948 Grams of Titanium： Litespeed Coll dels Reis Review

The bike I have today is something I think is really special. This is the Lightspeed Coaldale Race. It is the lightest titanium disc frame you can find, and it's also a bike I've been riding probably more than any other all summer long. I'm absolutely in love with it, and I'm gonna talk to you about why, but first, let's take it for a ride. So today's adventure, I'm on the Coaldale Race Lightspeed. It is the lightest titanium frame with disc brakes that you can buy. Apparently, there's probably some loophole in that, For all intents and purposes, it's the lightest. And I've actually ridden it a lot, but we're gonna do like an adventure ride on it today. Got about 67 miles. We're gonna coming out of Hood River and there's a little bit of gravel that James loves to throw at me. So we'll see how that goes. So we're on this little section where the road's closed. It's absolutely beautiful, it's gorgeous. But like I said, I have been riding this bike a lot, but then I took a little break. I've been on the Cervelo S5 quite a while and it's such a marked difference like it's exactly the whole point of this bike is that it just feels so much smoother more comfortable but it still feels racy it's still got like race bike geometry and that's what's great about it somehow whenever i'm with james i'm on ridiculous climbs so we have four miles of climbing but before i talk about the climbing let's talk about the descending because i actually got to descend a little bit first My god it's nice. It goes where you want it to go right when you tell it to go. But there's a little bit of flex in the frame and it just smooths out any mistakes you made in the turning or if the road surface is a little rough it's like It is heavenly. Just did another big descent and one thing that is just crazy to notice is this bike with round tubes and then it has the NV 2.3 climbing wheels and when I am riding with James also on his round tube moots it is crazy how much different there is when I'm on an aero bike. I'm normally on the descents. That's my moment to gain back a little of what I've lost on the climbs and it is so drastically different on this bike. He is crushing me on descents in the super tuck. You should do the climbing thing when we're climbing. No. Well, I already... No, sorry. James, stop telling me how to do these videos. So, here's the thing about the climbing on this bike. Yeah, it's extraordinary. This bike is ridiculously light, but It's just as good on a slightly heavier aero bike. The real thing about having a super light bike like this is not that it climbs so much faster, it's just that every time you touch it, it just feels so good. You pick it up, you move it around, you throw it left and right, it just feels amazing. And like other light bikes, this one feels amazing. We're gonna ask what you chose today, James, but I think it's fairly obvious. Just the Red Bull, or you have anything else? Ah, yeah. That's it. That's it. It's gonna be a rough ride back to the car. I've been pretty positive about this bike the whole time, and I make no apologies for that. It's crazy expensive, it's incredibly well-made, this bike is just a joy to ride. But, just in general, there is a drawback to How it's designed, the tie, the round tubes, that kind of thing. Right now, I'm headed into a pretty stiff headwind. And if I was on an aero bike, I could get down in the drop bars and I could just push. And there's something very magical to that. And you do miss that a little bit on a bike like this. You just have to decide if that's worth it. And I think it probably is for a lot of people, but it is there and you do notice it. The other time you might notice the tie as compared to a carbon bike is in a sprint. Now my sprint is not strong, 750 watts max, but if you have a strong sprint it's gonna just take that edge off of it ever so slightly. Is it gonna mean anything? Probably not, but if you really like That razor edge of stiffness, you're not quite going to get it. It's close. But not quite, so that's part of the magic, but you do have to understand it's a choice. Okay, so this whole day I've been talking about the positives and the negatives, the performance, and the little things with Ty, but there is another aspect to it. What do you think James? I think it's like buying into the craft of the bike. There's a little bit of soul there. Yeah, I definitely agree. When you show up to a group ride, and you're on a tie bike, whether it be Lightspeed or Moots or something else, it's just a different vibe than a carbon bike that three other people might have. That last bit where James and I are talking about the vibes of titanium, that's all well and good, but let's talk some real numbers here. What really sets this bike apart from anything else on the market is the weight, and that all starts with a 948 gram frame weight. Keep in mind though that while it's possible to hit that 948 gram number, most frames will be about 100 grams heavier. That's what happens when you add a UDH rear derailleur, a T47 threaded bottom bracket, And the titanium head badge. That's right, we're really counting grams here. You wanna get that 948 grams. It's also worth mentioning that there is a rider weight limit of 187 pounds. Here in the real world I have a bike that lacks UDH but it does carry the weight penalty of the threaded bottom bracket and the titanium head badge. I also had it built with stock geometry but if you prefer there's custom geometry available. I just happen to be near the middle of bell curve for any sizing on bikes so it didn't feel necessary to me. What I did customize was gearing and fit. This is a climbing bike, so I wanted climbing gears. I have the 46/33 SRAM RED power chainring, and then I have the 10-33 cassette on the back. During the course of building this bike, I was able to have a conversation with somebody where I got to talk through those desires, and that is an important part of getting a bike like this. As part of that conversation, I also chose to downsize the cockpit to the 110 by 38 that I prefer. That meant that the NV one-piece bar and stem wasn't available at the time, and so we made the decision to go forward with the two-piece setup. And then I chose to pair that with the NV 2.3 wheels because based on what Lightspeed offers with this bike, those are the wheels that make the most sense to me. At the end of it all, my ready to ride weight was 7.24 kilograms, or just under 16 pounds, and that's without pedals but otherwise ready to go. You can decide if you think that's ultra light or not, but if you want to go titanium and keep disc brakes, that's the lightest you can get. It's not a noodle though, and threading that needle of lightweight titanium and just the right stiffness, that's a really hard needle to thread. It takes real expertise. And that's really where this bike shines. I talked to lead engineer Brad Devaney about how the company managed to get the ride feel that they did, and what he pointed out was how very few of the tubes are actually round. The reason for that is that a straight round tube is optimized to resist twisting and is actually only moderate at resisting bending loads. Of course, that leaves out the fact that you could probably better resist bending if you used a thicker tube, but that's the point here. This bike uses shape to adjust how the bike responds to twisting and bending. Now I cover this in more detail in the written article, so check that out. But just as an example, the top tube in the center It's closer to round. And that's so that it bends there but it resists twisting. Then as you go out towards the edges of that tube, it switches to more of a faceted side and that will resist bending at a spot where the twisting is naturally resisted because of the connection to other tubes. Now you can see similar decisions in the down tube. That kind of shaping of course takes both expertise and capability. I would call it about as high tech as you can get in a metal frame. And you can also see some of that expertise in the aesthetics in this made-in-Tennessee frame. There's precision anodization, and then all the routing is internal care of the Enve InRoute system and Chris King components. Despite the high-tech nature though, this bike is obviously not as light as some of the ultralight carbon bikes that I've reviewed recently. Now I would argue you can't really feel that difference in weight, but it's also not as aero as whatever fancy aero bike you want to pick, and I do think you can feel the difference there. Oh, and for your troubles, the MSRP of this bike is $16,500. Which of course begs the question, why bother? The standard answer is some sort of magical titanium ride feel, but I'm not so sure about that. There is a really beautiful spring to titanium, and there's great small bump compliance, but you should be able to get that with carbon as well. Although it does seem to be difficult. The Athos tries to get there, and mostly does, but not quite. I always like to say that the light speed is what the Aethos wants to be when it grows up. And I actually talk about the light speed, or at least reference it, in my Aethos review when I talk about descending. That's because for me it's in the descending that you can really notice that ride feel. The geometry coupled with the engineered flex is a brilliant combination and you can definitely feel it. That answer isn't what I like to talk about though. A lot of modern race bikes will take the same 35 millimeter tires that this one will and those bigger tires can erase a lot of sins Instead, I want to direct you back to that point that James and I make at the end of our ride together. He talks about the soul of titanium, but the way that I like to think about it is more about what your bike says about you. This is an expensive bike, but there's lots of expensive bikes. And if you're shopping for a bike of this nature, then you have to choose. Do you want a high-tech carbon frame or do you want a metal frame? Now if you prefer a metal frame, well then the Colnago Race lets you choose a metal frame but still tell the story of lightweight performance. And that's why you're either going to want this bike or not.