Anyone read French well?

neeb
neeb Posts: 4,473
edited February 2010 in Road buying advice
I've had my eye on the Lapierre Xelius 700 for a while now and there is a review in a French cycling mag. My French isn't quite up to the more subtle points of the article, however...

Direct link to PDF here

Comments

  • TimB34
    TimB34 Posts: 316
    They like it :)

    The main text says that its stable, easy to pilot, not much road buzz.

    The summary on the last page says roughly this:
    It's ultra-sporty comportment and the quality of it's equipment make this a bicycle of choice for a racer or cyclosportive rider. Even if the latter of these will have every interest in fitting a compact chainset to attack the steepest climbs.
    On the level of sensations the sporting public can not be anything other than won over by this machine, for which the price is reasonable considering the level of equipment. This Xelius with SRAM Force could even overshadow the Xelius 900, which is equipped with Shimano Dura-Ace.
    One can always upgrade wheels to gain a bit in weight and in sensations. But, in our opinion, it's more tha saddle which could do with changing. The San Marco Ponza isn't a bad saddle in itself, but for doing longer rides at a decent speed (the vocation of this machine) it would be better to have a firmer one, such as is found on the Apside. Watch out as well for the tyres, which can be fragile in certain road conditions.. with that said, it's impossible to be disappointed with the Lapierre Xelius
  • Muztard
    Muztard Posts: 160
    neeb wrote:
    I've had my eye on the Lapierre Xelius 700 for a while now and there is a review in a French cycling mag. My French isn't quite up to the more subtle points of the article, however...

    Direct link to PDF here

    GoogleTranslate it's genius
    http://translate.google.com/#
  • neeb
    neeb Posts: 4,473
    TimB34 wrote:
    They like it :)

    The main text says that its stable, easy to pilot, not much road buzz.

    The summary on the last page says roughly this:
    It's ultra-sporty comportment and the quality of it's equipment make this a bicycle of choice for a racer or cyclosportive rider. Even if the latter of these will have every interest in fitting a compact chainset to attack the steepest climbs.
    On the level of sensations the sporting public can not be anything other than won over by this machine, for which the price is reasonable considering the level of equipment. This Xelius with SRAM Force could even overshadow the Xelius 900, which is equipped with Shimano Dura-Ace.
    One can always upgrade wheels to gain a bit in weight and in sensations. But, in our opinion, it's more tha saddle which could do with changing. The San Marco Ponza isn't a bad saddle in itself, but for doing longer rides at a decent speed (the vocation of this machine) it would be better to have a firmer one, such as is found on the Apside. Watch out as well for the tyres, which can be fragile in certain road conditions.. with that said, it's impossible to be disappointed with the Lapierre Xelius
    Brilliant, thanks!!

    Of course it is a French bike, so they might be biased...
    Muztard wrote:
    GoogleTranslate it's genius
    http://translate.google.com/#
    I thought of that, but it seems to be a graphical PDF (no text to copy). I even tried one of those freeware OCR programs but it was a little noisy...

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