When Nostalgia Bites

We’d had a 3-week spell of rain in Sydney from late April until mid-May that meant the MTB trails were unrideable until a good week after the rain stopped (and even then the sanctioned trails were still officially closed). I’d been on a road hiatus having sold my last road bike in Jan ’24 after only riding road once in the second half of 2023, but I realised I needed a road bike back in my quiver to avoid spells like this sending me loopy.

So there I was trawling Facebook Marketplace for a disc brake road bike (might as well get on the disc bandwagon if I’m going to dive back into road *eye roll*) when a bike I had seen advertised previously, but not for a while, reappeared. That’s when it bit, and hung on. Nostalgia had got its teeth into me and my eyes were glazing over…

Was it disc brake? No. Was it my size? Realistically, ideally, no. Did I ‘need’ to take this option. Not at all. Could I resist? F*ck no.

You see, when you’ve been Yelling At Bikes as long as we have, there are certain bikes that simply make you exclaim: “YES” out loud when you see them. A Banesto Pinarello. A Yeti from the days of Missy Giove & John Tomac. A red Saeco Cannondale, or a blue & yellow Volvo-Cannondale MTB. A shiny GT Zaskar MTB or Edge Ti road bike. A Time RXR. Yes, even the lairy red ones with the MASSIVE white logos, but especially the raw carbon VIP one…

…which is what this bike was.

After growing up on MTBs I made the switch to road bikes around 2007/2008 when I moved to London and travelling to decent trails went in the too-hard basket. It wasn’t long after this that the Time RXR began to appear in its earlier iterations. It was dream bike material, but the closest I could get to its aesthetic was an aluminium Soloist from Cervélo (which was still a damn cool bike, by the way). When I settled the bill on my first full custom road bike for an eye-watering sum in 2011, the Time RXR VIP with equivalent spec wouldn’t have come in much cheaper.

I used to drool over the RXR VIP builds on WeightWeenies. The incredible angular tube shapes created using Time’s patented RTM carbon weaving process resulting in flawless and beautiful raw carbon finishes. The thick integrated seatpost. The bold-but-subtle sparkly silver-grey logos on the raw carbon. The sharp-edged lugged construction that tied it all together. Hooley Dooley.

Knowing the tedium of dealing with tyre kickers and low-ballers, I chucked a low-yet-still-respectable offer at the seller and stood my ground when he countered. Deal agreed, I went to see it in person. Dust from storage aside, it was absolutely flawless.

I’d said I was done with tubular tyres too, but when a bike like this comes along at a price like this with the option to pair it with wheels like this (Lightweight Ventouxs, no less) I was prepared to work around that. After all, gluing tubs has always been one of the most cathartic jobs in cycling; and I do run my own workshop these days.

Does the ride live up to the hype nostalgia? First impressions were… muted. Nothing dazzling, but certainly not rubbish. Further rides revealed some really nice characteristics, though: razor sharp ‘point and shoot’ cornering and a smoothness that belies its fat early aero profiles, along with an accelerative jump that any current superbike would be proud of (although still not a match to my previous 2011 Cervélo R3).

There were reports of these having a weird wobble in the top tube and head tube in the larger sizes when they were first released. I tested this numerous times and I can see why those ‘issues’ existed – in people’s minds at least – but you’ve gotta be doing some pretty weird sh*t from a handling perspective to actually notice it impacting the ride feel. Time did update the RXR to become the RXRS with a rumoured stiffening of the L & XL sizes, but I suspect that was a very fine line that risked turning this mild-mannered machine into an overly stiff brute.

In summary, it’s not the best bike I’ve ever ridden, but it’s definitely not the worst either – and it is easily top-ten in terms of cool factor and desirability. In a way it reminds me of my old S-Works Tarmac SL6 in that it it is such a good looking and well sorted bike that it makes me want to become more flexible such that I can keep riding it despite the fit being a compromise.

And there’s the rub. It is simply too long to ride comfortably. The realisation on its third outing that I was riding on the tops for around 80% of the ride time sounded the death knell. Being away from the brakes seriously restricts your capability to react to an issue – be that an obstacle, a pothole, an errant animal or a distracted driver. With recent events locally being very much front of mind, and having only just returned to the road and feeling a bit out of practice, safety is on my mind perhaps more than ever. I need to be riding on the hoods and in the drops as much as possible so that the brakes are always within reach. Unfortunately, I just cannot do that for enough of my ride time with the reach on this beauty.

Sure, I could shorten the stem, but I was already running a 100mm stem on a bike that should really be running 110mm or more. Moving to a 90mm stem to make the fit better would begin to negatively impact the handling – not to mention starting to make it look weird.

So I flipped it. It’s what I do. I knew the fit would be a risk, but it was a calculated one – at least the bike being the price it was with the kit it’s had on it meant I could shift the parts & wheels onto my Woody to rekindle that (again) as a really well-sorted bike.

So there it was. My own Time RXR – and a VIP version at that. The bike I didn’t need, or the bike I didn’t know I needed? Either way, it was probably a silly idea – but most of the best ones are, aren’t they?

Regardless of how this nostalgic adventure panned out, it turned out to be good timing to get back on the road. With only 10-days drying time the trails were subjected to a 140mm deluge one wet Sydney Saturday, coupled with a further 60mm+ one day during the following week, plus another 80mm+ the week after. More closed trails, then…