Lapierre Xelius 900

I picked the Lapierre up from roadcc the day after my daughter's first birthday. There we were in the sitting room, her with her new toys, me with mine. I’m not sure who was the most excited. After each tweak of the saddle height or bars, lift the bike again – nope, nothing’s changed, still unfeasibly light – 6.6kg without pedals !!!

I almost didn’t want to take it for its first test ride, as people say, a bit like meeting one of your idols and finding it all a bit disappointing. I needn’t have worried. I settled on a quick 10 mile blast to make sure everything was tight and set up correctly before I rode it to work the next day. The first 2 miles or so warming up everything settles into place.

Yeah it's light, you can definitely feel that, no twitchy handling surprises or anything, nothing out of the ordinary to be honest. Then coming into a roundabout an artic is right on my back wheel, as we leave the roundabout he accelerates to overtake (not the most ideal of places to pass!) so I decide to have a bit of fun. I get out of the saddle and accelerate hard, I can hardly change gear quick enough as the bike takes off, within seconds I’m doing 35mph on the flat. The wagon doesn’t stand a chance. I see him again in half a mile as I ease into a lay-by to let him past as he catches me up. I now know what the Xelius 900 is all about – SPEED!!!

The Xelius 900 is the top of Lapierre’s road range. At the heart of the bike is the X-Lite II monocoque UD HM carbon frame, its tubes changing size and shape from start to finish enabling comfort in some planes with stiffness in others. At only 840g (medium) for the naked frame it truly is a remarkable piece of engineering. The uni-directional laying of the fibres is certainly noticeable in the ride, at club run pace the Lapierre is extremely comfortable without feeling soft but when you need to put the power down there is not a hint of flex anywhere, admittedly helped by a set of stiff wheels and components.

At first sight the frame design is reasonably reserved compared to a lot of bikes at this price, also with the quiet paint job you would probably walk straight past it in your local bike shop in amongst the bling Cervelos, Times and Looks. When you actually look at the frame though you can see it’s a very organic elegant piece of design while every tube profile is engineered for a purpose from the 1 1/8” – 1 ½” tapered headtube to the overbuilt bottom bracket area.

The best bits for me though are the chainstays, they narrow as they leave the BB to allow for the tyre and wheel and then swoop back in creating a lovely profile. Manufactured in Taiwan to Lapierre’s design and then assembled in their Dijon factory, each frame is built into a complete bike by one person from start to finish where they then sign their name to it so there should be no quality control issues. The only niggle I had with the frame was the internally routed rear brake cable that would buzz irritatingly against the inside of the top tube on rough road surfaces.

Ritchey supplies the all carbon fork, which sells for around £300 as an aftermarket item, it's a top performer which ties in perfectly with the Lapierre's frame. Its monocoque design including dropouts (with an alloy surface added to protect the clamping area) tips the scales at 300g. There is no lateral flex even at high cornering speeds but with just enough fore and aft to take the road buzz out before it makes its way to the handlebars.

The steam and seat post are also from the Ritchey's WCS range, but both in aluminium rather than carbon. While it seems odd to see an aluminium seatpost on a bike these days Lapierre wanted the stem and post to match, considering the alloy WCS stem is slightly stiffer than the carbon version that’s the direction that was taken. The alloy post doesn’t detract from the ride at all and with the frame set up to take the sting out of the road vibrations anyway there is no loss of comfort, even at Ø31.6mm.

Handlebars are, you guessed it,  by Ritchey too but this time they are from the Carbon SuperLogic range. These, like the frame and fork, are also of monocoque construction using uni-directional laying up of the fibres. Tipping the scales at just under 200g there is very little flex even with my 80kg yanking them from side to side. With an rrp close to £300 (I have found them for half this on the internet) you certainly aren’t going to want to crash but they do give such a sublime ride and excellent feedback they are a worthy extravagance.

Selle San Marco provide the saddle, the Ponza. After a hundred or so miles to break it in it becomes a very comfortable perch even on a day when I put in nearly 7 hours on it. It reminded me very much of my all time favourite in terms of light and comfort, the SLR. Finished in white with a black stripe it complements the white bar tape to bring a touch of bling to the Xelius, especially as white seems to be the new black for 2010.

As you'd expect the groupset is out of the top drawer too, Shimano Dura Ace 7900 components throughout. The shifting was precise right from the start and never went out of line in the 700 miles of testing. The mix of matt finish with machined areas looks smart and brings Dura Ace bang up to date in line with the looks of Campag and SRAM’s top end groupsets. Both shifters provide a very light action, even changing gear under load and the hoods give a very comfortable perch for your hands.

Now that Shimano routes the cables along the bars a la Campag the aesthetics at the front of the bike are greatly improved. The chain, cassette and rear mech all worked smoothly and quietly with a bit of creaking coming from the crank after 500 miles but this would be sorted by your LBS at your 6 week service. Braking wise the callipers served up excellent modulation and great stopping power in the dry. Wet weather braking wasn’t very good but I’d expect that to change as the rims bedded in as the mileage increases.

Dura Ace takes care of the wheels too, the 7850 carbon laminate model. The rims are aluminium but only 0.5mm thick, (apart from the braking surface) carbon fibre is added around the spoke holes for strength and then a carbon layer is added to increase rigidity over the entire wheel. Bladed straight pull stainless steel spokes, 16 front, 20 rear keep everything true. The nipples have been moved back to the rim as opposed to the hub as on earlier models and this makes truing much easier.

The aluminium hubs ran silky smooth with no friction felt at all even straight out of the box. I had a slight issue with trueness in the rear wheel as it lost tension in a couple of spokes on the second ride. I managed to tweak things but a few days later the wheel went a good 15mm out of true and had to be trued by a bike shop to enable me to get home. Once that had been done though there were no more problems, again one of those things that would be sorted out under warranty so no major cause for concern. These rims are also designed to run with tubeless tyres, Hutchinson Atom in this case, which handled very well. They felt just like tubs to ride as there was hardly any rolling resistance whatsoever. Grip was second to none wet or dry and they seemed to offer good resistance to cuts as there was not a mark on them when I gave the bike back.

All this adds up to a great package. The handling is precise no matter what speed you are doing, I touched 52mph on one descent and not once did the Xelius feel out of control. Everything from the tyres through to the handlebars gives so much feedback that you always know exactly what the bike is up to. In traffic the steering is super quick which easily gets you out of trouble just being able to flick around obstacles in your way. The whole bike is perfectly balanced as well, I’ve never been able to track stand as easily or for as long as I could on the Lapierre.

Verdict

£4600 is a huge amount to spend on a bike but if you bought the Lapierre you wouldn't be disappointed. You'll never get bored of the acceleration and its a joy to climb on, its also both stiff and comfortable which is no mean feat. All in it's an exceptional piece of design and engineering and does justify its pro level price tag.