Romax Ti: More Than I Need?
This is a short story about how I came to be the lucky owner of an amazing new 2014 Brodie Romax Ti. The story begins last year when I finally decided to give the old cyclocross racing a try. After watching a few races, it just looked like too much fun to not try!
So I bucked up and got me a sweet Romax aluminum in the wicked cool metallic purple colour. Spec'd just right with a good mix of 105 and Tiagra and Hayes disc brakes, I figured it would work great for me. And I was right! The bike for last season held up well, and ultimately it didn't hold me back.
I even managed to convince my wife, Isabelle, to get one too! She preferred the 2012 "Porsche-Gulf" blue though.
Ultimately the main use for the bike for me was as a rad commuter, and that it was! Sadly, was is the operative word as the life of my purple machine ended when I was cut off by a non-observant driver. Thankfully I was not injured, but the Romax Al was driven over, and crushed to an irreparable condition. I nearly cried. Actually, I'm pretty sure I did cry.
It was time to get ICBC involved, and figure out what bike to get next. Thankfully the former was relatively painless (remember to get all the other party's info. should this happen to you!) but the decision for me to upgrade or not was more difficult: did I need more bike?
After poking around on Brodie's website, over and over again, I kept coming back to the titanium version of my beloved Romax, all be it not purple. I was intrigued as I'd never ridden Ti.
Skipping the details of how it all worked out, I was lucky enough to come up with a way to make it happen!
The biggest challenge in assembly was finding a fork. Options for tapered steer tube, CX-disc brake forks are few, and availability in Canada even lesser, and don't expect to find one in stock anywhere either! Finally I settled on the Whisky No. 7: full carbon, good weight, looking good, and for a nice price too!
Seems I'm now officially an "old man", as my good buddy Terry says, as I'm now a titanium bike owner.
Stay tuned for some posts on how this puppy rides and races - I should be able to give a pretty good comparison to the Al version as this beauty is 99% the same with respect to parts spec.