Salsa Vaya adds spice to cycling life

30Oct10

Riding the Kennet and Avon Canal on a Salsa Vaya

The Orange Clockwork is one of my all-time favourite bikes. (I know it’s not the bike in the photo, but bear with me.) I owned one when I was a teenager, paid for by working Thursday nights and Sunday mornings in Sainsbury’s.

You have to push a lot of trolleys and stack a hill of baked beans to pay for decent bike, and I was immensely proud of the Orange. Because it was my only bike, it did a bit of everything. I thrashed it around the local roads and trails. I took it for a week’s mountain biking in Chamonix, a present for passing my A-levels (thanks mum and dad). I fitted slicks and rode my first ever 100-miler. It was a hoot to ride off-road, surprisingly quick on it, and comfortable everywhere.

I got back into mountain biking a couple of years ago, after years as a disciple of the ‘dark side’ as our fat-tyred friends call road riding. Choosing a bike was baffling. In the ’90s, a mountain bike was a mountain bike. You didn’t have to decide if you were into cross country, downhilling, trail riding, free riding, 4X or any other sub-genre. You just bought a bike and rode what was in front of you.

I’ve got a full-suspension Trek, and great fun it is, too. But compared with my old Orange it’s a squidgy mess to ride on tarmac, and five inches of travel is five inches more than you really need on a towpath or bridleway. Recently I’ve been hankering after a bike like the Clockwork that could go just about anywhere and never feel out of place.

There are lots of bridleways just off some of my regular road loops, and I keep wondering where they go. I want to try touring next year, too. Above all I want a bike which can do just about anything, and still come back for more.

Taking a breather on the Circuit of Kent

The Salsa Vaya is that bike. (See, I got there in the end.) Salsa describes it as a road adventure bike. I think it’s a tourer for people who drink tequila instead of real ale.

I borrowed the Vaya to ride along the Kennet and Avon Canal for Cycling Plus. Before heading down west I took it out on local roads, and turned off down one of the bridleways I’ve been meaning to explore. For the next 20 minutes I was completely lost just a few miles from home. It was brilliant. On a mountain bike the riding would have been easy, almost boring. On the Salsa, with no suspension and touring tyres, it needed concentration. Instead of going through the motions on one of my usual training loops I’d discovered a whole new route, and loved every second.

Big tyres = all-day comfort

The next weekend I used the Vaya to ride the Circuit of Kent sportive with my dad. The big 38c tyres are overkill for most road riding, but combine them with a forgiving steel frame and fork, a saddle which could have been moulded from my arse cheeks and an upright but well balanced riding position and you have one of the most comfortable bike I have ever ridden.

It’s quicker than you might think, too. Pump the Continental Tour Ride tyres up to 60PSI or so and the bike rolls along at a healthy pace. It takes longer to get there than a lighter bike, but once wound up to speed it’s easy enough to hold a respectable average. With a change to lighter, narrower rubber it would give little away to an audax bike.

Your average audax machine won’t come with disc brakes, though. Like the fat tyres they might seem overkill but they shed speed reliably in all weathers. The cable-operated discs don’t quite have the bite of a really good hydraulic set up but they’re not far off.

The Circuit of Kent’s final climb was tough, but the Vaya’s hardest test was the Kennet and Avon ride. Riding 90 miles or so into a constant headwind isn’t easy. Nor is expecting a bike to switch from a rough towpath to smoother tarmac and back again, and eat up both at speed.

I can’t think of another bike which I’d rather have ridden. A cyclocross racer would have been quicker, but wouldn’t have given the same upright, bad-back-friendly riding position. A conventional tourer might have as comfortable, but wouldn’t have stopped with disc-braked authority every time I pulled on the brake lever. It wouldn’t have looked so damn cool, either.

In spite of the headwind, the Kennet and Avon ride was one of the most enjoyable days I have spent on a bike in a long time.

It might seem like I’m getting carried away with this bike, but I know it’s not perfect. For proper loaded touring a triple chainset would be better than the double fitted to the Vaya, even with a mountain bike cassette on the back. And while the bike has something in common with disc-braked cross bikes like the Genesis Croix de Fer, it’s too heavy to easily double as cyclocross racer. The sloping frame might give the bike an appealing 29er-with-drop-bars look, but a level top tube would make shouldering the bike easier. The shifters and front derailleur are Shimano Tiagra, with an LX derailleur at the rear. It all works well enough, but isn’t that special on a bike costing £1350.

None of that stops me wanting one. The Salsa is now up with the Orange on my list of favourite bikes.

I did, and I did.

Filed under: Monkey do, Monkey say   |  9 Comments
Tags: canal, Circuit of Kent, circuit of kent 2010, cycling, kennet and avon, review, salsa, Salsa Vaya, salsa vaya review, touring