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Salsa Cycles Campeon Road Bike
Bikeman Tested By: Taber Newton (Certified Product Tester)
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As an employee of a bike shop, one of the first things that many customers ask me is what I actually ride for a bike. Although
I have a number of road bikes, my current pride and joy is a 2005 Madone 5.9 SL outfitted with full Campagnolo Record and Bontrager XXX Lite Carbon Wheels. It truly is a truly amazing bicycle.
I’ve been riding a number of different Trek OCLV Carbon bike for the past four years, and I have always recommended an OCLV bike to customers looking for a high end road bike. But this year
Trek’s availability of OCLV has been sketchy at best!
While I love OCLV bikes, I don’t feel right recommending a bike to a customer, that they can’t purchase. “Yeah, I love Trek Carbon bikes; to
bad you can’t have one!”…that line doesn’t exactly go over well, and it most certainly won’t sell bikes. At the same time I would feel equally guilty recommending a bike
which I have never thrown a leg over. So I decided to buy another bike. (much to my girlfriends chagrin.) I wanted something that would perform well, but more importantly something that (a) would not
break the bank and (b) was actually available.
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As Bikeman.com/Bath Cycle and Ski is a “Red Hot” Salsa Cycles dealer I decided to go out on a limb and purchase a
Campeon. The Campeon uses a custom drawn Scandium tube set paired with carbon seat stays. To give a bit of a comparison to my Madone SL frameset; my new Campeon frame weighs in at 1290grams compared
to my Madone at 1000g. The Campeon’s fork weighs 590grams compared to my Madone’s fork at 355g, giving a total weight difference of 525grams. All that being said, it is important to keep in
perspective that the Campeon sells for $940.00 compared to $3500.00 for the Madone SL.
I built up my new Campeon with Full Dura Ace 10speed, Bontrager carbon components and Mavic Ksyrium SL wheels. I took my new Campeon out for its first ride
two weeks ago… it climbs like a scalded cat. The little devil accelerates from the first turn of the cranks, and just begs to be pushed harder. In the past two weeks I have put my Campeon
through a torture test.
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My initial inclination was that while the Campeon might accelerate quickly and be stiff for standing up and hammering, the scandium tube set might leave me
feeling tired and worked over at the end of a longer ride. So I took her out for a 60 mile ride to see how I felt at the end, and to be honest I felt no more fatigued that I do after 60 on my Madone
SL. The Campeon handled well on dirt (I rode it on a dirt path for 3 miles at the end of my ride), she didn’t seem phased at all by a little role in the mud. The only place that I noticed a
distinct difference in ride comfort between my Madone and my Campeon was when I was riding on cobblestones, on the cobblestones the Madone did take a bit more of the edge off. To be completely honest
I really thought that I would notice a difference when climbing, but the Campeon is so stiff laterally that it climbs like a mountain goat.
Interestingly enough I have actually gotten more compliments on the way my Campeon looks, than I ever got with my Madone. The long and short of all this is
that I love my new Campeon. Bang for buck, I think that it leaves most other bikes in the dust. In fact I’ve bought another Campeon. I feel great about recommending this bike to customers,
it’s like driving a Porsche and paying for a Mitsubishi.
Taber Newton
Bikeman Certified Product Tester
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