BluesDawg

My new Cosmic Stallion was delivered yesterday to the shop where I work. I built it up in stock configuration and weighed it. Not a lightweight bike, but not bad for a steel bike at this level.

06 by Benny Watson, on Flickr

The fork came with an uncut steerer with room for up to 65mm of spacers in addition to the stem. I set it up with a 100mm 30 degree stem and 30mm of spacers and it fits me beatifully, very close to how my AWOL fit. A low rise stem would look beter, but that's life with a neck that won't bend much.

12 by Benny Watson, on Flickr

I've only had time for a couple of short rides on my home dirt road route. So far I'm very pleased with the ride, the handling and the fit. The stock gearing is not as low as I want, but it should improve when I change the crank to a 46/30. I also plan to change wheels, but I'll first have to get an 11 speed freehub for the DT 240 hub on my Roval Carbon wheels. I'll give a more detailed ride report once I get some good miles on the bike. So far, so good.

dd3 by Benny Watson, on Flickr

dd2 by Benny Watson, on Flickr

shoota 

Yeah not as light as I was expecting but not bad for a stock build. Those are some fairly heavy components I see there.

Mtbnomore

I am extremely close to pulling the trigger on this bike, and aside from the coin I'd have to shell out for it, the gold paint is what's holding me back. I'm already planning to downsize my stable by 3-4 bikes this fall, so that takes care of the price part, but that GOLD...I had an "old gold" Soma cross bike a few years back, and I was never crazy about the color.

What I really like about the bike, aside from the steel and whatnot, is the road gearing, lower BB, and 3 sets of bottle mounts. I find myself doing more road riding than anything these days, but having a bike that could fill that niche AND my gravel/cross bike slot is appealing to me.

Lazyass

Not bad for a frame that large. My size would be in the 22lb range. About in line with aluminum bikes.

shoota 

Then take a good long look here.

Flaanimal 3.0 adventure bike - Rodeo Adventure Labs, LLCRodeo Adventure Labs, LLC

BluesDawg

Here's a .

As for my own impressions, I'm liking the bike more each time I ride it. I find the ride and handling to be very comfortable and neutral. Not quick and snappy like a cross bike and not as sedate as my AWOL. The bike rides down fast gravel descents with confidence, holding its line, but responds to steering inputs to avoid limbs, rocks and potholes. I'm much happier with the gearing since I swapped the 50/34 stock crankset for the 46/30 of my Sugino OX601D, still combined with the stock 11-32 cassette.

I am still running the stock wheels and tires and have been fortunate enough to have had no flats with the tubed tires. I have been delayed in using my carbon Roval wheels until I change the freehub to a 11 speed version. I'll likely first go with the 650B dynamo hub wheels I just finished building once I get a pair of WTB Byway 650Bx47mm roadplus tires.

Here is the bike after riding the Red Clay Ramble last weekend. I'm thinking of getting a frame bag to fill that huge space between the top tube and the water bottles. I'm definitely planning to do some light bikepacking on this bike.

024 by Benny Watson, on Flickr

Lazyass

Man I like that bike.

ColonelSanders

Man, seeing this photo really makes me want to switch from oiling my chain to waxing my chain, ASAP.

BluesDawg

I use a wet lube, sparingly, and wipe my chain clean through a dry rag after most every ride. I've always found wax lubes to be too fussy.

ColonelSanders

The initial process to strip the chain of lube can be a bit of a chore, but after that is done, one can use a drip lube product like Squirt, if they don't want to heat up paraffin wax in a crockpot and dip the chain.


I had to take off the wheel on one of my bikes this morning and I just got black gunk all over my hand, so my desire to switch to wax is growing rapidly.

Kapusta

How are you liking the Cowbell bars?

BluesDawg

My go to gravel bar. I've been riding on Cowbells for 5 years on three different bikes.

Wspsux

my name is ssppaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace space horse!

BluesDawg

Today I rode my Cosmic Stallion (Bojack Horseman) with the new road plus wheels I built for it. WTB Frequency i23 650B rims with WTB Byway 650Bx47mm tires. I love the look and they rolled great. It will take more rides to fully assess how they compare to 700c wheels and tires, but the initial impression is good. FWIW, I had my second best times (out of 70) for two Strava segments along the way.


P1030675 by Benny Watson, on Flickr


P1030679 by Benny Watson, on Flickr


P1030680 by Benny Watson, on Flickr


P1030681 by Benny Watson, on Flickr


P1030682 by Benny Watson, on Flickr

ColonelSanders

It goes without saying that your bike looks great, but I am really impressed with those rims you have chosen.


The WTB Frequency rims are on my short list of top notch rims to use in a wheel build.

BluesDawg

I can say that they built up very easily (round and true) and they were super easy to set up tubeless with the WTB tires and 2 layers of WTB tape (same as Stan's). I pumped them up with a floor pump before adding sealant and they held air for a few hours before I added 2 oz. of Orange Seal Endurance and again pumped them up with a floor pump to 40psi which they held overnight. I ran them at 27.5 rear and 22.5 front on the ride and plan to try a bit lower.

shakey start

Any updates on the Stallion?
What about any issues with the component mix?

Hiro11

I love the design and paint job of this bike, but $2,600 for (admittedly nice) house brand steel, Rival and standard Novatec/WTB wheels? Seems a bit steep, especially when the regular Space Horse is available.

Metieval

yeah but that weight is on par with all the entry level gravel aluminum bikes, Jari, crossrip, renegade, GT grade, etc.... and you are steel.

For the Cosmic Stallion fans.... I'll drop this link here.

Bike Feature: All-City Cosmic Stallion + the Cantu Riot 650b Gravel Wheels-Cantu Cycling Wheels

jnrobinson95

My biggest issue with the stock components is the SRAM S-390 crankset. It uses a SRAM 4-bolt asymmetric 110 mm BCD bolt pattern which SRAM has so far only released 1x x-sync rings for.

Moreover, SRAM still hasn't listed the S-390 for sale anywhere or even acknowledged its existence outside of some frame fit spec sheets I found after googling furiously. I've also messaged them on Facebook about buying chainrings for it and they've been very cagey about it.

Basically, if you ever bash or wear out a ring on this crankset you are stuck buying a whole new crankset (from a different manufacturer most likely), which is pretty garbage.

Kapusta

I usually drool over this bike, but those are some seriously @$$ ugly rims.

Abe_Froman

Stupid bike stole my stage name

Koyote

Reading between the lines, that steel seems comparable to Reynolds 853, which is probably the best steel available in a bike frame.

Hiro11

As I said it's "admittedly nice" steel. The fact that it's house brand remains, though. Not that "house brand" matters at all from a practical perspective...

Koyote

It doesn't matter at all, since QBP/All City doesn't manufacture steel. The tubeset was probably made by Reynolds, True Temper, or one of the other companies. And it really doesn't matter which one.

To get steel of that quality with a nice full cf fork and the other components, $2600 is about right. Not a bargain, but not overpriced, either. You can find plenty of gravel bikes with cheaper steel frames (cro-moly or 725) and similar components for about $2k, and higher-quality steel just costs more. And take it from someone who owns both an 853 bike and a cro-moly bike: the former is better...Lighter and livelier, like me.