Thoughts After My La Cruz Honeymoon...

Saturday's Maiden Voyage: A break in the deep-freeze conditions we've been having brought out a great crew of almost 20 for Saturday's ride. We got a solid 50 miler in heading south and west from town on gravel before turning our backs to the wind and flying back into Lincoln on A street. It might have been the best, most trouble-free maiden voyage I've ever had on a new bike. I only had to stop to adjust the saddle once, and that was it!

Sweet Stem: The painted-to-match CroMoto stems only come on the complete Salsa bikes. This one looks so cool, and has already generated enough positive comments from people that it makes me wonder how many Salsa would sell if they'd offer the color as an aftermarket item??? Do I hear a need for a "stem color of the season" program? Yeah, that'd be sweet!!!

Don't let the sun hit those Delgado 29er Race rims wrong. They'll blind ya'. 25mm width makes even 34c 'cross tires look pretty substantial. Laced up to XT 756 6-bolt disc hubs with butted spokes and brass nipples for strong, fuss-free, good rolling wheels. I particularly like how smooth XT hubs roll once they are broken in. The bearing races are much better quality than the lower line hubs, and I'm strongly considering trying out ceramic balls in the hubs just for shits and giggles, because they're what all the "pros" are using. Even if I don't though, these wheels will likely roll smoothly with zero or little maintenance for just about forever.

What's really sweet is that nothing in the wheelset is anything spectacular, or that'll call attention to itself on a ride. It's just good, get it done sort of stuff that works, is reliable and isn't too expensive to replace. Right on.

The view from the front: Salsa's designers have a firm grasp on how to build a great handling 'cross bike, yet the stability of the frame is the quality that makes it such a perfect partner on extended gravel road excursions. My first two rides on the bike were 50 and 44 miles, respectively, and I was immediately comfortable enough on the bike to ride hands-off the bars long enough to take a jacket off and stash it in a jersey pocket.

The frame is packed with cool little details that you might not immediately notice, like threaded barrel adjusters on the downtube for both deraileurs, so you can adjust your shifting on the fly, fender mounts on the seatstay and chainstay bridge, so you can mount a fender in about two minutes flat, a reinforced headtube to prevent ovalization when you get a little too radical... not that you'd ever do that, of course. And neither would I. But it's nice to know it's there in case you do.

The steel fork is another little gem in today's world of carpet fiber this and tweaktanium that. Not that I'm anti-technology, mind you. It's just that this here steel fork on the La Cruz proves that, while yeah, it's a little heavier than perhaps the lightest carbon uber-fork, it's got it goin' on as far as ride quality goes. That's no jokin' either. It's sweet. Super sweet. I've ridden some steel forks recently that I was waaaaay less a fan of than this one. It's not that just making it out of steel makes it blessed, you have to design it right and build it well to give it the special ride quality that makes me say things like I just said about the La Cruz fork.

It just might be the best steel fork I've ever ridden, but I'll save that judgement for later, after I've ridden it on a wider variety of stuff. As of today I'll say it's got a big old load of promise, and I intend to find out if it's the real deal.

Wonderful Welds: Sweet beads don't get much sweeter than this. Tight, clean welds are the rule throughout the frame. Salsa's clearly got their production machine running very well right now. The quality of the frames they're producing today is absolutely stunning. Everything from welds, to the paint, to the panels and lettering is cleaner, classier... better on the '08 bikes. Impressive, very impressive.

Clearance Clarence: Roger, Roger -- plenty of mud clearance, so you can easily fit up to a 44c WTB MutanoRaptor into those slim steel chainstays. There's one of those aforementioned fender mounts too, so when it rains, fenders are easy to mount up.

All in the family: If this was green, it seems like this could be a picture of my El Mariachi mountain bike, and in reality, there are quite a few details of the La Cruz that remind me of the El Mariachi. I kind of think of the La Cruz as somewhat of an "El Mariachi Light," if you will.

No, I don't advocate you ride the La Cruz like you ride your 29-inch mountain bike, but that said, I do believe that you can ride a La Cruz harder and faster off-road than you can, for example, a Chili Con Crosso with a True Temper Alpha Q CX carbon fork on it and road wheels with 32c 'cross tires. Even with 'cross tires mounted up, the La Cruz still has a tougher, "Bring It On" sort of feel that certainly encourages you to seek out more entertaining lines. It's a willing partner in shenanigans, you could say...

That's a lot of gears: I realize now that, when you have a 10-speed cassette, you end up shifting a lot! My mountain bike wired brain feels like a 10-speed 12-25 spread has really closely spaced ratios, which makes rowing the box the order of the day. I'm not sure that's totally my style, but I'm pretty sure a 12-27 is the widest spread available in a Shimano 10-speed cassette, so it's hardly worth buying a whole new cassette simply to gain two extra teeth. Crap... Maybe I need to ditch this stuff on Ebay and go back to 9-speed? I'm not sure what I'll end up doing, because this 10-speed Shimano 105 drivetrain shifts super smooth, and the dual-control shifters have a big, ergonomic hood design that is easy to hold onto for hours on end. The 9-speed dual-control design doesn't have the same super-ergo design. There was definitely an ergonomic evolution between nine- and ten-speed groupsets.

Bummers of the weekend are above: I got my first wipeout out of the way on today's ride. Hit some black ice in a corner and went down hard, scraping up both shifters and my rear der, and ripping holes in lots of clothes. Luckily the only hole in my body was a small strawberry on my knee. Gotta' be careful out there!!

The middle picture is probably the most expensive bummer of the weekend. I didn't look at the crank length when I built the bike up, or even through the first ride, but I could tell within the first ten miles of its maiden voyage that something was not quite right. Turns out it was about 2.5mm from being quite right. I could really tell on the climbs too. It felt like I had about ten percent less climbing power than I normally have. It's amazing the difference just a couple of little millimeters in crank length make in the leverage you have on climbs...

So, I guess I'm now in the market for a 175mm crank. The good news for anyone who might be considering a complete La Cruz is that the stock production bike should have a 175mm crank. The bike I got is a pre-production sample, and some of the parts are not exact production spec. As I've come to find out, the crank length was one of the items that was/is not production spec. Oh well. I've been wanting to try a Shimano R700 compact crank for a while now, so I guess this is as good a time as any to do that.

Aside from my little issue with the crankset, I'm 100-percent stoked with the La Cruz. It's actually exceeded my expectations for how it would ride and perform, and that's no small feat. No, it's not as light as my Chili Con Crosso, so I suppose as an ultimate 'cross racing machine, it's not probably the first choice, but for an all arounder, or a first-class adventure bike, or a steed to straddle for your weekend randonneuring epics, I think you could definitely do a lot worse.

Salsa leaves Retail pricing up to its individual dealers, but you'll typically find the La Cruz at most bike shops for around $1700, which is a great deal for the bike you're getting, in my opinion. Learn more about the La Cruz at the Salsa Cycles Website.