After the dinner discussion ended, Du Wei had originally wanted to pay for the meal, but Zhou Ming refused, so he did not insist.
The three then returned to the bike shop, where Liu Chaoyang had more or less finished assembling the new bike.
Li Zifan, who was used to downhill mountain bikes, took the SL8 out for a test ride on the street. His first impression was that it was light.
First of all, road bikes themselves were very light.
The Specialized Bora Team edition S-Works SL8 weighed only around 7 kg when fully built. (UCI regulations stipulated that race bikes could not weigh less than 6.8 kg.)
It was fundamentally different from the nearly 20-kilogram downhill mountain bikes he had at home, such as Santa Cruz, Yeti, Trek, and the like.
Secondly, its pedaling efficiency and gear ratios were vastly different.
Because full-suspension mountain bikes had both front forks and rear shocks, even when locked out, they still absorbed some of the rider's pedaling force.
On a road bike, however, every burst of force from the pedals translated directly into speed.
As for gear ratios, downhill mountain bikes currently mainly used 1x12 single-chainring setups, while road bikes had larger ratios even when using the small chainring.
As a result, the two were simply incomparable when it came to producing speed.
Road bike riding posture also required the upper body to crouch down as much as possible to drastically reduce wind resistance, whereas mountain biking was mainly done in a standing posture. This also created a huge difference in riding speed.
It could be said that although road bikes and mountain bikes were both bicycles, they offered two completely different kinds of riding pleasure.
After taking a lap around the block, Li Zifan remarked, "No wonder there are more