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See the full review RIDE #75
– volume 1, 2017
RIDE #75 bike tests:
• Ridley
• Canyon
• Scott
• Orbea
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The forth of the five bikes on test in RIDE Cycling Review #75 is the Orbea Orca.
Tested by Luke Davison, this bike was a fine solution for a former racer who has severe back pain… the world champion (from the team pursuit) spent many years bent over his bike in an extreme aero position but these days he’s riding his bike(s) rather than racing. And the Orbea put him in a position that helped him manage the pain.
“I want to be low enough to be out of the wind but would prefer not to be stretched down into race position for any longer than I have to be,” write Davison in the review in #RIDE75 (p.188). “When the pace is on, I’m able to get into the drops, bend the elbows, and push on.
“On the Orca, it was possible to find the happy medium: low when I wanted to be, high when it was necessary.”
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Orbea has a custom paint program called ‘My-O’ which allows you to select your own colours and even add a request for your name to be added to the frame prior to it being shipped. Turn-around time for Australian customers is approximately six weeks. And the best news is that, at this level of the Orbea range, there is no extra charge for the customisation!
Make that a compact, please… 50/34 for the chainrings on the Orca.
One of the big trends for new-generation bikes is seat post fastening system refinement. Seat clamps are so 2016: these days is all about integrating it into the frame. Orbea’s system is neat, easy to access and we had no issues with slippage.
During the build, we stripped the supplied bar tape and reapplied the test bike with a colour-matched offering from ‘Xtrm’.
Vision wheels are part of the spec on a bike that retails for $6,899.
The free hub on the Vision wheels was something that our mechanic was impressed with…
There are adaptors at work here: “Pressfit 30 is used on the Orbea with step down adaptors from FSA slimming down the bearings to work with the Shimano 24 spindle…”
The port on the down tube is in place if you opt for mechanical shifting but this bike came supplied with Di2 (Ultegra) and the wire entry point is just below the brake cable on the other side of the bike…
Vision wheels and Vittoria Open Corsa Competition G+ tyres.
Here you can see the neat cable entry points for the rear brake and derailleur wiring…
There was minimal movement on the flex test jig.
– Photos by Shane Lovejoy
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