Important specs:
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Price RRP $4,699.00 Available from $2,399.00 |
Firstly I need to qualify this review by pointing out that I had been off the bike for approximately 5 weeks due to an overuse knee injury. Instead of being sensible during the time off the bike by keeping fit doing other activities, I was just lazy. I over-ate and did very little exercise. I had only done 4 rides before I got on the Azzurri so was still a little out of shape.
When the warehouse man come to my desk and said, "there's a couple of pushies down stairs, I guess they're for you" I was a pretty excited man, I had been waiting several days for these.
We had two bikes arrive; the Forza Di2 pro and a Mezzo 90.
I really liked the look of the Forza, a nice matte black with stylish decals (also comes in a gloss black). Looks are a personal preference, and my preference is black and understated so this suited me perfectly.
We grabbed the boxes and ran upstairs. Within 20 – 25 mins two of us had the two bikes built and were doing some fine tuning and heading down to the car park to test ride and make some more adjustments.
Putting together the Forza was fairly simple and didn't take much mechanical knowledge. This was the first time I had played with Di2 so my main concern was tuning the gears. This was unwarranted as they were tuned up and ready to go. I put the battery on charge for about 30min just in case.
The only mistake I made putting the bike together was when I put the handle bars on, I had the Di2 battery indicator over the top of the stem not underneath, so I had to take the bars off and then put them back on when I had the battery indicator on correctly. (I didn't read the instructions at any stage... If I had I would have known this, but where's the fun in that?).
Notes from putting it together: Cycling Express did a very good job of packaging the bike, the only slightly technical thing we had to do was attach the front brake cable and then adjust the brake. You will need a pair of cable cutters to cut the cable to the correct length.
Coming in at 7.4kg (16.3 pounds) the Forza is a little heavier than I am used to, and I knew that I would feel the weight difference due to my lack of fitness.
The first 30 or so km (18.5 Miles) were a little awkward but that is to be expected with any new / different bike. But I adjusted very quickly.
I would make a small suggestion, don't go out after your Strava PBs when you have had several weeks off the bike and are riding a new bike. You will blow up very quickly.
In total I rode 310km (195miles) and climbed 1,935m (6,345 feet) so in that distance I gave the bike enough of a work out to feel comfortable on it.
As mentioned before, I did feel the weight extra weight coming from my old bike. I like to pretend that I am a climber and I did struggle on a few of the climbs with the weight. The Ultegra group set comes in at 2.6kg (5.7 pounds). This is where the weight was added.
I am in two minds about the Ultegra Di2 groupset... Shifting performance was amazing, I was completely impressed. It was quick and smooth, even when I put it under a lot of pressure changing up gears while mashing up a hill, it still provided a perfect shift. However, the additional weight is the compromise you have to make.
The handling of the bike was very impressive. Once I was comfortable on it I was more than happy to attack tight technical sections of road and push really hard through tight corners. I was happy to descend hard and break as late as I could. When needed, the bike answered any questions I threw at it with ease.
The carbon monocoque frame is stiff but still compliant, giving it a comfortable and responsive ride.
I would put it in the road / sport category it is comfortable, but not as responsive and twitchy as an aggressive racing bike.
Unfortunately I did run in to a few issues with the bike though...
I didn't get on with the Pro Logo Nago OEM saddle at all. I gave it about 100km then gave up and put my trusty Specialized Troupe on and this made the ride a lot more comfortable.
At around the 150km mark a spoke nipple un-threaded and the spoke fell out giving me a buckled rear wheel. Having the same size Ultegra cassette on my bike, I just chucked on my own wheel on and kept riding.
After later inspection of the Reynolds Solitude wheel, what had happened was that two spokes on the drive side had completely come undone. Every other spoke on the drive side was finger tight or looser and the wheel was about to collapse!
With one of the spokes that had come off, it had actually pulled out of the thread of the nipple and the nipple needed replacing.
I will be honest to say I did find this fairly concerning as I was putting a bike through it paces while the rear wheel was literally falling to pieces.
Another small but frustrating issue was that one of the bar end plugs kept falling out every time I lightly brushed it. Several times I turned around and went and picked it up, until on one ride I got home and it wasn't there any more.
Over all I felt that the bike was good value for money; it is fairly impressive to get a carbon frame with Ultegra Di2 at that price. The issues I faced were not directly related to the bike itself and are fairly easy to overcome.
The Azzurri Forza is only avaiable online through Cycling Express. If you are considering purchasing a bicycle online I would highly recommend that you arrange for a local bike store to do a saftey check to ensure the bike is in a rideable condition before you take it out on the road.
If I were to purchase this bike I would make the below changes:
Upgrade the wheelset. I didn't like the Reynolds Solitude wheels at all. Apart from the issues with the spokes falling out, having a better quality wheelset makes the riding experience much more enjoyable.
I would also upgrade the saddle. This is totally a personal preference. I am fairly fussy about having a comfortable saddle for obvious reasons: Sore Bums Suck.
Below are my ratings out of 10:
Value for money - 7
Ride-ability - 6.5
Looks - 8
Many thanks to Cycling Express for providing the bike for us to review.
** Edit, In regards to the weight of the Forza, My personal bike is 5 years old so a price comprasion is not relevant. The Forza's weight range sits right in the middle of the pack for a carbon bike of this price.
