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| LAPIERRE ZESTY 514 REVIEW 'Allo, 'allo...what 'ave we 'ere?? It's been a while since we've had a bike on our fleet that turns people's heads as much as the new Lapierre bikes....and let's be honest, the Lapierre Zesty 514 is a great looking bike, all sleek & white with those great anodised red accent pieces, all hydroformed tubing and bulging seatstays. The French do know a thing or two about aesthetics, that's for sure...sacre' bleu!! At 27.5 lbs for a medium bike, the weight is perfectly acceptable for a 140mm trail bike, light enough to ride all day and nice and solid for the more technical trail features. Lapierre specced the Zesty 514 with some amazing components which belies the bike's price tag... Fox Float RL forks, Fox Float R rear shock, Shimano XT chainset, SLX shifters coupled to XT mechs, Formula ORO K18 disc brakes, and last but certainly not least, a pair of great-looking Shimano XT tubeless wheels, shod with Continental Race King 2.2 UST tyres. If the devil's in the details, then it's in the frame that the Zesty really shines, though - Lapierre have some great little features on this bike that put it above the rest - how about a carbon plate to protect your rear mech from being destroyed? Or complete outer cables from shifter to mech to keep the crap out? Integrated headset to keep the front end nice and low, integrated pressed-in bottombracket bearings to reduce the cranks' Q-factor, and my personal favourite, a clamp on the seattube that points to a sagmeter, clearly indicating how much sag you're running on the shock when seated...inspired! CLICK IMAGE FOR SLIDE SHOW:
It looks fantastic, but what does it ride like? Well, hold on to your beret, Pierre....we're in for a killer ride! The Glentress black route was the chosen destination to put this little froggy through it's paces, the steep Tower ride would test it's climbing prowess and the rocky descents will make or brake it's downhill credentials. Straight off the bat, the 600mm long toptube felt nice & roomy, not as cramped as a lot of bikes with this amount of travel sometimes feel, with the 68 degree head-angle keeping the rider's weight back and ready for the rough stuff. The Horst-link driven suspension is superbly supple, almost bottomless, without being too bobby and energy-sapping up the climbs, keeping the rear wheel glued to the ground and active under braking. Okay, so it's no weight-weenie XC race bike, but the Zesty went up quicker than a Can-can dancer's skirt at the Moulin Rouge. Going down is where this baby really turns the grin factor up to 11, though...that super plush suspension just soaks it all up, helped by the brilliant tracking of the Fox Float fork with it's stiff QR15 through-axle. It really is a confidence-inspiring bike, making me seek out any rock jump and letting her fly, taking lines down the black route that normally make me soil my Humvee shorts. When I did get the line wrong, the powerful Formula brakes put me right, albeit in a slightly wooden way. The Shimano drivetrain worked as flawlessly as we've come to expect from those white-coated Japanese wizards, with a beautifully silent freehub on the XT wheels. The silence was often disturbed by quite a bit of chain-slap going downhill, though, and I found that descending in the big ring and a few cogs up on the casette kept the chain further away from those bulging seatstays, reducing the noise significantly. Hardly a deal-breaker, it just means you might have to use your front mech a little more than usual. So, overall it seems the French got it just about bang-on with this little trail bike, it really has a certain 'je ne se quois', and the rest of the range looks just as promising, right down to the roadbikes. If you prefer your riding a bit more, well, spicy, we also have the Zesty's bigger brother, the Spicy, in our demo fleet, equipped with Fox Talas 36 forks...but I'll leave that review to someone with bigger cahunas than this reviewer!! How about enjoying a French take-away next time you're at Glentress? C'est la vie!! Jake the Mech. |
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