Schlitter Freestyle — First Impressions
Wow! This thing is fast. Even though I’ve started out “slow” and easy for my first few rides I still managed to set a lot of personal records.
Initial Observations
Weight
It’s A LOT lighter than my HPV Streetmachine. I haven’t done a final weigh-in yet, but it’s probably at least 20 pounds lighter. This is especially noticeable when trying to accelerate and when going up hills. Acceleration feels effortless and I’m able to maintain speed a lot longer when starting up a hill. Sometimes I’m able to get to the top of hills before slowing down much when I used to have to shift into my granny gear on the Streetmachine.
Seat Angle
I’m still dialing in the seat angle and position. I had initially made the seat angle about the same (probably slightly lower) than that of my Streetmachine. However, I didn’t compensate for the significant height difference in the bottom bracket (BB). I’ve been riding the Streetmachine with the seat reclined back as far as it goes (about 39º), but since the BB of the Streetmachine is much lower than the Freestyle that means I need to recline the seat on the Freestyle a lot more to keep the same overall leg-to-back angle that I had been riding with.
Long story short — I started with the seat angle way too high and have been progressively lowering it trying to find the right position. It took a few adjustments, but it’s now feeling really good.
Starting & Stopping
One of the great advantages of above-seat steering over the under-seat steering that I had on the Streetmachine is that I’m now able to do a “Flintstones Start”. In other words, I can hold onto the handlebars and run until I’ve got enough speed to lay back and start peddling. This works great for anything except starting uphill. Uphill is pretty much the same as the Streetmachine where you lay back on the seat, one foot on a pedal, and then “push and pray” to get going.
I’m very used to the “push and pray” start as that’s pretty much the only way to get started on the Streetmachine unless I’m starting on a downward slope. Another advantage that the Freestyle has here is that the seat height is low enough that I can have my entire left foot flat on the ground to stabilize myself. This is a welcome improvement over the Streetmachine where I was almost always on my tippy toe, which was far less stable.
Carbon vs. ErgoMesh Seat
I went with the Carbon seat + foam for the Freestyle and I really like how rigid it is compared with the ErgoMesh seat of the Streetmachine. It does take a little bit of ass positioning to get comfortable on the Carbon seat, but once I get set it’s pretty good.
I do somewhat miss the broad shoulder support of the ErgoMesh as it’s a much wider seat. But overall I’m quite happy with going with the Carbon seat.
Comfort
As the Freestyle has no suspension and I’ve been riding a full-suspension Streetmachine I was worried that it would be a very bumpy ride. I was pleasantly surprised as to how smooth the ride is on the Freestyle. Don’t get me wrong, the full-suspension on the Streetmachine is definitely a smoother ride, but the Freestyle is a lot less bumpy than I thought it would be.
I think that’s really down to the engineering design that John’s done with the frame geometry & placement of the seat posts. I’m quite impressed.
J-Bars Steering
Going from the under-seat steering of the Streetmachine to the J-Bars system feels a lot more “crowded”. I’m really used to having a wide open view with no obstructions, so that’s definitely an adjustment.
As for turning radius, the radius of the Streetmachine was severely limited as the handlebars would run into the sides of the ErgoMesh seat. So it wasn’t even possible to even attempt sharp turns on the Streetmachine. Right now the J-Bars are only limited by my fat legs and shaky balance. I feel like the more experience I have with the J-Bars the sharper I’ll be able to turn — I’ll have better balance and I’ll be able to position my legs so they don’t get in the way as much. So someday I should be able to turn much sharper on the Freestyle, but as of right now I can do a bit better than what was possible on the Streetmachine.
Speed
This thing is really fast. I’ve only barely scratched the surface of its potential at this point. It’s both a lot easier to get up to speed on the flats and an absolute speed demon downhill. I really haven’t “let her loose” yet on some of the steeper downhills around here. When I eventually do, there’s probably not going to be anyone that can catch me.
Theses Strava results pretty much say it all. The first one is on one of my “slower” rides as I was still getting used to the Freestyle while the other two are from a few days later on the same route as I was starting to push it a bit more.
Final Thoughts
I’m really happy with the Freestyle so far. I’m already riding a lot faster and am only scratching the surface of its potential. I’m going to have a lot of fun on this new Bentmobile.