Originally Posted by
rickyk76
How's that Niner treating you? Looks great!
I was going to ask the same thing of @
Marcus_Ti about his carver.
I'm really happy with it, both the build and how it rides. For an MTB company, Niner has made a really nice road bike. It handles like a road bike and responds best when ridden like a road bike. I say this because somehow along the way I got caught up in the "Do it all" or "Any road" hype pushed by manufacturers. Maybe the fact that Niner is an MTB company or maybe I looked at too many video's of guys running non suspension gravel bikes on singlegrack but I tried to take it on very rough trails and it doesn't work. I had to keep reminding myself that that the original goal was a fast gravel bike.
That's really what it is - a sporty endurance road bike which handles really well on gravel and is built tough like an MTB. It was ridden hard descending today and it bounces around in bumps, especially washboard on turns. Maybe it needs less air in the tires? After riding Di2 I don't want to go back to mechanical.
The Fabric Scoop saddle flexes up and down, feels really weird like a tire going flat at times. The flared bars are amazing and I don't know why every bike doesn't come with them.
The hardest part is not cleaning it meticulously when I get home. Putting it away dirty is really difficult.
-Tim-