PURE Greed-SL 2012 Review by Ivan Tay

PURE Greed-SL 2012
‘Stiff and Light without compromising comfort’   

First and foremost, I would like to thank Conticomponents Asia Pte Ltd and PUREBikes Asia for sponsoring the Bicycle.

The PURE Greed-SL came at a light 880g for the frame. The oversized bottom bracket and tapered headtube definitely made the bike look more beautiful above its intended purposes. The internal cable routing made the bike more aerodynamic and neat.

My virgin ride on the bike was with the Expo group and immediately I felt that it was amazing. Initially i was already prepared to suffer after as I have not been doing group rides for a long time. For the first ride, I was able to stay near the front especially during the climbs which was promising for a first ride.

Though the reach is slightly further than my previous setup, I quickly adjusted to the geometry and soon it felt very comfortable. With the PURE Greed-SL,  I felt that it incredibly responsive and it was much easier to react to surges in a peloton. The acceleration of the bike is really quick due to the stiffness of the frame. Although the frame is stiff, the rides over bumpy terrain felt really comfortable due to the additional T800 composite used in the rear stay. Comparing to other bikes I had previously used ( Soul Truth / Giant TCR Composite ) there was minimal vibrations which could cause numbness in fingers during rides.

The first race on the bike was OCBC Cycle Singapore 2012, 59km Super Challenge. The race started really fast with many turns within the first kilometer. The handling of the bike was tested here and it definitely exceeded expectations. The peloton was going relatively easy most of the race with the occasional surges where the PURE Greed-SL responded perfectly. Climbing up Benjamin Shear’s bridge was the longest climb during the race. I was able to stay at the front due to the efficiency of the entire ride. Every pedal stroke brought force to the wheels and was not wasted through excessive flexing. In addition the maximum speed achieved going down Benjamin Shears Bridge was 68.8km/h, the bike felt stable even at such high speeds! I came in 20th place in mens open category with a time of 1hr 33mins for 62 km. I would definitely look forward for better results on this bike.

Overall I feel that the bike is indeed worth the price. The performance of the PURE Greed-SL is definitely comparable or better than the big brands in the market.

Review by Ivan Tay ( PURE Conti Racing )

Pro Bike Specifications
Frame/Fork: Pure Greed SL
Headset: Edge design with KCNC headset expander

Handlebar: KCNC Pure curve, 42cm
Bar tape: Clarks
Stem: Aerozine 120mm
Seatpost: Aerozine 31.6mm
Seatclamp: Aerozine superlight 34.9mm
Saddle: Glu:te Monologue
Bottle cage: T-one Anyway

Crank: Aerozine X13RL, 53/39
Bottom bracket: Aerozine ceramic
Shifter/brake lever: Sram Force
Rear derailleur: Sram Force with Aerozine jockey wheel
Front deraillure: Sram Force with KCNC clamp
Chain: KCNC-YBN 101Ti
Pedal: Exustar PR2CK

Brake caliper: KCNC C6
Cable/Housing: Clarks

Wheelset: Fast Forward 50mm
Tire: Continental sprinter/Gatorskin
Skewer: Aerozine quick release

Computer: Cateye V3

Weight: 7.11kg

PURE Greed-SL at TEF Bikers Junction

Today, we made a visit to TEF Bikers Junction to promote our latest arrival the PURE Greed-SL. Wilson and Jes of TEF Bikers Junction were just fitting up a customer to his latest purchase. His bike weighed in at an amazing 7.6kg with aluminum wheels and an ultegra groupset! Earlier we weighed in a bike with a SRAM Red at 7.7 kg with carbon wheels. We're pleased about the results and seeing the smiles on the customer's face reaffirmed that we are on the right track!

We would like to thank TEF Bikers Junction for actively promoting our products. The full range of PURE products can be found at TEF bikers Junction. TEF Bikers junction is located opposite Thompson Medical. TEF Bikers Junction is also appointed as the official PURE Service center in Singapore.

For more information about our products visit www.PUREBIKESASIA.com

Jesney doing final adjustments

Jesney of TEF Bikers Junction Making Adjustments

A Satisfied Customer

Figuring out the Technical Section

Today I decided that I needed to a better review on the fit that was given to be by Bike 360. I decided to go head on with my Achilles heel, technical sections. where better to put this to the test that BF. my mantra in my head today, no brakes good, two brakes bad.

I made my way to bf during the late mornings before i commenced my ride. lowering my tire pressures to 23 in front and 22 in the back. the trail was nice and dry and i initially had to fight my temptations to squeeze the brakes. fortunately enough for me today, i was able to better overcome many obstacles that i had issues with initially. slowly but surely my confidence is growing and i would need to go back more and more just to keep myself updated and well versed in the lines.

on lines that i could not initially do, i went back over and over again until i did it , some times up to 2-3 times. many of these times, i realized, it wasnt the technique that was at fault, but the chosen lines, on the second tries and third tries, i managed to choose better lines. however these all will come with more and more practice. you want the results ,you put in the hours. The mantra worked, the less i braked, the more i rolled over. however this all has to come with the commitment to go over the obstacles. think less just roll. something i have yet to master.

determined to be a better rider.

-Kenneth Tan

Central Catchment Area Training Ride

after nearly a week of not riding, we're back on the saddle! Today felt like a cold start, just one of those days that an additional 5 minutes of time in the bed would totally make my day ( that what we all think ) however I dragged myself out of the bed, got on the saddle and went for a ride.

Today's route, BT, Butterfly, X and back Then back to BT. Today armed with a new fit from Faz Boi from Bike 360, we were all set to give the new fit a try on our trusty Profligate29er.  My initial feeling for the fit would be that it might be a little too aggressive, originally a 90mm, I was slammed forward by an additional 20mm. However soon, my worries were eased when I managed to crank my way up the rocks of BT. I'm getting more consistent at this AND because of a longer stem, my lines were more stable and I was closer to the bike.

Apart from climbs, I felt an improved performance on the downs as I was able to stretch more. I wasnt cooped up in the cockpit and was better able to control the bike.  The fit was awesome and I really enjoyed the ride even more today. In addition, the saddle was pushed back by about 2mms. That allowed my legs more room to move, increasing my pedal efficiency.

Lung busting climb after lung busting climb. that week off has already taken a toll on my fitness.  I will need to train even harder if I want to see improvements in my performance. Heres to more pushing harder for the rest of the year!

today: 25km of trail mileage

-Kenneth 

PUREBIKESASIA : The Experiment

Location : Bukit Timah Nature Reserve.
Conditions : Moderate wet - dry
Time : 1700-1900
Equipment used : 

Profligate 29er

Glutton-SL

Which will emerge victorious from this experiment? More details will be revealed in the upcoming issue of SPIN Asia.  Available in a bicycle store near you!

Conducting the Experiment :
It was a wet and humid day and PUREBIKES Asia met up with Sher Hern to test its two offroad products to finally put a quantitative answer down once and for all about this age old debate of which is better. 

Sher Hern came all dressed and ready for the ride and we were off to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to test the bikes out. For today's test it would be a sprint challenge. All we can say for now is , wait till you get a load of the results.

-Kenneth Tan

Sepang International Circuit. - Faz Boi ( Bike 360 )

Faz Boi Sprinting away on the Greed-SL - Photo by Wilson Chang

 Faz Boi on the Greed-SL - Photo by Wilson Chang

Jsut yesterday, the Greed-SL was tested at Sempang International Circuit by Faz Boi of Bike 360.


For more information on the Greed-SL Please visit :

http://www.purebikesasia.com/greed-sl.html

Surf and Sweat Race Report by Hong Taa

Why? Because there were so many instances and incidents that happened today that really remembered me of the many 9GAG faces, and it kind of made the day negative incidents all the more hilarious when you imagine them haha.

I met Yi Min at Vivo around 11am, only to realize she bought her lunch already when we were supposed to eat together… (‘Are you fking kidding me’). Being slightly full from late breakfast already, we went straight to Sentosa to find the others who had to report earlier. Lilli should’ve finished her race by then. Eugene was supposed to register soon with Marcus.


Sentosa was crowded as hell as usual, just that today was made worse with 2 big events, SNS and Metasprint Aquathlon happening on the same day on the small island. Singapore plenty of space to hold events, must squeeze onto the same small island on the same day… (‘Oh God Why’). Hot as ever, we slowly walk to our meeting area at sapphire pavilion, seeing a couple of runners along the way doing their surf n run.


We managed to catch Eugene and Marcus registering for their events at the venue, and joined them to register as well, getting our arms marked and stuff. Yi Min had to wait for her friend first as her first event was before ours. Then we received the first good news of the day! Lilli got first for her woman’s open category!!! Lilli you’re the bomb!!! (‘OH YEA!’). We went onto congratulate her after seeing her shortly and went onto to place our stuff in the pavilion before walking around the suck in the atmosphere of the entire place.


Having close to 3 hours to wait for our flag off, we went to recce the race route, although it kind of failed because halfway each of us suddenly had something to do immediately, and we went back to the event ground to wait for Lilli’s prize presentation which took forever as well to happen. Then we saw the list of competitors for our categories and realize there were only 5 teams competing in our category! (‘LOL’ troll). It was definitely a morale booster for us 3, although after seriously going through the list of participants, we realize one of the teams seems pretty strong. Not sure if it’s luck or what, that team happened to register when we were there, and they looked damn intimidating man. (‘Mother of God’). 1 of them wore tri-suit, the lady had legs that probably read ‘my 2.4km timing is under 9 minutes’, and another guy that looked as though he could easily own you basically. But we knew we were strong, and we’re going to give our all no matter what. And that’s all it mattered :)


Then it was time for the man’s doubles to flag off already and we joined the guys at the start line. Wave by wave, each of them flew off in their surfboards subsequently. Eugene will definitely remember this incident. During his wave, all the guys were nice and friendly as they waited for the countdown, saying to each other give chance and take it easy. Then as the organizer count down, one of the guy did a false start. Who in the world false start for this kind of race man seriously (‘Are you fking kidding me’)? Then after waiting for several more minutes for that monkey who was truly a hypocrite, they finally ran off. And apparently during the surf, another monkey went to pull and push Eugene’s surfboard just to get a lead. (‘Mother of God’). This is just a race, why so violent! (‘Why you no!’). Then we went to watch as the guys ran towards the finishing line.


We then went for our last toilet break before doing our stretches, while Yi Min went to compete with her friend first. After we were then, she returned with pretty good news as her surf went well. Then we went to wait for our flag off already.


We then finally learnt about how the sequence of events were for our category as previously we had no clue how the entire relay was supposed to take place. Apparently, both surfers were supposed to surf together on the surfboard before passing onto the runner only and surf & runner to continue the rest of the race. Now that makes things so much easier for me since I’m supposed to surf and run haha. (‘MeGusta’). John, Sarah and Jin Shi joined us shortly later only to learnt about the same news and blamed me for lying to them as initially I thought otherwise haha.


Not before long, it was our turn to flag off and off we flew to our surfboards. The entire surf was pretty smooth in general, minus all the salt water providing constant hydration throughout the surf and salt water to cool down my face... My arms started to shag out after the second turn and I was kind of worried about my run. Without thinking too much, we finally reached shore and off I went to get my shoes, with Jun Khiang running off slightly ahead of me while I had some difficulties wearing my shoes.


Then the entire close to 5km journey of the race was a mental game already. Shoving and pushing people away who were too busy admiring my awesome tights and didn’t bother to move aside, I was trying to catch up with Jun Khiang, but he only got further and further. The smell of all the delicious food from the exhaust of restaurants made the journey much more exotic as well haha. All the way till the U-turn point, the marshals along the way were really nice as they cheered me on with lots of delight, motivating me plenty :) Minutes passed as I saw the other runners from the previous waves ran pass me, some truly burned out, while the IMBA team was still going strong and fast.


Then nearing the U-turn point, something really hilarious happened. From a distance, I saw Jun Khiang approaching me, but he was on the other side of this row of plants that separated the road from the pavement. And I ran towards him with a thumb up. Then followed me, but decided to give me a High-5 hand instead so I also followed suit. And we both ran towards each other, with our hands stretched out, hoping that somehow our hands would slap each other even though we didn’t bothered to run closer to each other as we were on opposite sides of the plants. And in the end when we finally passed, it was an epic fail High-5 as we missed each other’s hands haha. (‘Trollololol’ & ‘True Story’). That definitely made the race so much funnier.


The U-turn came shortly after and after repeated rejections of the nice marshals as they offer me water, I picked up the pace and told myself to catch up with Sarah and John who were in front of me. Then I think not long after the U-turn point, I hit the wall. Then Adele came ‘rolling into the deep’ skull of mine as the chorus of the song kept repeating itself in my head as I ran the second half of the race. As much as I love her songs, having the song to repeat so many times kind of irritated me, although it kind of helped kept my focus and pushed me on as my legs were seriously tired already.


After shoving and pushing people away near the train station as they continued staring at me and refused to move away, I finally heard somebody shouted out my name. Then I saw Jin Shi calling out to me and it really gave me so much motivation to push all the way till the end. Slowly, one by one, I saw Yi Min screaming madly at me, with Lilli beside her and Yang Wei snapping photos away as I ran pass. All the memories of all the ODAC competitions together began to float into my mind, especially our J2 National Vertical Marathon year which gave me so much motivation suddenly, and I just whacked as hard as I could till the finishing line. I kind of died for a while, hugging onto a coconut tree while I caught my breath, while Yi Min and Jun Khiang cooled me down with ice cold water. The feeling was really great man after that run. I knew it did my best, and honored the Runner’s Pledge. We did our cool down jog back and then went to rest and relax.


First thing we did was to collect our goodie bags! It was really weird that we could only collect them after 3pm though. But the contents of the bag were great and there was more food than I expected!!! One big box of butter biscuits :) (‘MeGusta’). We began busy emptying the goodie bags of useless stuff and started sampling all the food within. Noms Noms Noms :) Then the results of the woman’s and man’s double were realized and Wei Bin & Gabriel’s team got first! Eugene and Marcus’s team got second, and Yi Min and her friend’s team got third for their category. All were really happy with their results, although there were apparently major mistakes with the results. And that’s when the series of (‘You feel my mind with fk’) began.


Many of the man’s double teams were unhappy with the results as they felt that the timing shown on the results were wrong and requested for an appeal. And the shit just got worse and competitors from other categories soon flooded in to complain as well, stating that the timing showed for the winners of other categories were wrong as well. Many big woo haa began as organizers didn’t know how to solve the problem as it was apparently the RFID machine and tagging system that messed up the timing.


Then in came the shocking news after Jun Khiang asked about our category’s timing. They apparently also messed up the timing and the timing they showed us was clearly wrong. We were positioned second place with the zhai team in first. But after further discussion and talks as the timings for our team was clearly wrong, we’ve decided to be nice and accept our 2nd placing as by then we’ve waited for close to 2 hours for the results already and we just wanted to go home, bearing in mind our category has only 5 teams. How difficult can it be to tabulate 5 team’s timings...?


Then in came the shocking news of the year. The organizer told us that our category has only 1 prize in our category. I went from (‘Are you fking kidding me’ to ‘FFFFUUUUUU’ to ‘You feel my mind with fk’ to finally ‘Oh God Why’). Just one sentence can evoke so many MEME faces. Powerful sia. We immediately took back our words and told them that was unacceptable as they didn’t inform us there was only 1 prize for our category. And after further investigation as to why one prize only, we learnt that the organizers so kindly redistributed the prizes to other categories as they felt having 3 prizes for 5 teams in a category was too much. And this was the club that gave out 3 prizes for a category which had 4 teams competing in that category only a few years back. (‘What sorcery is this’). We were quite pissed about their decision as they should’ve informed all competitors in our category before the event itself to be fair. So we they just told us they’ll notify us with the results next week and we pang kang and left for dinner at vivo. The man’s doubles also couldn’t get a confirmed placing of the winners and left with no news about the results as well.


Despite all the last minute unhappy news and results, I guess today was a truly enjoyable day for me :) I cleared my objective during the run, which was to do my best and overtake one team ahead of my wave. And I’m happy with my performance, clocking a pretty decent timing after surfing especially. And most importantly, it was all the friends that came to race and supported each other throughout the entire event that was truly something to be grateful for :) Today wouldn’t be such a nice day without each other’s company, especially under the vitamin D enriching scoring sun.
Many thanks to Fabian Williams for providing me with all the necessary training leading up to this event, Pure bikes for providing all the necessary race nutrition, Yang Wei who gave me the ultimate snack machine which really made my day!, Jun Khiang and Yi Min for being such wonderful teammates, John Jin Shi and Sarah for enjoying the race experience with us, Lilli for all the kind support and for giving me the pressure to win something after her podium win for her category earlier, Eugene Tan for all the crucial advice on how to surf better, and last but not least, all the other Fabian boys for your words of encouragement and support. Today wouldn’t have been such a wonderful day without you people!

-Hong Taa
PUREFABIAN Racing Team