The Gates drive, Alfine hub, and carbon fork, make this bike incredibly smooth! It’s also almost completely silent, both when you’re pedaling and when you’re coasting, which I absolutely love! Overall, it feels super efficient and very fast, and is a joy to ride.
My only complaint with the bike relates to tires. The tires that come stock on the bike are fairly stiff, 32 cc, fully studded, and require a minimum pressure of 50 psi (71 psi suggested from Silca’s calculator). The bike itself accepts tires up to only 42 mm, and only if you don’t run fenders. The studs and psi requirement on the stock tires noticeably reduce the smooth feeling of the bike, and the psi requirement and narrow width limit the bike’s ability to rip gravel paths while commuting or cruising around with friends. Spot always seems to be pushing boundaries of the bike world, so I was very surprised that the bike doesn’t allow the wider tires that the industry has moved towards. Since the bike is marketed as being completely smooth, the tire choice also seems off to me.
I have since installed a set of 42 mm soft rubber tires with a slick center, and run them at 35-40 psi (again as suggested by Silca). This has given the bike the soft-serve coco-butter feeling I was looking for! Unfortunately, the little “hairs” on the tire were contacting the chain-stay due to the increased width. I ended up buying a Gates belt with two extra teeth to push the rear wheel back 1 cm, and this solved the problem.…