 She's a bit of a random morning in noose this morning. Beautiful sunny morning and all of a sudden it just started hammering down with rain. But you'll see I'm dressed today in my full blown criteria mount fit. I've got my Aero helmet on, I've got my Knights of Suburbia jersey, and I've got my crit pig companion, my LA sprint road bike underneath me. You can hear it purring. You'll love that sound. Essentially what I wanted to do in this video, it's a bit of a sad day. You see, I'm going to be selling this crit pig companion and I'll explain what a crit pig is shortly. Reason being, many of my subscribers will know I recently built another road bike, the Chapter 2 Rare Ray. And that's a crit pig bike as well essentially. So there's no point in having two machines built for criterion racing when, you know, there's been one criterion in my local area in the last couple of months. So to pay tribute to the LA sprint and what I've done with this road bike, what I wanted to do, I know there's been a lot of talk online recently about the LA sprint and its credentials is a criterion road bike. Peter Sagan recently raced it at the Tour Down Under. I wanted to give you my thoughts on this machine as a crit pig companion. So I've just rocked up at the Geroen Sports Complex here in Noosa. I've got a purpose built criterion track and I'll get the drone footages overlay as I'm speaking. And what I'm going to do here is I'm going to do some efforts. And then after those efforts, I'm going to roll around and talk to you about two factors when it comes to the LA sprint road bike. Now, if you want a full review on this bike, I've done that, I'll link to that below. So it's not going to be a full sit down comprehensive review, but the factors that I'm going to talk to you about is number one, it's performance credentials in a criterion. Is it good enough? And then number two is a crash factor. I think when you think about racing your bike, road racing, time trial, criteria, criteria are the highest risk of crashing. And I think it's an important factor to consider when you are investing your own money into a criterion bike. But before we do those two things, I talked about this being my crypt pig companion before and I need to explain to you all what a crypt pig is. Now, the crypt pig, the term originated out of Melbourne, one of the best criteria scenes in the world. And I don't think anyone's really collaborated in the past about, okay, what exactly is a crypt pig? We all sort of talk about it. We think we know what it is. And last night on Instagram and over WhatsApp, we've come up with a definition of a crypt pig, because it's not online and I'm going to submit this to Urban Dictionary. I want to thank Cal Douglas and also Woosler, Dale Wurnton and Tommy Nankervs for helping me validate this. So I'm just going to read this out to you now. A criterion pig is a little heavier than a roadie and may smell a little funny from time to time. They're always desperate to race their bikes, rolling around in a pigsty. They call their criterion track. When push comes to shove with little white envelopes awaiting, they get ready to drop a shoulder and open their snouts while putting their curly tails in the air to go for the win. So that is a crypt pig. Very poetic, Cullen, well done. A few little tweaks added there by Woosler and then validated by Tommy Nankervs, but I think that's outstanding. And in order to be a crypt pig, you see I turned into a bit of a crypt pig. Before I left Melbourne, I was sniffing out races left, right and center. I was going there to try and win. I was training like a crypt pig, et cetera. I needed a companion and originally that was going to be the chapter two rear-ray, but in the end it ended up being my LA sprint for the vast majority of races. And it became my crypt pig companion. So let's roll around now and talk about the LA sprint for criteria racing. Okay, so I've just finished my efforts. I'm not going to roll around the track and talk to you about the bike because there's just too much sun out there and I'm getting the lens. I wanted to thank Jeff, one of the channel supporters for suggesting some different types of efforts I could do in the comments section in one of my previous videos. I've actually incorporated those. And for those of you who have just landed on the channel, this is where I do cycling videos, both inspirational and entertaining and I love cycling product reviews, notably nice road bikes. So if that sounds up your alley and you enjoyed this video, consider supporting the channel by subscribing below. So quickly what's on this bike? Obviously I've got the LA sprint frame. I've got these MV6.7 tubulars. They're not actually mine. I borrowed them off a mate about 18 months ago. I never gave them back. I promised to sell them at the end of a criterion season a year and a half ago or something. And I never did. So he's gonna finally get his money back when I saw this. We've, I've got a SRAM red crank. This is actually from an old bike and a quark power meter in here. And I've got 105 gearing on the rest of the bike. So you can see what 105 here, 105 up there, and obviously 105 levers and an alloy handlebar system. So that's pretty much the complete bike. And this bike's performance credentials. I think first of all, when we talk about criterion, even before we talk about performance, it's important to talk about aesthetics because you don't want to be rocking up to criterium's riding a giant defy. It just doesn't look good. You're not going to look hip and cool. And that's a very important factor when racing criteriums. And this bike right here, my friends, is it's a pretty good looking road bike. In terms of its performance credentials for criterion racing, it's an aggressive proposition. So the stack from here to here up to there, which enables the rider to get higher or lower, this is more aggressive than the tarmac and more aggressive than the vinge. So you can get super aerodynamic on this road bike. And if you look at some of the tube shapes, the seat post here, or the seat post up here, I should say, and the seat tube, they're both aero. In fact, the seat post here is taken from the specialized vinge and the seat stays, which are dropped also aerodynamic. Having said that, when I take these MV6.7s off and put on some training wheels, it doesn't really feel like an aero proposition. Unlike, say, I recently reviewed the Felt AR or I'm currently riding the Chapter 2 aero. When you take off the aero wheels and put on some heavy wheels, it still feels like an aerodynamic race machine, whereas this doesn't. It's really dependent on having some solid wheels on it to go super quick. The front end, I should probably mention as well, the fork outside of the fact that it's got this graffiti, it's actually taken from the specialized tarmac. Now, this is an SL5 fork, the current LA Sprints, exactly the same frame, except you can now get them in disc and it's got the SL6 fork. Now, in terms of its weight, I weighed this recently at a dealer here in Noosa and the bike weighed about eight kilograms, just under. Now, if I compare that to the specialized S-Works Vinge, this has got about 500 grams on it and if I compare that to, say, a tarmac, SL6, it's got almost a kilo. So, if you're riding quick courses with a hill, you're definitely gonna notice the extra weight, you're gonna have to push out more watts and you're gonna fatigue yourself in a race. On a flat course, not so much. Now, out of the saddle cornering, it gets a big tick. It's very stiff, it's got this, they call it DeLuzio smart world technology in the frame and that, according to Specialized, makes it a more compliant, stiff ride and certainly I feel that. Now, having said that, it is a little bit harsh. Aluminium is known to be a harsher material than, say, carbon fiber and also titanium and even still in some cases and you're gonna fatigue yourself but in a one hour crit, doesn't matter so much, I don't think so. If you're riding 150Ks on this thing, you're definitely gonna notice the fatigue in the neck and shoulders and in the lower back. So, the one issue that I have with this bike when it comes to performance in criteria in racing, yes, it's a little bit heavier that's not the main issue that I have. When you're racing, criteria is particularly A grade, you're constantly out of the saddle, you're getting back on the wheel, there are a lot of attacks, it's relentless. If I think about Glenvale, the first 20, 25 minutes, it's like taking an Uzi to your legs, it really is relentless attacks and this bike right here, because it's a little heavier and in my opinion, Aluminium in the bottom bracket here, it's less responsive. When I put the power through the crank, the bike responds, but it doesn't respond like, say the chapter two rare, it doesn't respond like a Venge, it doesn't respond like a Tarmac and I feel like as a result of that, you're having to work a little bit harder to get back on the wheel and at the end of an hour, you've got a little bit more fatigue in your legs than say you would with a carbon fiber race bike. Now for me, it's not a biggie because I'm not out of the saddle sprinting at the end of a criteria. I'm more, I'll try and go off the front and win that way. So those, that little bit of extra wattage that I need to put out to get back on the wheel, when I consider the crash factor, which I'll talk about second, isn't a big factor for me, but for some, I think it may be. Okay, so I've just wrapped up my training session with a 10 minute effort in the big ring on rollers. I'm absolutely cooked. So to wrap up this video, I wanted to talk about the crash factor. I think it's a massive consideration when you're racing criteriums. When you're purchasing a bike, investing in a criterium bike, yes, you wanna know about performance, which I've just talked about, but you also wanna know, okay, am I okay to go race this thing in a criterium? Am I okay to risk coming off on this thing more so than say riding down the beach or riding in a road race, et cetera? Now the thing about this bike right here, the frame cost me $1,500 AUD, okay? Now build it up and we've put some nice second-hand wheels on, so really complete build with considering purchasing these wheels in a second-hand state. You'd be talking just under $5,000 AUD. Now some of those other bikes that I've mentioned in today's video, and other ones people may wanna race with, say like the Cervelo S5 or the Specialized Venge, BMC Time Machine, et cetera, they're three times more expensive than this bike right here. So if you come off on those things and you crush them, you're gonna be bloody upset. In fact, I've crashed in a criterium, came off at about 55Ks an hour on a Specialized S-Works tarmac or the SL5 model, but I was bloody upset. I remember coming off half-concast, cut some bruises everywhere. The first thing I did was assess my bike even though I could barely stand. So despite the fact that performance-wise, it's not at the level of some of those bikes that I've mentioned, it's not far off. And if you crash this thing, you're not gonna be overly upset. You'll be a bit disappointed, but you're not gonna be crying. So I think to summarize, this bike really is the ultimate crit pig companion.