Softride

Ian.B

Has anyone ever seen/tried (or got) one of these? One passed me today with a group of roadies at Hampton Court - I've never heard of them before. Maybe good for a bad back but a bit on the heavy side?

http://www.softride.com/bikes/bikes/QualifierSE.html

cjcp

Greg66 used to have one. There was a discussion about these only last week actually.

I've only come across them in du/triathlons and once or twice in Richmond Park. I thought they were intended for long distance tris.

redvee

One was on fleabay a few months back but went for stupid money, ie too much for my small pockets.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Did have one during my short lived but oh-so-promising career as a triathlete. I had the Rocketwing, which is the predecessor of the FASTT

Pros:
- Genuinely super aero. One of the few frames that can match a P3 in the wind tunnel
- Super-comfortable. You sit and the back wheel takes the bumps. None of the bumps come up to the saddle. It's like covering your roads with a deep pile carpet.
- Because of those two: super fast.
- Good for bad backs, due to the comfort. Jurgen Zack used one to help with his back problems in IM racing. When I had back problems, it was a lot more comfy than my steel road bike.

Cons:
- UCI and ITU non-approved.
- Softride doesn't make bikes any more
- Tricky to set up. When you sit on the beam the saddle drops about 1-2cm, and because it's at the end of the beam, moves backwards slightly as it drops. So setting up your virtual seatpost angle and saddle height requires patience.
- The beam is fiddly to adjust, requries a torque wrench and some special loctite compound on the bolt thread.
- If you don't shake the normal habit of unweighting the saddle slightly over bumps, the beam will kick up into your @rse. And if you have behind-the-seat cages, it will eject your bottles.
- Tall head tube. I ended up sourcing a -35 degree stem to get my bars low enough at the front end.
- Looks odd.
- Heavy. Although I always thought the aggressive geometry most riders (me included) set them up with contributed far more to them being labelled bad climbers.

Zipp used to make a beam bike, and AFAIK, Titanflex still do.

Ian.B

Greg,

Sound interesting!

(Sorry, I missed the earlier thread)

ian

greg66_tri_v2.0

Bump for this. In case anyone's interested in one of these frames, one's popped up on the Slowtwitch Classifieds at a reasonable price.