New Tomac

kaiser

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Quite an interesting opener! Pushing alot of retro buttons, Tomac, Serotta/Saratoga, titanium....and On One. I reckon its a winner personally and I like the idea of these type of bikes just now, the Kinesis Tripster ATR being another. Surprised to read so many disparaging comments though.

Tomac-Serotta-Saratoga-frameworks-Montazuma-gravel-ti-bike20130918_0153.jpg


http://www.bikerumor.com/2013/09/25/ib1 ... montezuma/


Wonder if they will follow up with a MTB?
 
what wheel size is it? it's deore xt wheels which suggests 26 or 650, the article doesn't say.

so is it an RTB or a cross bike?
 
I'd guess that they wheels are 29er, its billed as a gravel road racer which is a bit of a do it all, geometry not as racy as CX, kinda like the CX bikes we now get here mind you. Whats a RTB?
 
RTB is an MTB with drop bars, stupidly it didn't occur to me that the xt wheels were 29er :facepalm:
 
what i will say though is i think they have the gearing wrong on that bike, like some other brands, the big boys are building cross bikes but fitting a compact chainset, it's the right bolt pattern but the wrong ring sizes in my opinion, the top should be smaller, most good cross racers that i know tend to run 44/45/46/48 rings for the top and 34 for the inner aswel as having the wide ratio block at the back , the off the shelf builds tend to have gears for a commuter, which i guess is what they are probably mostly used for but even a 50t x 11/12 rear end is over kill for most people for commuting.

overall though i like the look of it, also reading that it's US made is good as opposed to far east, also i like that brant richards is involved, i don't always like his stuff, meaning the cheap stuff, and usually i don't like the style of branding (meaning graphics etc) but i like that he's got a hand in it.
 
Thing is though its not a pure CX, again I'm filling in blanks myself here, but if it is a gravel road racer then somewhere approaching pure road is right enough. Whereas CX is a 1hr race in some mega gloop this is for open road racing 100-200 mile long races. Definitely alot of crossover though, I mentioned the Kinesis ATR which if you read the blurb will do road, tour, and if the notion takes cross, I see this as comparable with the gravel road moniker being attached to such bikes in the US.
 
jonnyboy666":bmv25kap said:
what i will say though is i think they have the gearing wrong on that bike, like some other brands, the big boys are building cross bikes but fitting a compact chainset, it's the right bolt pattern but the wrong ring sizes in my opinion, the top should be smaller, most good cross racers that i know tend to run 44/45/46/48 rings for the top and 34 for the inner aswel as having the wide ratio block at the back , the off the shelf builds tend to have gears for a commuter, which i guess is what they are probably mostly used for but even a 50t x 11/12 rear end is over kill for most people for commuting.

overall though i like the look of it, also reading that it's US made is good as opposed to far east, also i like that brant richards is involved, i don't always like his stuff, meaning the cheap stuff, and usually i don't like the style of branding (meaning graphics etc) but i like that he's got a hand in it.

Agree with everything you say! 50T x 11/12T with a light knobbly tire.....hell you must be fit to push that a long, and when on gravel that is completely pointless except for the rare occasion it's down hill with no corners and no walkers and no cars. Somewhere like Kansas perhaps ;-)

On my MASI CX Speciale the first mod I did was rip off the 34 / 50 compact for a 30/39/46 triple - can do more serious off-road, good chain-line in the frequently used middle gears, and the top-end is on a practical limit and actually get's used.
 
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