For the past few months my personal bikes have been all but completely neglected in favor of the Salsa La Cruz. The shiny orange steel sings a siren song, calling me to ride. The clearance for big, fat, go-anywhere tires makes the bike so versatile I don’t even need to think about what the day’s ride will bring—I know I’ll be able to handle it.

For example, the other day I woke up and rode the La Cruz in to work. The commute across town is about nine miles, and mostly on well-maintained roads. When I get close to work I’ve got the option to take the back streets through a rough neighborhood, cut through a debris riddled construction zone, or duck into the park with some tall curbs to hop. No matter which way I go, the La Cruz is fast and dependable enough to handle it.

On the way home my coworker—who happens to have bought his own La Cruz after seeing mine—asks me to show him an alternate route home. So we head out on a route that’s about 16 miles with 1200 feet of climbing. We catch a roadie sleeping on River Avenue and pass him like we’re on a breakaway from the peleton. He catches us a half mile later, but his 23mm tires can’t hang with the off-road section of the bike path. We carry on and cross the bridge back into the urban jungle. A 500 vertical foot climb comes next, followed by a sweet descent into my part of town. We climb out of the valley and my coworker heads home while I dip into Frick Park for a little taste of singletrack. I leave the park and breeze past a mountain biker on the hillclimb. He catches up to me at a stoplight and marvels at my bike’s disc brakes, “Can you ride it off-road?”

“I just came from Frick Park,” I reply with a smile. Then I cross the street, hop a curb and cut across the grass in Mellon Park. Back on the beat-up pavement of East Liberty Blvd, I’m not worried at all about the potholes. I bunnyhop the small ones, carve around the deep ones and boost little airs off the city’s attempts at patching the roadway.

One of the best things about the La Cruz is the wheelset. Although big tires will keep you safe in a lot of situations, tough hoops are still necessary for aggressive riding. When you stuff the front wheel into the square edge of a curb or let the rear wheel drop into an eight-inch-deep pothole, you’ll be glad the La Cruz comes with 29” mountain bike wheels. Of course the wheels are fairly heavy, contributing to the bike’s 25 pound combined weight, but I personally don’t mind at all. Salsa’s house-brand rims are tough as nails, and the Shimano XT hubs are built to last and easily serviceable.

Speaking of Shimano, I can’t really say enough about how nice the 105 shifters have performed. I’ve barely made any adjustments for cable stretch, yet they shift as nice as the day I set the bike up. The 105 levers are very comfortable and the action is noticeably crisper than the entry-level Tiagra shifters on my road bike.

One of my only gripes with the La Cruz is with the front disc brake cable routing. Sure, it looks clean on the showroom floor, but the housing starts rubbing the paint off the headtube in relatively short order. And I don’t believe it’s because the paint isn’t durable. In fact, the paint seems to be pretty bombproof, as it’s not showing any signs of wear anywhere else.

Also, I’ve noticed that my heels tend to clip the chainstays every now and again. I find it to be most pronounced when I wear my carbon soled mountain bike shoes (with armored heelcup), and not so much when I’m riding in my soft leather commuter shoes. My coworker says he’s experienced the same thing from time to time, and he rides in skate shoes with toe cages.

Of course neither of these criticisms keep me from riding the La Cruz every chance I get. Unfortunately, my last complaint does. The La Cruz is a rolling thief magnet. It’s not much of an issue for recreational riding or suburban commuting, but it’s a major factor for most urban cyclists. As much as I would have liked to have taken it to NYC for the Bicycle Film Festival, I opted for a much lower profile bike instead. The same holds true for whenever I head out for a night on the town here in Pittsburgh. The sweet paintjob and disc brakes are enough to tickle a common crook’s fancy, let alone a professional bike thief. It might be nice if Salsa offered a second paint option—perhaps gunmetal gray or drab green—for life in the inner city.

On the other hand, I guess you can’t blame Salsa for makin’ it look good.

Visit www.salsacycles.com for more information.

This entry was posted by Urban Jeff on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Product Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.