We did a 30 mile road ride this morning, with a fairly consistent 15-20mph wind blowing out of the southeast, some moderate hills, and pretty good pavement. No gravel though.
If you noticed in the title, this isn't a plain Foundry Auger. I didn't particularly care for the flex I felt in the Whisky 7 fork (your mileage may vary considerably). I'll put up with a little more bump/buzz/whatever to have steering and braking that I can absolutely rely upon, and I just didn't get the feel I wanted on the stock frame. Also, since this is a disc project, I wanted thru-axle. It works well for MTB, why not use it here as well? If you've read my other post, I talk at some length about component choices, so I won't rehash that. Suffice to say that I was pleased with the way everything came together. I did swap out the Challenge Almanzos for Challenge Parigi Roubaixs for the next few road rides. Sweet tires. They feel like a great sewup, with great road feel, and really soak up the cracks and bumps. Probably the only downside is mounting them for the first time. Challenge open tubulars (like this) are very interesting to mount, and really take strong thumbs and persistence. I wound up cheating and using a quikstik to get them popped on. My experience is that they'll stretch a little bit, and subsequent mountings on the HED Belgium+ rims will be much easier. Also, I'm running Challenge latex tubes, which contribute to the great feel. Oh yeah - 85psi today. Will try them at 80psi as well.
So about riding. My ultimate comparison points for any bike are my old Raleigh Derby 531, and our Huffy Serotta. Both of these bikes were great to ride. Comfortable for a long day in the saddle, predicatable diving into criterium corners or descending off Mt Rainier at 50+mph. Just_a_bike. No quirks, no tricks, no overlap, easy to service, all those things. And (I think) the Auger lives up to that standard - just a bike - which actually aligns quite nicely with the marketing literature. It climbs pretty well, is laterally very stiff, but even on a couple of rough stretches of pavement, no twitches in steering or any fun things like that. And I love, love, love the disc brakes. Crosswinds are a real telling point, too. A bike with 'classic Italian geometry' is a real handful in a crosswind, but the Auger settled right in. Even dealing with puffs coming from gaps in hedgerows, it was predicatble, and a little lean was all it took to keep straight. Just a bike. And I did press hard into a couple of corners, and it sat on the line I asked for like it was on a rail.
In short, darn pleased for a first ride. I'm looking forward to how it behaves on gravel, but I suspect it will do just fine.
~marsh
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