Review: NeilPryde Alize

NeilPryde Alize

For those who read my blog regularly will know that at the end of 2010 I became a NeilPryde Epic rider. What this meant was I could choose which NeilPryde bike to ride – Diablo or Alize – and then spend the next 12 months riding it, with the purpose of writing about it for the NeilPryde website. So for the past eight months I have been riding the Diablo and have loved every minute of it. An extremely stiff and aggressive bike that keeps wanting more from its rider.

At the start of last week, I took my Diablo in for a service at the local bike shop. Unfortunately I don’t have the specific tools required by Shimano to service its products, otherwise I would have completed the service myself. I had a ride on Sunday so six-days would be more than enough to get it serviced. Well, so I thought. Turns out they hadn’t even started on the service yet.

Not worrying too much about it as I have my Basso at home that I could ride, I let it be. So on Friday I was exchanging a few emails with Scott, the UK agent for NeilPryde, and we were talking about the weekend’s upcoming ride. I told him about the situation to which Scott then suggested I ride the Alize. Jumping at the chance to ride it we arranged to meet up the following day.

Jens Voigt – what legends are made of

Jens Voigt descends the Peyresourde Pass on a loaner bike after a crash shattered his own (Robin Wilmott)

On stage 16 of this year’s Tour de France, Jens Voigt showed us what legends are made of. About 2km’s into the descent of Peyresourde Pass, he blew his front tyre and he went down.  This crashed almost forced him out of the Tour for a second year in a row.

To make matters worse, the first team car was behind Andy Schleck, and the second had decided to go up ahead to hand out water bottles at the foot of the next climb. As a result Jens had no bike as his was shattered from the front wheel blow out.

According to Jens:

So then the broom wagon pulled up and was like, “Do you want to just get in?” And I said, “Oh no, I don’t need YOU!” But there I am with blood spurting out my left elbow and no bike. Finally, the race organizers got me a bike, but it was this little yellow junior bike. It was way too small for me and even had old-fashioned toe-clip pedals. But that is the only way I could get down the mountain, so I had to ride it for like 15-20 kilometers until I finally got to a team car with my bike.

Then, I still had to get up to the grupetto. All I can say is that that desperate times need desperate measures, but I got up there. And once I did it was grupetto all day long.

Needless to say, I had plenty of time to come up with a fitting book of the day. It’s from the Disk World series by Terry Pratchett. In it, the protagonist is Conan the Barbarian, who is a 70-year-old who has just survived everything. At one point he, and his other old warrior friends capture this village, but then they find that they are surrounded by an army of tens of thousands, and his only reaction is, “Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!” And that’s the way I was today when I was lying on the ground. I just thought, “Oh no, I’m going to Paris this year, I’m going to Paris. There’s just no way you are going to get me out of this race for the second year in a row!”

This just goes to show what a legend the man is becoming! No matter what bike he was riding, no matter what his circumstances were, he decided not to give up. You have to admire that?!

The coolest looking cycling frame in the world! IMHO

Ascend from Delta 7 Sports

This has got be the coolest frame I have seen yet. And yes peeps – you can see through the woven sections of the frame.

According to Bikeradar.com, this is the world’s first road bike frame constructed from carbon fibre and Kevlar crafted into the patented IsoTruss open lattice tube design, which has just been launched by Delta 7 Sports.

Ascend Road Frame

Now for the technically minded of you out there – IsoTruss is a culmination of single carbon fibre strands mechanically weaved around metal rods to create the open lattice structure, which is then wrapped in Kevlar and baked at 225°F for four hours. To finish, the ends are machined and joined with moulded carbon fibre lugs.

According to Delta 7 Sports, the Ascend comes with a lifetime warranty on its visually stunning frame. One small problem though, they are only making a limited number of frames. So, if you want to be one of the few to own one of these machines, get yourself over to Delta 7 Sports and hand over your $1,000 deposit to secure your frame.

So what do you think of the frame? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this.