Here is my Surge RF10 from Light Cycling. Size 56. Shimano Di2 105 Groupset, Toccay Aero60 Wheels, Magene TEO 515 PM, EXS Aerover 38/140 cockpit
TLDR-The bike feels more premium than the price suggest. Fit and finish is good. Light Cycling forgot to include my seatpost. So now my bike is offline until the seat post arrives. In late October
The GoodEverything was packaged very well upon delivery. Inside of the frame was exceptionally smooth with no sharp edges anywhere. Routing all the cables was easy. The T47 BB threads and both caliper mounts were cleanly sanded given the price point. No issues installing my bottom bracket or aligning the calipers. Building up the bike was a pleasure.
Light Cycling made the intelligent decision to design the RF10 frame around the FSA/ACR headset standard. So finding a cockpit or stem to internally route the cables was easy. Overall the paint job of the frame is solid. No obviously signs of low budget slop.
The BadDuring the frameset transit, Light Cycling warned me ahead of time that they forgot to include the Di2 battery mount and rubber seat post cover. And that they were shipping those small parts out ASAP. No big deal. However upon opening the box, they also forgot to include the seat post. Yes...the actual seat post was missing
. So now they have to send me yet another separate shipment for the seat post.
My RantThankfully I randomly had a spare Tarmac SL8 seat post. Light Cycling said the genuine SL8 seat post should fit for obvious reasons. In real world practice however the fit is very suboptimal. Even with masking tape shimmed around the seat post, extra grip paste, and going slightly above the torque spec (8Nm versus 6.2Nm) I still have slippage.
The Chinese holiday is approaching. That means my seat post won't be shipped out for at least 1.5 weeks. Which subsequently also means I won't have it in hand until end of October, early November. Right in time for when it gets cold here and the outdoor riding season is basically finished. Light Cycling asked me to be very transparent with my critique since they are looking for tangible feedback. Obviously I didn't pay for the frame as a YouTuber.
My minor frustration is two fold: 1. One of Light Cycling's primary selling points is they want to go above and beyond the common headaches of dealing with Chinese brands in this price range. So I cannot for the life of me understand how a factory/brand could forget packaging the seatpost. I almost chuckle thinking about the irony here. 2. Even the supplied seatpost on my TanTan X68 from last year had very similar seatpost slipping issues. So I don't have a lot of confidence that my problem will be resolved even when my missing seat post eventually arrives.
The Bike ItselfPlease take this with a grain of salt. I only managed a 2 hour ride so far on a windy day here in Chicago. A couple of sprints and few out of the saddle manuevers thrown in, but mainly steady endurance race.
My initial impression - The bike as a whole feels closer to a premium Chinese brand than a budget means to an end. Surprisingly solid. I test so many bikes that I can usually immediately tell within 20 minutes whether or not a bike is good or bad. This is also why I've pretty much stopped reviewing $500-$700 frames - All of them tend to have glaring issues.
I am happy to report nothing sloppy, creaky, or flexy on the RF10 like my TanTan X68. And not aggressively stiff like a Winspace T1600 or VB AeroTrace 368. Apples to oranges yes LoL
My
size 56 frame came in around
960g. The complete bike w/ pedals, cages, PM, and Wahoo mount is
7.1kg all in.
The Surge RF10 feels quite comfortable. There is a great balance between stiffness and lightweight that you can feel when putting power down out of the saddle. I can already tell so far that this will be a really fun bike to ride. Stable in the crosswind too. You really notice how light and maneuverable this bike is. Good job Light Cycling.
Final Thoughts For NowI am still working on filming the actual video. And I really do need to spend A LOT more time riding this before I can get even close to finalizing my opinions on it. Ripping some all out sprints, 30mph/50kph group rides, rolling terrain. In person I love the paint job. But I do not love the abundance of nonsensical decals and their font choice. It screams: "Chinese brand with no budget for a Western marketing/branding consultant." But I understand for advertising purposes why brands rarely allow me to choose decal-less frames when exchanging for review.
Super bummed about the seat post debacle. I was hoping to ride this bike for a 100mi/160km effort this weekend. This is where all of my bikes get put to their real world test. But I neither have the time or patience to dick around troubleshooting a problem that truthfully should not exist. Only a few more weeks remaining of GOOD cycling weather. And I have other projects to prioritize. So basically this bike will be offline until the new seat post arrives.
