regular lunch spot, Kemp’s Upper Tap. (Best bar food and best beer selection around!) From there we made our way towards Dennis’s home. On the way we passed a gravel lane, Dennis turned up this lane just to see where it might go. It turned out to be an access drive for some natural gas lines with a dead end after a mile. We made a u-turn and continued back to our paved route back. On the way we neared a Strava segment where I suggested to my riding partner that he put the e-bike in “Turbo” and see if he could hit a KOM (which I held.) He quickly distanced from me as I put in my full effort to no avail. I’m the first to admit that I’m not a particularly fast rider, but I’m no slouch. When Dennis hit full power, he pulled away from me, growing smaller as he distanced from me and my “standard” bike! A few miles later and we were finished with our weekend of gravel exploration. We pulled up our rides’ data from Strava, and found that Dennis did not, in fact, beat my fastest time, but he had set his own personal best.

Product reviews

Disclaimer: It should be of no surprise, once you read the following, that I am not a professional reviewer, I will only present you with my feelings, my opinions, my experiences, all probably tainted by my own biases. All presented without any hard, measurable data. All without urgings of the product manufacturers or my employers. I can further state that I do not expect to profit in any way from my labors in producing this essay. I only offer you this due to the fact that winter is nearing, and I find myself with more idle time to sit in front of the computer.

So on this weekend, collectively we were sporting all-new equipment, from shoes to pedals to bike components to entire bikes. I’ll briefly give you my thoughts on these products. I’d had my new bike for over a month, but since my shoes were a brand new model, they had to be ordered, and further, because Covid, they were in limited supply and took four weeks to get. These are Shimano’s new gravel-specific model, the RX8. Generally speaking, the best possible commentary I can have for shoes is that they “disappear.” While riding if I don’t even notice shoes, that’s a perfect pair of shoes, and a rare thing. These are one of those rare pairs. With a Boa closure, putting these on and removing them is quick and easy. Once cinched up and clipped in, I never gave my feet/shoes another thought. Comfort is exemplary, and function is the same. I honestly can’t think of any improvement that could be made to them. Note to Specialized: My next pair of road shoes just might be from a competitor of yours!

While I’m on the subject of foot comfort, I’ll briefly touch on the pedals I’d chosen for my new steed. At the recommendation of a local bike guru, I chose a pair of Shimano XT trail pedals. Using mountain bike pedals was new to me, but all of the engage and disengage motions were similar enough that I almost immediately was clipping in and out without a thought. I quickly adapted to the minor differences from my road pedals. 

Now for the odd review here. I technically never actually used this product, but my riding partner Dennis did. He had the use of a Specialized Turbo Creo SL Comp Carbon EVO demo for the weekend. Wow, that’s a mouthful. Yes, it’s a lot of letters, but to be honest, it’s describing a lot of bicycle. This is the gravel version of Specialized’s road e-bike. While I didn’t ride the bike (Dennis did offer, but I turned him down), I did get to watch its abilities from my perspective. The obvious advantages in using this bike are those times when your level of effort would normally go up. Think of those long climbs, those days of ceaseless pulls going into the wind. These are where you can benefit from the boost the bike can give you, but in my mind, the true benefit comes when you’re just out riding with your regular cohorts. With boost at the lowest level, the power amplification seems nearly unnoticeable and natural after a few miles. But your friends notice, and your friends appreciate that you can sit at the front of the pack for many miles, pulling them into that wind, lugging them up that hill...all the while feeling like a mortal on a “normal” bike. From my perspective the Creo performed very similarly to my bike, just with a stronger rider. I look forward to the weekend down the road when I get to take my turn aboard this magical beast. I hesitate to use the word “revenge,” but Dennis, I owe you a couple of bike beatings!  

Now for my final review: my personal bike, the Specialized Diverge Expert Carbon. This bike comes with Shimano’s latest gravel-specific components, GRX Di2. My impression of these shifters and brakes can be best summed up in one word: “Wow!” The brakes performed amazingly, controlling my speed on downhill trails, bringing me to a stop from high speed as I neared stop signs, all completely silently and with excellent control, whether wet or dry. This is how disc brakes should work on bicycles. The Di2 refers to the electronic shifting. This is the masterpiece on this bike. Every shift, every time, was executed perfectly. No delays or slow shifts, no missed shifts, no noisy shifts, just a satisfying “zzp-snick” sound, every time I hit my shift switch. The framework supporting these components is Specialized’s newest iteration of its Diverge gravel bike. It comes with the future-shock, a suspension device cleverly built into the steer tube, and it works quite well. Bumps that would have me bracing myself on my road bikes were easily handled on my new bike. This also has built-in storage, the unfortunately named “Swat” compartment. This is an accessible compartment in the downtube of the frame, with room for a couple spare innertubes, tools, and some nutrition if you choose. Why has nobody thought of doing this before? A perfect use for what was just empty space in the frame! Riding  on gravelly roads really shows this bike’s capabilities. Where in the past if I was unfortunate enough to ride on unpaved roads, I would have to slow down, and fight the bike’s tendencies to wander off-line, but this bike would just travel in a straight line until I directed it to go elsewhere. So stable, and so satisfying (and relaxing) to be able to cruise on roads I’d had to avoid in the past!

There you have it, my first (and possibly only) product reviews. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed (and maybe learned a little from) my experiences. Keep on riding, and I’ll see you on the (gravel) roads!