Kuota Kiral

Took it out for a good hard welsh mountain ride yesterday, it was a very interesting ride.

Firstly i had to get used to using manual gears again ! and those first ride adjustments to the cable tension, i didn't ride on carbon rims as its a bit to steep on most of the descents and i am from experience aware of braking issues as in melted rims, so put my AC Argent wheels on which a have to add are excellent.

position wish its much higher by 40mm at the front end compared to my burls frame which was actually nice ,because we all slam the stems but at the sake of my 44 year old back. no back issue to report over 40 hilly miles .

the back end does a good job of smoothing out the crappy roads , i would say better than my titanium frame , but thats what its designed to do. the big suprises were the bb is solid and massive, i am a short but strong(72kg) build so have to sprint over small hills and its solid under pressure.

best of all though is the descending , its amazing , normally i would touch the bike every now and then but didn't at all on a 8km descent which is 5-6% , planted and solid front and back

only problem is now , i dont want to go back titanium even though that is one of the best bikes i have ridden.

FransJacques wrote:

Nice bike, read an article in a French mag about these. They said it rode quite stiff and racey.

Love the socks on the rad, looks like my place. And the bottle - growing some nice bacterial in there?

Please tell us more about the wheel fixing, that sounds ballsy! Did you heat it up under tension? (i.e. spoked)

Rode this bike a couple of times now as its a second bike and it holds speed well , in fact i thought i was riding slower than i was but looked at speed and it holds 30k all day , stiff yes, racey not so , had oltre that was racey. we have a descent near me called dark ark lane and it's dark(due to over hanging trees) steep and the road surface is S**T. i seems to grip the road and at the same time iron out the lumpy bits much the same as the new synapse has been described , did my PR by 15% on this bike.

these are clincher rims ,as a said only use them now on 'very' flat routes . ie no hard braking.
Got to the bottom of monte baldo last year 6500ft rims were fine. went out 2 days later up the other side of lake garda up a climb which average 15% to 3000ft , hardest i have ever ridden and i admit to stopping a few times.
came down , it was so steep i felt like i was going over the bars hence hard braking front and back. got to bottom back wheel had melted .

one week into my two week holiday so needed the wheels , got a hair dryer reheated the rim (resin) and bent back to position holding with long nose mole grips set to rim width , it worked to a fashion in italy enough to get me back out .

came home and refined process (wifes heat gun for crafting) and they were straight , sorted wheel truness. sanded of rim and they are useable to a limit .


o

bulid spec as below , its not DA its ultegra 6800 , i have da & ultegra on my burls. yes it is a force 22 chainset works fine with shimano 11 do not believe the hype, also i run the carbons with chorus 11 speed as they were 10speed shimano or 11 campy so put my campy freehub on and works fine with ultegra,campy and sram go figure ! reason for force chainset is its a bb386 and sram fits.

kuota kiral f & f
American classic argent or wheelsmith carbon 38mm
ultremo or mech pro 4 tyres
force 22 chainset
time expresso 4 clips
dura ace chain
dura ace 11 cassette or chorus 11 on wheelsmiths
selle slr flow saddle
fizik tape
ritchey wcs 240 stem
ritchey wcs euro bars 42cm
ultegra 11 calipers
ultegra 11 shifters
ultegra 11 frt mech
ultegra 11 rear mech