A little follow up on the last post

In my last post I listed my "if my bike breaks" replacement ideas.  I made a comment about the SL4 Roubaix and never meeting my heroes.  Sure enough, the Specialized rep for our shop stopped by with his SL4 Expert frame.  It also had a pre-production Cobl Gobl-R seatpost.  So I just had to take it for a ride.

As I've stated too many times before, the Roubaix has never suited me.  I voiced my concern to the rep and he freely admitted that the Roubaix had taken a turn too many towards "comfort road bike" and away from "endurance road bike."  He said it was all cured with the SL4.  

Turn in was my major problem with Roubaixs.  Never enough.  The bike has always been surprisingly comfortable and was fine going uphill or on the flats, but downhill with turns or chucking it into a corner never gave me the line I wanted.  So when I hopped on the reps bike I was hoping it was going to be like he said and not like I expected.  

I should clear up that his bike is not the normal Expert level Roubaix.  The bike had the afore mentioned Cobl Gobl-R (Specialized really needs a new "naming" department) seatpost and it had Roval CLX 40 carbon clincher wheels.  More on this in a moment.

So, the ride.  The first thing I noticed was how much more the bike felt like a normal road bike.  It was still very comfortable but more road feel was felt than on any other Roubaix I've been on.  The second thing I noticed was that it turned.  Thank you God, it turned.  It still had a touch of the twitchiness that my Tarmac and Allez had, despite how much people will tell you that all the SL4 bikes have had that tuned out.  It could have been from the wheels.  I haven't spent enough time on the CLX 40's to know how they react to wind, so I'm more than willing to chalk to twitchy up to that.  I also think that some of the added road feel has to do with the wheels as well.  And, if I'm honest, The turn in could be a result of the wheels too.  Carbon wheels are much stiffer than box section alloy wheels and stiffer wheels helo a bike turn in better.  My CX bike was an absolute turd with the Shimano wheels on it.  Especially after the rim had cracked in 6 places.  With my 3 cross laced 32 spoke Hed/King wheels, the Guru turns very well.  It;s like a different bike.  

So my question isn;t exactly answered, but I'm optimistic.  I'm going to wait until we get a completely stock SL4 Roubaix in stock and test ride that.  Even if it rides fantastically well I have no plans of picking one up.  I love my R5.  It makes me smile every time I ride it.  It never hurts to day dream though.