rochrunner
Well-Known Member
- Region
- USA
- City
- Rochester Hills MI
I dropped by a local Trek store just wanting to look at an Allant and found that they had just received their first shipment and put together the first 8s. I hadn't been planning on a test ride, but it was an unseasonably warm day for late November and they made the offer, so I took it. Before riding it, I confirmed that the bike I might have been more interested in -- the DualSport+ -- is not being offered for 2020, but maybe an Allant 7s with the suspension fork might be an alternative. The 8s of course has a solid fork, but I could at least get a feel for it.
The ride itself was OK and as a Class 3 bike it certainly has the power to scoot right along, but overall I felt the riding position to be more upright than I'm used to and still felt like I was too close over the front wheel (short wheelbase, maybe?). To be fair, the bike they had was a size Medium where I would normally ride a Large, so the seatpost was pretty much maxed out for my riding position. Even with the solid fork, riding on the bumpy side streets with those big street tires at 40psi it was smooth, but would not do on some of the rough dirt roads that I sometimes like to use out where I live.
Other than just being too much of a "commuter bike" in the way it's equipped, I saw two showstoppers that would be hard to fix. One is the rack, which is designed strictly for panniers instead of the rack bags that I'd rather use, and there are no front rack mount points to make replacing it easy (I don't like seatpost-mounted racks). The other issue is that the standard display is rather small and minimal in functionality and you pretty much have to mount your smartphone on the bars to get much functionality. Sorry, I just don't want to do this for several reasons (and I hope there's a way to plug the phone in to charge it while riding).
So in summary, while it's a great-looking bike and would be quite suitable if I were to use it mainly around town for running errands and sticking to bike lanes and multi-use paths, I want something that is better suited for multi-surface riding and rougher terrain.
The ride itself was OK and as a Class 3 bike it certainly has the power to scoot right along, but overall I felt the riding position to be more upright than I'm used to and still felt like I was too close over the front wheel (short wheelbase, maybe?). To be fair, the bike they had was a size Medium where I would normally ride a Large, so the seatpost was pretty much maxed out for my riding position. Even with the solid fork, riding on the bumpy side streets with those big street tires at 40psi it was smooth, but would not do on some of the rough dirt roads that I sometimes like to use out where I live.
Other than just being too much of a "commuter bike" in the way it's equipped, I saw two showstoppers that would be hard to fix. One is the rack, which is designed strictly for panniers instead of the rack bags that I'd rather use, and there are no front rack mount points to make replacing it easy (I don't like seatpost-mounted racks). The other issue is that the standard display is rather small and minimal in functionality and you pretty much have to mount your smartphone on the bars to get much functionality. Sorry, I just don't want to do this for several reasons (and I hope there's a way to plug the phone in to charge it while riding).
So in summary, while it's a great-looking bike and would be quite suitable if I were to use it mainly around town for running errands and sticking to bike lanes and multi-use paths, I want something that is better suited for multi-surface riding and rougher terrain.
