PJ said:After getting reaquainted with cycling by riding a recumbent for the
last few years, I am looking at purchasing a diamond frame bike to
complement my recumbent. Coming from a very comfortable recumbent, I
am looking for a bike that is very comfortable to ride for longer
rides (100-200 miles per day)and am looking at the Co-Motion NorWester
which seems to be a good balanced bike, with a relatively short top
tube,and long chainstays which appeal to me because I have long legs
and a short torso . I will not be doing any fully loaded touring nor
racing but want a good performing versatile bike. Any comments on the
Co-Motion or suggestions at other bikes to look at?
I own a NorWester with S&S couplers which I often drag along with
me when I travel. I use it for exercise and light touring when away,
for bad-weather riding at home, and for anything which requires carrying
a bigger load than is convenient on a racing bike. The NorWester has the
right braze-ons, mounting bolts and heel and toe clearances for fenders
and racks, and sufficient space for bigger tires.
The NorWester is a big, strong bike. At a lot of other bike companies it
would probably be called a loaded touring frame but since Co-motion also
sells a touring-extreme brute, the Americano, they call the NorWester
something else. It's a bit on the heavy side (massive steel front fork,
big rear triangle), and stiff and strong. For what I use it for (not much
load) it handles comfortably and feels very stable. While I'm a fairly
cautious descender I've ridden my NorWester at over 40 mph on downhills
without shimmying or other scary stuff. Mine is equipped with a vanilla
road bike Ultegra triple group, and I can report that with the longer
chainstays the triple drive train shifts and runs a lot cleaner than
has been my experience with it on racing geometry frames. I can't think
of anything negative about the bike other than the fact that you need to
have a fair amount of excess cash lying around to buy one.
As for comfort, it seems to me there's a couple of separate aspects to
this. With respect to the issue is how much road hash ends up at your
hands and butt, while this is a strong, stiff frame which is unlikely
to be real comfortable on 23 mm tires at high pressure, bigger tires
at lower pressures are the best way to smooth this out independent of
frame construction. The NorWester frame wants bigger tires. I use
700x28c tires on mine, at 90 psi if I'm not carrying anything, and they
make the bike ride smooth as silk.
The other part of being comfortable, however, that being how well the
bike fits you, is in my opinion a specific individual issue which isn't
possible to generalize. You are correct that the NorWester has a short
cockpit; not only is the top tube a bit short, but the slack seat tube
angle makes me push my seat forward to get my knees where I like them
with respect to the pedals, which puts me even closer to the steerer.
While I don't mind this, and have no trouble doing significant mileage
on the bike, I'd just note that I find my other bike, a Calfee, to be
more to my liking in terms of geometry (in fact the latter seems to suit
me better than any bike I've owned so far, something I wouldn't have
expected to be the case but discovered after I happened to take a test
ride). If I could only have one bike I'd keep the Co-motion, since it
is useful for more stuff, but I really like riding the other bike.
The Co-motion is a good, versatile bike, but if "Most Comfortable Bike"
is your primary goal then you might keep an open mind about what might
work best for you and actually ride as many bikes as you can before
buying something. What you find most comfortable might surprise you.
Dennis Ferguson
