Anybody tried the Lauf bikes with front suspension?

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stockae92
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Joined: Fri Sep 25, 2015 5:13 pm

by stockae92

I am wondering if anybody tried the Lauf bikes? Seems like they are decent value for the component that you get.

GregR
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Joined: Thu Nov 28, 2019 9:03 pm

by GregR

I bought a Lauf Seigla back in June and I really like it. I've ridden it on all sorts of surfaces, including rough gravel logging roads. On a high (ish) speed corner on a rough road, the front end stayed planted right where I wanted it.
As a package, it's an excellent value, with mine having the Force AXS 1x and the Quarq powermeter. Bars and seatpost are carbon and good quality wheels.
I see other brands with inferior builds for way more money. These bikes are an outstanding value.
The bike arrived on schedule and was easy to put together.
10/10 in my opinion, although I'm not an expert.
The bike is great looking and gets lots of attention, as people have heard of them but never seen one.
I even ended up in a viral video on Instagram!

by Weenie


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prokyon
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Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 11:12 pm

by prokyon

I'm temped to get the Race Seigla Rigid - great value for money - but the low stack has me concerned. Can it run an Origin 8 90mm steerer tube expander? They claim 35mm of adjustability on the steerer tube - how deep is their expander?

RDY
Posts: 2354
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2020 10:31 pm

by RDY

The Seigla makes me sad. It's nearly great. But 1X only, proprietary BB and crank ... just WHY.

yinzerniner
Posts: 206
Joined: Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:54 pm

by yinzerniner

prokyon wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 7:30 pm
I'm temped to get the Race Seigla Rigid - great value for money - but the low stack has me concerned. Can it run an Origin 8 90mm steerer tube expander? They claim 35mm of adjustability on the steerer tube - how deep is their expander?
The 35mm is probably the max amount of spacers below the stem, not the depth of the expander. You really only need such a deep expander if you have roughly 40-50mm of spacers above the stem since it needs to support the stem clamp area, and most stems are between 40-50mm in stack height.
RDY wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:27 pm
The Seigla makes me sad. It's nearly great. But 1X only, proprietary BB and crank ... just WHY.
The why is because you have lots of components in a tight space on the drive side. You can have
-front derailleur
-double chainrings
-road spindle width/ q factor
-shortish chain stays
-proper chain line
-142mm rear spacing
-very large tires

But not all at the same time since so many of the components take up the same area. Lauf seems to have prioritized the last four which means the first three would have to be removed. They probably could have added an FD and 2x rings with boost spacing on the rear and even wider spindle, but that would alter Q factor. Or they could have limited it to 45 tires and had all seven, but that's obviously not what they focused on since the fork adds some extra capability.

And the crank isn't that proprietary - there's a lot of cranks made to work with 73mm / 89mm BB width, they're just mostly for MTB with 1x chainrings.

I think the bigger issue is the dearth of options for natural 1x gravel riding gear progressions. Ekar nails it with their 13s 1 tooth steps, but everyone else has dumb progressions. Even xplr only has a single 1 tooth step, and the progression at the large end is linear instead of algorithmic, which is how most people naturally pedal once at the large end of the cassette.
This progression would make so much more sense on XPLR
10,11,12,13,15,17,19,22,26,31,37,44
https://ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS&KB=43 ... H&DV=teeth

Instead of what they have now
10,11,13,15,17,19,21,24,28,32,38,44
https://ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS&KB=44 ... H&DV=teeth

RDY
Posts: 2354
Joined: Thu Jul 30, 2020 10:31 pm

by RDY

Plenty of bikes with 50mm or more on 700c with 2x and no issues with chainline. But they chose to push it all the way up to 57mm, despite marketing this as an out and out race bike. The new short chainstay length fetish with gravel bikes is ridiculous. It's not even that short on the Seigla, plenty of designs now at 415mm (vs its 425) though I guess you could say it is relative to 57x700 clearance.

It is essentially proprietary BB / crankset. Because nothing else fits except for their proprietary SRAM stuff on a road / gravel chainline spacing. MTB cranks will obviously fit but then that screws things up too.

If they'd capped it at, say, 52mm, and normalized the rest, a much less hamstrung bike would have resulted. They've railroaded thmselves into a tiny niche market whose existence is at the mercy of buzzwords and non-critical reporting in cycling media. I know a few people who were interested when they first saw it, but then they looked at the details and quickly shied away. I think they're making it very hard for people to turn their interest into pressing the buy button.

by Weenie


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yinzerniner
Posts: 206
Joined: Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:54 pm

by yinzerniner

RDY wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:03 pm
Plenty of bikes with 50mm or more on 700c with 2x and no issues with chainline. But they chose to push it all the way up to 57mm, despite marketing this as an out and out race bike. The new short chainstay length fetish with gravel bikes is ridiculous. It's not even that short on the Seigla, plenty of designs now at 415mm (vs its 425) though I guess you could say it is relative to 57x700 clearance.

It is essentially proprietary BB / crankset. Because nothing else fits except for their proprietary SRAM stuff on a road / gravel chainline spacing. MTB cranks will obviously fit but then that screws things up too.

If they'd capped it at, say, 52mm, and normalized the rest, a much less hamstrung bike would have resulted. They've railroaded thmselves into a tiny niche market whose existence is at the mercy of buzzwords and non-critical reporting in cycling media. I know a few people who were interested when they first saw it, but then they looked at the details and quickly shied away. I think they're making it very hard for people to turn their interest into pressing the buy button.
Yeah totally agree with all your points, just saying that the extra large tire and short chain stays is what Lauf decided to do. It's up to you to decide whether the trade off (wider crank, no 2x) for those set in stone design decisions are worth it - and in your (and my) case it's not.

Whether their decision is due to a fortified design theory or simply to differentiate themselves in the market - who knows. Agree that maybe they could have done sliders to alter the chainstay to account for use case - where the short chainstay linits the tire and/or 2x clearance, but the longer setting allows for more of both.

But at the same point does a 2.5mm difference in q factor make a huge difference? I personally would love more spindle length options since I need to use +4mm DA pedals and normal stance xtr 9100s due to wider stance.

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