Paul Petch

Salsa Fargo – first impressions

Ready to roll

After a crash course of bar tape fitting (bless the interwebs) the Fargo is now ridable and looks great with a real retro feel due to the addition of the Charge seat and tape. I’ve ridden the Salsa Fargo every day with panniers since it “entered the building“  to work and it feels FAST, elegant and simply chews up the road – even with the stock mountain bike tread. I’m sure that the larger 29er wheels help with the feeling that the bike rides itself….as it simply loves to cruise. Taking a closer look at the frame set, the welds are tight and smooth with a really tough looking and well finished paint job too. The headtube is not as flush against the headset as one would expect on a handmade frame, but this was also the case on a $4300 Lynskey Titanium frame so is common place it seems when things are “handmade”. Will it effect performance? I doubt it…..and to be honest I’m not that fussed.

Anyway, last weekend I threw on a pair of Specialized Aramillo tyres with a 700c x 28 that are “skinny as hell” to not only help speed up the daily commute, but to also get me out on to some climbs (nomnomnom). Once I managed to actually read the direction that the tyres rolled, after fitting them of course (doh!) I took the Fargo ‘skinny’ up Dyers Pass into Sumner on the Porthills here in Christchurch. With no real goal in mind, sun shining and a serious lack of nutrition I put in an honest 60km or so. Put simply, I absolutely love the Salsa Fargo and it loves me :D I had a blast riding up and around to Sumner and I’d nearly forgotten what a climb was being winter (and mostly running these days)-  so what a way to get some sunshine and put in some KM’s. Awesome. The frame being CroMo felt super comfy too on the hard road, and much more stable compared to a Giant TCR racer that I rode some years ago. As for the braking……the Avid cable disks worked a bloody treat :D

Being a new ride, there are of course a few things that I’m keen to fix up and “dial in.” Some are just personal preferences and others are annoyances. Anyhow, after a few weeks of riding the Salsa Fargo, these are my humble thoughts.

Shifting/ bar combo

Shifting and bar setup on the Salsa Fargo is not your typical affair when it comes to a 29er or mountain bike setup. One thing that concerned me from the first ride is Salsa’s Moto Ace Bell Lap bar style and the retro bar end shifters. It’s not that they don’t work,  it’s more that they both just plain “get in the way”. Initial reservations aside I’ve given them a fair go over the past weeks so how are they?

First impressions are that shifting works well, is precise and are quite natural when riding – which actually surprised me to be honest. Infact, I’d go as far to say I like them alot. I’ve never ridden this style of shifting before and they have not missed a shift so far and being a passionate SRAM advocate- I’m kinda eating some humble pie. Apparently, the reasoning for such an odd shifter choice is that changing gears can still be achieved when wearing thick winter cloves or mittens. This makes total sense when you are plugging the KM’s away with no care for rapid gear changes doesn’t it? I’m not sure about off road though where gear changing and choice can be alot more varied.

Another positive of the retro “friction” shift is that the way that the mid – derailleur moves….in that you can manually position it rather than the typical “clunk” into place. Why is this good? Well it allows the full range of gears without the front end rubbing! If you hear a bit of chain rub….then adjust it slightly. Fixed….hoorah!

So what about the Salsa Moto Ace Bell Lap bars? I’ve tried to love them, I really have but their design is plain odd. Their width is also minimal with a shape that makes no sense to me at all. Combined with the shifters they are stupidly long on the drop….so long infact that they pass my knees! I’m positive that this “oddity”  is due to the “hobbit like” size of the frame and stem combo…..but it’s just plain dangerous and a silly setup to ship with a small frame. Oddly, when I get on and off the bike my knees/ legs even make contact with the shifters, or if I turn the bars a few inches my legs literally get “trapped” in against the top tube. I’ve even come a cropper a few times at traffic lights while track standing……with only 3″ of turn on the bars before “trapping”….. basically these things are bloody fatal.

The length and “swoop” of the bars combined with the shifters also means that top tube contact will happen if you swing/ turn the bars….which makes me sweat with nervousness just sitting here typing. I was taking images yesterday for example and lent it up against a a tree….. it moved slightly….so did the bars….and there was a clunk. I can only imagine the result in a proper fall when the bike is fully loaded with 30+ KG of gear….or an off road stack where the bike goes one way and I go the other! How silly is this design Salsa?

Rotating the bars forward/ backwards and adjusting the stack height has helped a bit- but the shifters will still hit the top tube in a spin and the bars feel even more “strange” tipped forward. I’ve seen a lot of Fargo owners online wrap bar tape around the point of frame contact to provide “damage control” in case of a bar+ top tube incident…..but I’m still not convinced that this would stop serious damage. I’m not usually bothered about bike dings/ use/ wear and tear…..as it adds character…but this is just an accident waiting to happen…..and when it does I’ll hate myself knowing that I knew that it would happen. So it will have to change, and I’ve opted to try a OneOne Midge bar setup (as seen on j001′s flicker) with the current brake shifter setup. So watch this space, but one thing’s for sure though…..I won’t be riding off road until I get the cockpit sorted…..as it will end in tears! (after emailing OnOne – stocks are low for the Midge bars and won’t be back in stock until mid July……bummer :( )

Basically, this combo of low long drop bars and end shifters on the Fargo seems highly inappropriate for any type of “dirt time” where any sort of technical riding is required…and is maybe suited to larger frame setups? Salsa, if you are reading this post- you may want to revise your smaller bike setups with a more appropriate bar, especially when you consider how much effort has gone into the frame design to ensure the correct fit!

Other observations

Screaming down the road on the weekend at about 70km I was happy with the confidence that the Avid BB7 gave. The modulation on these brakes is bloody perfect at speed, and I’m confident that when the bike is fully loaded with gear, they will stop the bike too.

The Salsa 29er Semi Disc rims and XT hubs seem to be strong and spin true after a week of riding. Doing the “grab a hand of spokes test” though shows some loose spokes out of the factory that will need ot be fixed up when the bike goes in for its first service. No sweat. Weight wise, this wheelset is porky to say the least with the rear weighing in at over 2KG alone!! Thankfully, I was not looking for a ultralight race bike or roadie when I eyed the Fargo, and strength and longevity when carrying gear is my aim. Even so, they could be lighter.

The Salsa Shaft post does a perfect job in holding the seat firmly in place, but I’m not keen on the layback at all. Currently I’ve pushed the seat forward to compensate such an excessive layback and I’m keen to swap it for a inline post ASAP. I wonder if Salsa do an inline version because the adjustability of this post is really cool and takes just a minute to setup. Genius.

Talking of seats, the Charge Spoon saddle is really comfy and fits my arse perfectly-even minus a chamois and with work gear attire on my daily commute. I wish I could say the same for the Charge U-bend bar tape….because it’s like having nothing on the bars at all….totally bloody pointless. When the OneOne Midge bars arrive, I’ll be sure to wrap them with a more appropriate and comfortable tape and maybe a few coverings…..as my hands hurt real bad using this tape. Ok I admit it…I fell for fashion over function…again….*shakes fists at air*. Ahem.

Even though the rear disk position is a clever approach to keeping the calipers out of the way of rear panniers, the bolts to setup the disks are in a very tricky place to reach indeed. An arrival of the bike I checked it over and did the “customary bolt tightening” and found a decent frame mark/ paint chip on the rear stay from an allen key accompanied with a smoothed out bolt. Clearly, who ever had built this bike did not take their time or enough care did they? None of my tools fitted into this spot with ease, but it was obvious instantly that a different approach to this area of the bike was required, and with some patience, care and thought I managed to do the job correctly without taking chunks out of the frame. Maybe Salsa should ship an allen key that specifically fits into this tricky spot, or even a sticker to alert careless bike mechanics that it is an unusual spot to work on?

Early days

The Fargo has many guises that’s for sure and it’s early days. I’m really keen to take it off road as well as some epic tours but still have to get the cockpit and “reach” setup correctly. Thankfully, such niggles are easily fixed and not to much hassle. Once I get it fixed up and the bike dialed in, I’ll post up some more thoughts, but already it’s clear that this bike is a roadie, mountain bike, cyclo cross, commuter, tourer and companion. I love the Salsa Fargo already :)

Let the adventures begin!

Related posts:

1. Salsa Fargo has entered the building…
2. Salsa Fargo 800km update & first review
3. Salsa La Cruz Cyclocross vs Salsa Fargo monstercross :)
4. Say hello to my Salsa Fargo adventure touring bike
5. Salsa Fargo update & the first off road ride!

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 20th, 2009 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Bike & Gear Reviews and tagged with adventure, fargo, Gear and Reviews, rigid, salsa, touring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.