The Diamondback Andean arrived well over a month ago, and after a long and exceptionally frustrating process that began with my late December order and ended today, I am finally ready to release this review.
This piece is lengthy. For those who want the top line: the Andean is a fine design with a strong and capable chassis that struggles with key elements of execution, some of which are its maker's fault (e.g. engineering tolerance issues, occluded bolts, ineffective storage solutions) and some of which are not (e.g. the disc brake status quo). I like how it rides and how it performs and especially how it looks -- this is one beautiful machine. I love how solid and consistent the disc braking is, especially in wet weather, even as the complexities of ownership and the limitations of current equipment are downsides.
Frankly, I'm exhausted from the saga that was making this bike operable, but now that is is, I want to at least give the bike a chance. I'm going to ride it this year, but honestly I don't know how I can justify keeping a bike with this many flaws when there are options on the market at similar price points that are more refined.
Background
For almost two years, I've been on hunt for a new time trial bike because I simply wanted a bike that fit me better (i.e. without after-market under-mounted bar setups).
Like many of you, I watched with interest last fall as the most impressive and unique slate of products in modern triathlon-bike history were announced one after another: the TriRig Omni, Diamondback Andean, Cervelo P5-X, and the Premier Tactical, among others. I knew I had to choose one.
One bike did not, at least initially, meet my fit requirements (Premier Tactical) and another, despite its merits, was obnoxiously unaffordable (P5-X). I ordered the Omni and canceled the order, then I re-ordered and canceled again. I really wanted that bike, but ultimately quality and customer service concerns were too much of a risk for me for a product this expensive, given TriRig's storied history with same.
Meanwhile, Diamondback was helpful through the process of ordering, in explaining the bike's merits and compatibility issues, etc. -- generally speaking, they seemed then and appear now to care about delivering a quality product and supporting the customers who purchase it. This is worth a lot to me, and I really like these guys and appreciate what they are trying to do in this industry, even as they have a long way to go to compete with more established players.
The Order
In my five years of bike ownership, I have bought and built/had built (and eventually sold) more than twenty bikes. Whenever possible, I buy frames, because I know what I like by now and because the economics of a frame build are always better for me as I am skilled at sourcing both used and new parts at low prices. Cheap, basically.
Unfortunately, Diamondback refused to sell me a frame -- which I don't understand, because this would seem to be a better proposition for both manufacturer and customer -- but nevertheless, I ordered the lowest-end complete bike with the Corsair bar. I asked Diamondback to at least not build the bike, which request they also refused, despite my stated intent to strip it upon arrival and re-build it with custom parts. This also makes no sense to me.
Relevant to the order and ordering process: Diamondback bungled the fit calculator and sizing part of the buy flow from the beginning. The fit calculator is prescriptive, but not in a way that made much sense. Sometimes the stated reach envelope for a frame size could not be met by the fit calculator by a long shot (3-4cm). So somewhere along the line, Diamondback got confused as to whether they were measuring reach from the back of the pad or to the center of the pad, which is of course the difference often between choosing the wrong size or the right one.
I also noticed that If I entered into the fit calculator 556/476 x/y, it told me I should use a stem of 105 with pads neutral. When I raised the stack to 566 and left reach as is, it told me to use a 95mm stem with pads forward.
The inconsistencies in the tool led me to fear, like other companies, that these figures weren't even right. Felt has issues with this, so all I really wanted is confirmation from Diamondback that this theoretical prescription in the calculator would be corroborated by reality. And up until the product shipped, basically, nobody could tell me that except for one guy who doesn't even work for Diamondback. They allayed my fears by agreeing to ship me both the 95mm and 105mm stem with the bike, so I could configure it to my wishes, which was a good compromise.
In my opinion, no fit calculator or framework should output a single prescription. There are multiple ways to hit or come close to your coordinates, and athletes ought to be able to make a decision about that. Especially with this bike! Because of how the storage and nutrition interacts with the way you set up your front end, choosing a size isn't just about fit but also about utility. Look at the difference between Matt Russell's and Jordan Rapp's front ends. Matt could go a size bigger and Jordan could go a size smaller, and those choices mean very different things about the utility of storage and hydration solutions.
Despite all that, the price value of this bike is quite good. I spent about $4,400 for the complete bike and I'm on my way to recouping almost $1,200 from the sale of new take off parts. $3,200 is still a princely sum, but only a handful of companies can beat that price for a modern triathlon super-bike frameset. Moreover, unlike other bikes I have pre-ordered in the past, Diamondback didn't actually take my money when I ordered, which I think should always be the case in this industry. Customers shouldn't have to fund your inventory shortfalls and cover your working capital deficits while they wait for delivery of a product they've already paid for.
Then the waiting game began. I was given a "95%" chance of receiving the product by March 1st -- later than I was initially led to believe, but still well in advance of the season and with a few weeks to spare before the aero shootout, which was initially scheduled for mid March. This probability was supposed to increase to 100% after Chinese New Year (early February), but was instead reduced to zero percent by mid February. We pushed the aero test back by more than a month as assurances on delivery continued to be made and then pushed. To their credit, Diamondback was responsive and communicative throughout, and at last the bike shipped with less than one week to spare.
While I don't understand this goal-post moving nonsense -- I think these companies should give a range of dates, or a worst case date, or don't make promises at all that they can't 95% meet -- it seems to be industry practice. 3T put me through this song and dance last year with the Exploro, but they had an excuse. Even so, with that order I was out the money through my dealer, which infuriated me.
Unboxing
The bike arrived almost fully assembled in the biggest box in which I have ever seen a bike shipped.
(The "Unboxing" as DCR would say)
In literally less than ten minutes, I had the Andean assembled in stock form. In my opinion, it looked great -- this is a very attractive bike -- even as I knew it would look significantly better when I was done with it.
(Needs moar spacer stack)
The Build
(Note: This is going to be a long and somewhat technical section of the review. If you aren't planning to buy this bike or wrench on this bike or just don't care about the build specifics, you may want to skip to the "First Ride" section.)
I enlisted the support of my local bike shop for the build. This effort started over a case of beer around 8pm a few nights before the aero testing. What we thought would take a matter of a few hours stretched well past midnight, because the removal of the drive-side bearing and installation of the new bottom bracket (to facilitate my GXP Quarq) was nearly impossible.
(The saga begins...)
I've never seen anyone hammer so hard on a bike as my mechanic/shop owner did during the removal, and I never would have had the gumption to do so myself. The bearing actually started to disintegrate during the process, which I feared would end the build because the lip of the bearing, which was rapidly eroding, was our only hope to dislodge the thing. It simply would not budge. Finally, the bearing dislodged.
(That does not look good.)
Installing the BB required almost as much strain, and there is not a chance I would have had the physical strength to torque the thing all the way flush. I will not be removing that bottom bracket ever.
By the end of this ordeal, I was basically drunk, which was of course excellent, but I was also pissed. Had these guys not installed the bearings and the Pressfit crank to begin with, as I had wanted and requested, we would have saved hours of time and effort. Moreover, this kind of thing is not supposed to happen. My guess is that the tolerances are too wide in production or that this frame deviated from those tolerances too much. I don't know that this is the case, but I do know that my mechanic/LBS owner has been wrenching on all types of bikes for over fifteen years and has never seen anything like this. The shell was simply too tight.
The rest of the initial build went smoothly, though the front end required material modification to hide all the wires. I would rather sell an aero bike than have a rat's nest of exposed cables like on Michi Weiss' Andean -- total disgrace if you ask me. I can't help that I was born this way, but this is the way that I am.
The only real option for hiding and routing all cables cleanly was to shave down the Di2 5-port junction box and shove it inside the stem. Holes were drilled into the sides of the extensions so the bar-end shifter e-tubes could be run with little exposure.
The way Diamondback apparently suggests that you should do this is, in my opinion, insane. On the underside of the stem there are five routing jawns with a bit of a cavity where the junction box can fit inside the stem cover but outside the structural part of stem. This is a weird concept, but this picture should help:
(E-tube routing jawns)
The problem with my setup is this: you can't actually access the junction box to charge (or to initiate Bluetooth connection) without removing the stem cover -- which is a nightmare that we'll cover later.
So you go to this massive design effort to create the worlds narrowest head tube and most cavernous frame, and then you plop five electric cables in front of said head tube while storing the junction box in a place that is basically inaccessible. It's almost like this aspect of the design was an afterthought, which it shouldn't be, five years after the Di2 e-tube system came to market. In fairness, the internal battery holder in the lunch box area makes running wires and maintenance easy on that end of the system.
Anyways, we shaved off the routing protrusion from the underside of the stem and, like I said, also altered the 5-port until it would fit not just inside the stem cover but inside the stem itself -- and it does not install into or remove from there easily, so proceed carefully if you go this way. Do not do this if you don't have a second junction A around the house to plug into the rear derailleur e-tube for charging, because you're not going to want to get in there often. Or ever.
(No big deal...just charging my Di2 battery)
All that said, the end result is very clean, and I like it a lot.
The next unpleasant surprise was the saddle clamp hardware. It was certainly my fault for not anticipating this, but the bike shipped with the Ritchey one-bolt saddle clamp system that comes stock on many Cervelos, and none of my saddles worked with it because they all have oversized carbon rails. I have since ordered backup hardware from Ritchey and those work fine. Still, I think this clamp hardware is needlessly complex and a poorly designed system. I don't know why Cervelo continues to use it.
(Seems legit.)
I tasked the shop with cutting the steerer, but I asked them to leave it two spacers high, because I wasn't sure where all the bikes were going to net out from a stack perspective for the aero testing. I didn't realize at the time that the top cap needed to be run flush, so those spacers would need to be installed under the stem (not over), but no matter, I own a carbon saw, and figured I'd just hack it myself the day before the testing as needed.
An aside: while this doesn't have anything to do with Diamondback, I should discuss the wheels. These Enve 7.8 SES Disc hoops are the wheels that come on the $15,000 Cervelo, and they look mighty fine. I sourced my pair from Brian Richards at My Bike Shop, who was amazing (as always) to work with on the order -- and he went the extra mile by staying on Enve for months to get them for me in time for the testing. I was immediately frustrated by these hoops though, because getting tires on them requires more than your thumbs. Coming from Firecrest 808s, which don't even require a tire lever for installation, these wheels are kind of a headache. Thin tubeless tape helps, but you still need a lever.
It's crazy to me that these Enve's only optimized disc brake road rims on the market at the moment. This shows you how immature disc brake infrastructure is right now, and if I could do this over again, I'd pick up some tubeless ready Nextie rims, lace in some decent but inexpensive Taiwanese hubs, and wait for SRAM/Zipp to get their pants on.
(Build almost complete -- except for those two spacers under the stem)
The day before the aero testing, I needed to cut the steerer further to take the stack down about 10-12mm. Like an idiot (I guess), I unscrewed the top cap, and then unscrewed a second 6mm bolt underneath it. I don't have any experience with non-standard 1cm steerers, but this is what greeted me:
The steerer has a compression plug, and the threaded piece out of which I removed that 6mm bolt had dropped down into the base of the steerer, so I was unable to actually remove the compression system, and I also had nothing to thread that bolt back into. Since I wasn't there for this part of the build and I'd never seen this system before, I didn't know about this quirk.
So there I am in my hotel room in North Carolina, turning the bike upside down trying to fish out the threaded piece that had dropped down into the steerer, which proved impossible. Ultimately I decided to just cut the steerer without even removing the fork. This operation was as shady as it gets, but it got the job down. There was massive play in the headset, such that I was scared to even pick up the bike without extreme caution, let alone ride it outside, but it would suffice for the testing itself. We used electrical tape to secure the top cap.
(Do not unscrew that bolt.)
Again, this is lack of mechanical skill and knowledge that caused me such problems and was my own fault, but this is not the type of system that is all that workable for average consumers. I could have missed it, but I couldn't find any directions or information about this process in the materials provided with the bike or online. The "direct to consumer" and "ready to ride" nonsense is just that. This is a "direct to you and then you take it to a qualified professional to properly configure" bike.
Moreover, despite entering your preferred pad stack with the order, Diamondback ships you this bike with all spacers installed and the steerer uncut, so you have to do this to make it work. And because you have to cut the thing flush, you may need to buy a new fork if you want to sell it to someone with a significantly higher y coordinate than you. I would be interested to hear how much a replacement fork runs.
My strong recommendation is that they ship the bike with the 12mm and 24mm HED Corsair cup/pad spacers, so that consumers have greater range of adjustability in stack. Except that it's probably slow, I really do like this front end and I don't agree with Dan that it's not adjustable. It is adjustable. You have cup/pad/extension tilt, 12/24mm cup/pad stack options, and Diamondback offers a range of stems to facilitate the reach. I'm not sure what it's missing, though I could do without the flapping up and down of the cups, which is audible and annoying when riding. Regardless, this is a best in class front end, and I like it a lot.
After the testing, my shop was able to undo the damage and trim the steerer down to the appropriate level (i.e. slammed), but I watched this process and it wasn't entirely easy for them either. The tolerance for the cut is about 2mm to run the top cap flush, so erring on the side of not ruining the entire fork, it took two cuts. And of course, removing the fork entirely from the frame isn't easy, given that you need to remove the disc-brake caliper, etc. There is really just not that much that's easy in terms of assembling and disassembling this bike.
Finishing Touches
I set up my two cages, one behind the saddle and one between the arms -- the bosses on the stem are a nice and critical feature, it's astounds me that more stems aren't designed this way. On the small size, the down-tube bosses are useless for all but the smallest bottles, because there isn't enough space.
Additionally, despite my best efforts, I could not get the rubber cover for the speed box (i.e. the compartment behind the seat post where you store your weed) to close. There's a lip in the cover that's suppose to sit inside there, but it's too large. No amount of pressure works here. In terms of storage, this is a useless without tape until the top is fixed. I've secured it with electrical tape for now.
The compartment in front of the crankset has both magnets and a latch, and it seems secure. But I heard an unfortunate rumor that it flies off with road turbulence, which is something I just don't want to deal with so I've taped it shut for added security. Use of electrical tape isn't a big deal here, and maybe it's totally fine, but it obviously impairs the ease of use for this compartment if that rumor is true.
Honestly, these issues are somewhat disappointing for such an expensive and high-end bike, but they are also issues that Diamondback can easily fix, and I hope they will. Better positioned bosses. A speed box cap that fits. Stronger magnets for the bottom bracket compartment (if that is in fact an issue).
All those criticisms aside, the end product truly is breathtaking. Pictures don't do it justice. Completed, it's appearance and finish challenges any super-bike in existence. What can I say -- it's just a very hot bike.
First Ride Impressions
I was so happy and excited to get out there on this bike at last. This was a four month process, and I was finally ready for the maiden voyage. I immediately loved how the bike handled and felt. It has no issue in crosswinds -- conversely, you can almost feel the 'sail' effect at times. There's no doubt in my mind that this bike is very fast.
It takes some time to get comfortable on a new bike, but about an hour in I started really testing it. I was ripping around corners with abandon and just having a great time. For whatever reason it handles a lot better than my Felt, especially around turns. This probably has something to do with front-center, whatever that is that the bike nerds argue about. All I know is that it felt more road bike-like than my Felt, which does not handle or descend all that well compare to, say, a Speed Concept.
I was crushing it down a descent in full aero with head tucked when I hit a manhole cover, which happens where I ride, and my extensions collapsed into the wheel. I almost had a terrible accident at 30+ mph. This was clearly an installation and under-torquing issue -- absolutely nothing to do with the bike and everything to do with poor mechanical work on my part and the part of my shop. I stopped to tighten up those bolts with my pocket wrenches, but the way the stem is designed on the bike, it's really difficult to access these bolts. They top bolts are partially occluded, and the bottom bolts are located in such a way that I couldn't access them at all with my multi tool.
I proceeded more carefully, but later in the ride I nearly lost control again when the base bar collapsed while I was on the hoods. This time I was riding on the flats, but again almost took a bad spill. This also had everything to do with under-torquing and poor installation. Diamondback even included a torque wrench with the bike, and I failed to use it and my shop, in typical LBS laziness, apparently didn't use a torque wrench either. I take responsibility for this, but it was still frightening. Do what I say not what I do: use a torque wrench!
So there I was 20 miles from home with my base bar angled down at roughly 45 degrees, and I couldn't fix it without performing reconstructive surgery on the front end. It's tough to describe, but where the 2.5mm bolts to the stem cover are located, you need to actually loosen the bolts for the extension clamps to slide them outwards -- and recall that the with the wrench I had, it was nearly impossible to get to both of extension clamp bolts to do this. The flanges on the stem, for lack of a better words, make this whole thing a process.
(Really poorly located bolts, occluded by the flanges on the stem)
I made it home safely and slowly while avoiding every dip and cranny so the base bar and/or extensions didn't slide further. I went to work on the front end, applying liberal amounts of carbon paste and torquing every bolt beyond spec, as I would much prefer to break the bike before I break myself. Except for the bolts on the stem face plate -- which is negligence and laziness not to torque down to spec -- I can understand why my shop neglected to use a torque wrench on the extension clamp bolts. They are simply tough to access because of the protrusion of the stem. Poorly designed, in other words. I am concerned that I'll strip one of them eventually, and I probably will, because of the angle at which you need to approach them.
The tiny bolts securing the stem faceplate, as I mentioned earlier, can't be accessed without moving the extension clamps (unless you run them really wide, I suppose, or have a specialized tool), and even then it's very difficult to get a wrench in there. Re-installing those little bolts is harder still. I don't see how you can do it without laying the bike on its side so that you have gravity in your favor. I've said enough: working on this front end is really tough and I don't like it at all. Traveling with this bike on an airline and avoiding the fees is going to be impossible. I do own a very large case, but I hate those big cases and everything they entail. So this is a big negative in my eyes, since I fly with my bike 4-5 times annually.
(Egregious and inexcusable bolt occlusion on the stem faceplate)
As bad as all this is, it's easily fixable. Jordan's approach of hacking off the stem flanges -- which aren't structural, so this approach is fine -- solves it entirely. But Diamondback could just as easily offer an after-market stem that doesn't have those flanges and that more cleanly integrates with after-market bars. They should absolutely do this. And they should rethink the bolts that secure the stem face plate.
Second Ride
My second ride went smoothly until I looked down and noticed that my front wheel was no longer in the center of my extensions. I stopped to torque the single pinch bolt on the stem very tight. But it was already tight -- I had tightened it to spec -- and this didn't fix the issue for long. When I was about two miles from home, massive play developed in the headset, and if I had been any further from home, I would have needed to call for a ride because riding it in that condition was patently unsafe.
I went home and started pulling apart the front end (again) and after some investigation found that the 6mm bolt to the compression plug had started to wiggle loose. I didn't use a torque wrench on this particular bolt, and I don't know what the torque spec is even, but clearly it needs to be tightened very securely.
In a sense I was relieved by this, because I figured it explained the rotation of the front end around the steerer.
Third Ride/Ongoing Issues
My third ride was a time trial on a smooth road, and the bike worked without issue until I loaded it up in the back of my car after the race. As soon as I laid the bike down on the base bar, the front end again rotated, with only the gravity of the bike to force it off center. In other words, the clamp of the stem was much too lose on the steerer.
Jordan posited that the single pinch bolt on the stem was slightly too long and was "bottoming out" on the female piece it threads into. That female piece was removable, and it seemed like a good theory, so I scrambled to order specialized spacers from McMaster Carr and scrambled to modify the bolt by shaving a few threads off the end. This didn't solve the issue, and I was pretty crushed at this point.
There was another theory that the head of the compression plug was off tolerance, or larger than the steerer, so the stem was forcefully clamping that plug and not the steerer itself. I ordered a plastic Profile Design 1" plug and invalidated that theory.
(12 nM later...)
Finally, I pulled the front end apart again and installed the extra stem I had with a flat mountain bike bar for leverage. I torqued the pinch bolt to spec -- this was not the modified bolt but the bolt that was stock in the extra stem -- and I was still able to rotate the front end around the wheel with relative ease. Then I installed the modified bolt, and that worked! For good measure, I obtained another 1" mountain bike stem with the flat bar, and it held pat too.
In sum, through process of elimination, I had found two issues with my front end that rendered it essentially inoperable -- the length of the bolt and the tolerance or construction of that stem. I have experienced a bolt length issue of a Felt before, so maybe this is par for the course with manufacturers, but the stem/steerer interaction issue is surely not. The stem has significant heft and there is a single pinch bolt, so it's a problem. Another problem is the Diamondback personnel basically refused to believe or acknowledge that it was an issue, questioning my mechanical skill (which is challenged, admittedly) and recommending silly non solutions like use of a microshim and a cleaner bolt, despite evidence of this happening before with the same stem structure.
(Well this looks familiar...)
After dragging their feet a bit, Diamondback agreed to send me a replacement 105mm stem. There were no apologies about the fact that I would have to rewire the front end, which requires an act of Congress, on account of their manufacturing failures. I think that's kind of shitty, and I hope they examine the stem I sent back and diagnose the issues so that future customers don't have such a poor experience.
Disc Brakes
I should talk about the brakes. At first I thought these full mechanical TRP disc brakes were unexceptional, and from a modulation perspective, I still think they are. But in terms of consistency and stopping power, they are excellent and far better than my Felt's carbon clincher braking, which is to be expected. Since I experienced braking with the Andean, I decided I liked stopping the bike on command, so I replaced my Felt's front center pull aero brake with an ee cycle works brake, and my god does that brake make all the difference. I'm going to pretend that it's a fast brake, even though it looks slow.
I thought my time with mechanical disc brakes would be short lived. But the full hydraulic Dura Ace brakes, which I hoped would bring to the bike that razor sharp modulation that I have on my other bikes, have been delayed. Still, in the future, having those on a TT bike, at least for training, will be a game changer.
If you train in crap conditions year round, you need disc brakes. We had some awful wet days on the east coast in the past month, and these brakes performed. It's going to be hard to go back to carbon clinchers in the rain on any bike ever.
(Disc brake weather)
On the downside, I shudder to think about flatting in a race with disc brakes. Removing and reinstalling the wheels is much harder. I've only flatted once in a race -- it was a rear flat, and I lost almost four minutes from my 70.3 bike leg. I think a rear flat with this bike, especially if you need to carry a wrench to remove the thru axle, would take me nearly six minutes. With these Enve's, it's even more difficult than normal. I suppose you can run them tubeless and pray.
In sum, the disc brake infrastructure and components just aren't there yet. There's not much advantage to being an early adopter. On the other hand, this is about to get a lot better. Soon, we'll have beautiful Shimano 9100 series rotors and calipers and brifter. By next year, I expect Zipp to have a mold for an outstanding tubeless-ready carbon rim that you can get a tire on without breaking multiple tire levers. Reynolds and Flo and Nextie should follow soon after.
There aren't all that many reasons to oppose disc brakes anymore, especially since we know they aren't slow.
Other Comments & Conclusion
One thing you should know: NARPs are fascinated by this bike -- they want to look at it and marvel at it and talk to you about it and, of course, ask you if it's expensive ("No! They sell this brand at Dick's Sporting Goods -- it's like a Walmart Mongoose," I tell them.) If you stop at a service station during a ride, be prepared to field questions about the bike. In general, non-athletic regular people are fascinated by aero super-bikes, but this is in a class of its own when it comes to attracting attention...which triathletes love, so maybe this is a plus for you.
Now that I have it together, I do like this bike. I'm glad I bought it, and I suspect it will grow on me now that I have it fully operational. Diamondback has a long way to go, but I'm glad they are entering this vertical and developing equipment for our sport -- I hope they continue to make improvements to these products and investments in this space. I like what they are doing, and I especially like how responsive and helpful they have been, generally speaking, throughout the process. That goes a long way.
Is the bike fast? It is surely fast and eminently capable. So I am going to continue to ride this bike, at least for this season in training and in races that I can drive to. At the end of the year, I'll probably sell both TT bikes and pick up a Canyon CF SLX or a Premier Tactical. I will not continue to have two triathlon bikes -- only the most successful dentists and crazy people keep highly expensive, duplicative depreciating assets in their shed -- but at this point, and for very different reasons, I like both my Felt B series and my Diamondback Andean, and I don't know how I could choose one at the expense of the other. Neither bike is a silver bullet.
The quest for the perfect triathlon bike continues...
This piece is lengthy. For those who want the top line: the Andean is a fine design with a strong and capable chassis that struggles with key elements of execution, some of which are its maker's fault (e.g. engineering tolerance issues, occluded bolts, ineffective storage solutions) and some of which are not (e.g. the disc brake status quo). I like how it rides and how it performs and especially how it looks -- this is one beautiful machine. I love how solid and consistent the disc braking is, especially in wet weather, even as the complexities of ownership and the limitations of current equipment are downsides.
Frankly, I'm exhausted from the saga that was making this bike operable, but now that is is, I want to at least give the bike a chance. I'm going to ride it this year, but honestly I don't know how I can justify keeping a bike with this many flaws when there are options on the market at similar price points that are more refined.
Background
For almost two years, I've been on hunt for a new time trial bike because I simply wanted a bike that fit me better (i.e. without after-market under-mounted bar setups).
Like many of you, I watched with interest last fall as the most impressive and unique slate of products in modern triathlon-bike history were announced one after another: the TriRig Omni, Diamondback Andean, Cervelo P5-X, and the Premier Tactical, among others. I knew I had to choose one.
One bike did not, at least initially, meet my fit requirements (Premier Tactical) and another, despite its merits, was obnoxiously unaffordable (P5-X). I ordered the Omni and canceled the order, then I re-ordered and canceled again. I really wanted that bike, but ultimately quality and customer service concerns were too much of a risk for me for a product this expensive, given TriRig's storied history with same.
Meanwhile, Diamondback was helpful through the process of ordering, in explaining the bike's merits and compatibility issues, etc. -- generally speaking, they seemed then and appear now to care about delivering a quality product and supporting the customers who purchase it. This is worth a lot to me, and I really like these guys and appreciate what they are trying to do in this industry, even as they have a long way to go to compete with more established players.
The Order
In my five years of bike ownership, I have bought and built/had built (and eventually sold) more than twenty bikes. Whenever possible, I buy frames, because I know what I like by now and because the economics of a frame build are always better for me as I am skilled at sourcing both used and new parts at low prices. Cheap, basically.
Unfortunately, Diamondback refused to sell me a frame -- which I don't understand, because this would seem to be a better proposition for both manufacturer and customer -- but nevertheless, I ordered the lowest-end complete bike with the Corsair bar. I asked Diamondback to at least not build the bike, which request they also refused, despite my stated intent to strip it upon arrival and re-build it with custom parts. This also makes no sense to me.
Relevant to the order and ordering process: Diamondback bungled the fit calculator and sizing part of the buy flow from the beginning. The fit calculator is prescriptive, but not in a way that made much sense. Sometimes the stated reach envelope for a frame size could not be met by the fit calculator by a long shot (3-4cm). So somewhere along the line, Diamondback got confused as to whether they were measuring reach from the back of the pad or to the center of the pad, which is of course the difference often between choosing the wrong size or the right one.
I also noticed that If I entered into the fit calculator 556/476 x/y, it told me I should use a stem of 105 with pads neutral. When I raised the stack to 566 and left reach as is, it told me to use a 95mm stem with pads forward.
The inconsistencies in the tool led me to fear, like other companies, that these figures weren't even right. Felt has issues with this, so all I really wanted is confirmation from Diamondback that this theoretical prescription in the calculator would be corroborated by reality. And up until the product shipped, basically, nobody could tell me that except for one guy who doesn't even work for Diamondback. They allayed my fears by agreeing to ship me both the 95mm and 105mm stem with the bike, so I could configure it to my wishes, which was a good compromise.
In my opinion, no fit calculator or framework should output a single prescription. There are multiple ways to hit or come close to your coordinates, and athletes ought to be able to make a decision about that. Especially with this bike! Because of how the storage and nutrition interacts with the way you set up your front end, choosing a size isn't just about fit but also about utility. Look at the difference between Matt Russell's and Jordan Rapp's front ends. Matt could go a size bigger and Jordan could go a size smaller, and those choices mean very different things about the utility of storage and hydration solutions.
Despite all that, the price value of this bike is quite good. I spent about $4,400 for the complete bike and I'm on my way to recouping almost $1,200 from the sale of new take off parts. $3,200 is still a princely sum, but only a handful of companies can beat that price for a modern triathlon super-bike frameset. Moreover, unlike other bikes I have pre-ordered in the past, Diamondback didn't actually take my money when I ordered, which I think should always be the case in this industry. Customers shouldn't have to fund your inventory shortfalls and cover your working capital deficits while they wait for delivery of a product they've already paid for.
Then the waiting game began. I was given a "95%" chance of receiving the product by March 1st -- later than I was initially led to believe, but still well in advance of the season and with a few weeks to spare before the aero shootout, which was initially scheduled for mid March. This probability was supposed to increase to 100% after Chinese New Year (early February), but was instead reduced to zero percent by mid February. We pushed the aero test back by more than a month as assurances on delivery continued to be made and then pushed. To their credit, Diamondback was responsive and communicative throughout, and at last the bike shipped with less than one week to spare.
While I don't understand this goal-post moving nonsense -- I think these companies should give a range of dates, or a worst case date, or don't make promises at all that they can't 95% meet -- it seems to be industry practice. 3T put me through this song and dance last year with the Exploro, but they had an excuse. Even so, with that order I was out the money through my dealer, which infuriated me.
Unboxing
The bike arrived almost fully assembled in the biggest box in which I have ever seen a bike shipped.
(The "Unboxing" as DCR would say)
In literally less than ten minutes, I had the Andean assembled in stock form. In my opinion, it looked great -- this is a very attractive bike -- even as I knew it would look significantly better when I was done with it.
(Needs moar spacer stack)
The Build
(Note: This is going to be a long and somewhat technical section of the review. If you aren't planning to buy this bike or wrench on this bike or just don't care about the build specifics, you may want to skip to the "First Ride" section.)
I enlisted the support of my local bike shop for the build. This effort started over a case of beer around 8pm a few nights before the aero testing. What we thought would take a matter of a few hours stretched well past midnight, because the removal of the drive-side bearing and installation of the new bottom bracket (to facilitate my GXP Quarq) was nearly impossible.
(The saga begins...)
I've never seen anyone hammer so hard on a bike as my mechanic/shop owner did during the removal, and I never would have had the gumption to do so myself. The bearing actually started to disintegrate during the process, which I feared would end the build because the lip of the bearing, which was rapidly eroding, was our only hope to dislodge the thing. It simply would not budge. Finally, the bearing dislodged.
(That does not look good.)
Installing the BB required almost as much strain, and there is not a chance I would have had the physical strength to torque the thing all the way flush. I will not be removing that bottom bracket ever.
By the end of this ordeal, I was basically drunk, which was of course excellent, but I was also pissed. Had these guys not installed the bearings and the Pressfit crank to begin with, as I had wanted and requested, we would have saved hours of time and effort. Moreover, this kind of thing is not supposed to happen. My guess is that the tolerances are too wide in production or that this frame deviated from those tolerances too much. I don't know that this is the case, but I do know that my mechanic/LBS owner has been wrenching on all types of bikes for over fifteen years and has never seen anything like this. The shell was simply too tight.
The rest of the initial build went smoothly, though the front end required material modification to hide all the wires. I would rather sell an aero bike than have a rat's nest of exposed cables like on Michi Weiss' Andean -- total disgrace if you ask me. I can't help that I was born this way, but this is the way that I am.
The only real option for hiding and routing all cables cleanly was to shave down the Di2 5-port junction box and shove it inside the stem. Holes were drilled into the sides of the extensions so the bar-end shifter e-tubes could be run with little exposure.
The way Diamondback apparently suggests that you should do this is, in my opinion, insane. On the underside of the stem there are five routing jawns with a bit of a cavity where the junction box can fit inside the stem cover but outside the structural part of stem. This is a weird concept, but this picture should help:
(E-tube routing jawns)
The problem with my setup is this: you can't actually access the junction box to charge (or to initiate Bluetooth connection) without removing the stem cover -- which is a nightmare that we'll cover later.
So you go to this massive design effort to create the worlds narrowest head tube and most cavernous frame, and then you plop five electric cables in front of said head tube while storing the junction box in a place that is basically inaccessible. It's almost like this aspect of the design was an afterthought, which it shouldn't be, five years after the Di2 e-tube system came to market. In fairness, the internal battery holder in the lunch box area makes running wires and maintenance easy on that end of the system.
Anyways, we shaved off the routing protrusion from the underside of the stem and, like I said, also altered the 5-port until it would fit not just inside the stem cover but inside the stem itself -- and it does not install into or remove from there easily, so proceed carefully if you go this way. Do not do this if you don't have a second junction A around the house to plug into the rear derailleur e-tube for charging, because you're not going to want to get in there often. Or ever.
(No big deal...just charging my Di2 battery)
All that said, the end result is very clean, and I like it a lot.
The next unpleasant surprise was the saddle clamp hardware. It was certainly my fault for not anticipating this, but the bike shipped with the Ritchey one-bolt saddle clamp system that comes stock on many Cervelos, and none of my saddles worked with it because they all have oversized carbon rails. I have since ordered backup hardware from Ritchey and those work fine. Still, I think this clamp hardware is needlessly complex and a poorly designed system. I don't know why Cervelo continues to use it.
(Seems legit.)
I tasked the shop with cutting the steerer, but I asked them to leave it two spacers high, because I wasn't sure where all the bikes were going to net out from a stack perspective for the aero testing. I didn't realize at the time that the top cap needed to be run flush, so those spacers would need to be installed under the stem (not over), but no matter, I own a carbon saw, and figured I'd just hack it myself the day before the testing as needed.
An aside: while this doesn't have anything to do with Diamondback, I should discuss the wheels. These Enve 7.8 SES Disc hoops are the wheels that come on the $15,000 Cervelo, and they look mighty fine. I sourced my pair from Brian Richards at My Bike Shop, who was amazing (as always) to work with on the order -- and he went the extra mile by staying on Enve for months to get them for me in time for the testing. I was immediately frustrated by these hoops though, because getting tires on them requires more than your thumbs. Coming from Firecrest 808s, which don't even require a tire lever for installation, these wheels are kind of a headache. Thin tubeless tape helps, but you still need a lever.
It's crazy to me that these Enve's only optimized disc brake road rims on the market at the moment. This shows you how immature disc brake infrastructure is right now, and if I could do this over again, I'd pick up some tubeless ready Nextie rims, lace in some decent but inexpensive Taiwanese hubs, and wait for SRAM/Zipp to get their pants on.
(Build almost complete -- except for those two spacers under the stem)
The day before the aero testing, I needed to cut the steerer further to take the stack down about 10-12mm. Like an idiot (I guess), I unscrewed the top cap, and then unscrewed a second 6mm bolt underneath it. I don't have any experience with non-standard 1cm steerers, but this is what greeted me:
The steerer has a compression plug, and the threaded piece out of which I removed that 6mm bolt had dropped down into the base of the steerer, so I was unable to actually remove the compression system, and I also had nothing to thread that bolt back into. Since I wasn't there for this part of the build and I'd never seen this system before, I didn't know about this quirk.
So there I am in my hotel room in North Carolina, turning the bike upside down trying to fish out the threaded piece that had dropped down into the steerer, which proved impossible. Ultimately I decided to just cut the steerer without even removing the fork. This operation was as shady as it gets, but it got the job down. There was massive play in the headset, such that I was scared to even pick up the bike without extreme caution, let alone ride it outside, but it would suffice for the testing itself. We used electrical tape to secure the top cap.
(Do not unscrew that bolt.)
Again, this is lack of mechanical skill and knowledge that caused me such problems and was my own fault, but this is not the type of system that is all that workable for average consumers. I could have missed it, but I couldn't find any directions or information about this process in the materials provided with the bike or online. The "direct to consumer" and "ready to ride" nonsense is just that. This is a "direct to you and then you take it to a qualified professional to properly configure" bike.
Moreover, despite entering your preferred pad stack with the order, Diamondback ships you this bike with all spacers installed and the steerer uncut, so you have to do this to make it work. And because you have to cut the thing flush, you may need to buy a new fork if you want to sell it to someone with a significantly higher y coordinate than you. I would be interested to hear how much a replacement fork runs.
My strong recommendation is that they ship the bike with the 12mm and 24mm HED Corsair cup/pad spacers, so that consumers have greater range of adjustability in stack. Except that it's probably slow, I really do like this front end and I don't agree with Dan that it's not adjustable. It is adjustable. You have cup/pad/extension tilt, 12/24mm cup/pad stack options, and Diamondback offers a range of stems to facilitate the reach. I'm not sure what it's missing, though I could do without the flapping up and down of the cups, which is audible and annoying when riding. Regardless, this is a best in class front end, and I like it a lot.
After the testing, my shop was able to undo the damage and trim the steerer down to the appropriate level (i.e. slammed), but I watched this process and it wasn't entirely easy for them either. The tolerance for the cut is about 2mm to run the top cap flush, so erring on the side of not ruining the entire fork, it took two cuts. And of course, removing the fork entirely from the frame isn't easy, given that you need to remove the disc-brake caliper, etc. There is really just not that much that's easy in terms of assembling and disassembling this bike.
Finishing Touches
I set up my two cages, one behind the saddle and one between the arms -- the bosses on the stem are a nice and critical feature, it's astounds me that more stems aren't designed this way. On the small size, the down-tube bosses are useless for all but the smallest bottles, because there isn't enough space.
Additionally, despite my best efforts, I could not get the rubber cover for the speed box (i.e. the compartment behind the seat post where you store your weed) to close. There's a lip in the cover that's suppose to sit inside there, but it's too large. No amount of pressure works here. In terms of storage, this is a useless without tape until the top is fixed. I've secured it with electrical tape for now.
The compartment in front of the crankset has both magnets and a latch, and it seems secure. But I heard an unfortunate rumor that it flies off with road turbulence, which is something I just don't want to deal with so I've taped it shut for added security. Use of electrical tape isn't a big deal here, and maybe it's totally fine, but it obviously impairs the ease of use for this compartment if that rumor is true.
Honestly, these issues are somewhat disappointing for such an expensive and high-end bike, but they are also issues that Diamondback can easily fix, and I hope they will. Better positioned bosses. A speed box cap that fits. Stronger magnets for the bottom bracket compartment (if that is in fact an issue).
All those criticisms aside, the end product truly is breathtaking. Pictures don't do it justice. Completed, it's appearance and finish challenges any super-bike in existence. What can I say -- it's just a very hot bike.
First Ride Impressions
I was so happy and excited to get out there on this bike at last. This was a four month process, and I was finally ready for the maiden voyage. I immediately loved how the bike handled and felt. It has no issue in crosswinds -- conversely, you can almost feel the 'sail' effect at times. There's no doubt in my mind that this bike is very fast.
It takes some time to get comfortable on a new bike, but about an hour in I started really testing it. I was ripping around corners with abandon and just having a great time. For whatever reason it handles a lot better than my Felt, especially around turns. This probably has something to do with front-center, whatever that is that the bike nerds argue about. All I know is that it felt more road bike-like than my Felt, which does not handle or descend all that well compare to, say, a Speed Concept.
I was crushing it down a descent in full aero with head tucked when I hit a manhole cover, which happens where I ride, and my extensions collapsed into the wheel. I almost had a terrible accident at 30+ mph. This was clearly an installation and under-torquing issue -- absolutely nothing to do with the bike and everything to do with poor mechanical work on my part and the part of my shop. I stopped to tighten up those bolts with my pocket wrenches, but the way the stem is designed on the bike, it's really difficult to access these bolts. They top bolts are partially occluded, and the bottom bolts are located in such a way that I couldn't access them at all with my multi tool.
I proceeded more carefully, but later in the ride I nearly lost control again when the base bar collapsed while I was on the hoods. This time I was riding on the flats, but again almost took a bad spill. This also had everything to do with under-torquing and poor installation. Diamondback even included a torque wrench with the bike, and I failed to use it and my shop, in typical LBS laziness, apparently didn't use a torque wrench either. I take responsibility for this, but it was still frightening. Do what I say not what I do: use a torque wrench!
So there I was 20 miles from home with my base bar angled down at roughly 45 degrees, and I couldn't fix it without performing reconstructive surgery on the front end. It's tough to describe, but where the 2.5mm bolts to the stem cover are located, you need to actually loosen the bolts for the extension clamps to slide them outwards -- and recall that the with the wrench I had, it was nearly impossible to get to both of extension clamp bolts to do this. The flanges on the stem, for lack of a better words, make this whole thing a process.
(Really poorly located bolts, occluded by the flanges on the stem)
I made it home safely and slowly while avoiding every dip and cranny so the base bar and/or extensions didn't slide further. I went to work on the front end, applying liberal amounts of carbon paste and torquing every bolt beyond spec, as I would much prefer to break the bike before I break myself. Except for the bolts on the stem face plate -- which is negligence and laziness not to torque down to spec -- I can understand why my shop neglected to use a torque wrench on the extension clamp bolts. They are simply tough to access because of the protrusion of the stem. Poorly designed, in other words. I am concerned that I'll strip one of them eventually, and I probably will, because of the angle at which you need to approach them.
The tiny bolts securing the stem faceplate, as I mentioned earlier, can't be accessed without moving the extension clamps (unless you run them really wide, I suppose, or have a specialized tool), and even then it's very difficult to get a wrench in there. Re-installing those little bolts is harder still. I don't see how you can do it without laying the bike on its side so that you have gravity in your favor. I've said enough: working on this front end is really tough and I don't like it at all. Traveling with this bike on an airline and avoiding the fees is going to be impossible. I do own a very large case, but I hate those big cases and everything they entail. So this is a big negative in my eyes, since I fly with my bike 4-5 times annually.
(Egregious and inexcusable bolt occlusion on the stem faceplate)
As bad as all this is, it's easily fixable. Jordan's approach of hacking off the stem flanges -- which aren't structural, so this approach is fine -- solves it entirely. But Diamondback could just as easily offer an after-market stem that doesn't have those flanges and that more cleanly integrates with after-market bars. They should absolutely do this. And they should rethink the bolts that secure the stem face plate.
Second Ride
My second ride went smoothly until I looked down and noticed that my front wheel was no longer in the center of my extensions. I stopped to torque the single pinch bolt on the stem very tight. But it was already tight -- I had tightened it to spec -- and this didn't fix the issue for long. When I was about two miles from home, massive play developed in the headset, and if I had been any further from home, I would have needed to call for a ride because riding it in that condition was patently unsafe.
I went home and started pulling apart the front end (again) and after some investigation found that the 6mm bolt to the compression plug had started to wiggle loose. I didn't use a torque wrench on this particular bolt, and I don't know what the torque spec is even, but clearly it needs to be tightened very securely.
In a sense I was relieved by this, because I figured it explained the rotation of the front end around the steerer.
Third Ride/Ongoing Issues
My third ride was a time trial on a smooth road, and the bike worked without issue until I loaded it up in the back of my car after the race. As soon as I laid the bike down on the base bar, the front end again rotated, with only the gravity of the bike to force it off center. In other words, the clamp of the stem was much too lose on the steerer.
Jordan posited that the single pinch bolt on the stem was slightly too long and was "bottoming out" on the female piece it threads into. That female piece was removable, and it seemed like a good theory, so I scrambled to order specialized spacers from McMaster Carr and scrambled to modify the bolt by shaving a few threads off the end. This didn't solve the issue, and I was pretty crushed at this point.
There was another theory that the head of the compression plug was off tolerance, or larger than the steerer, so the stem was forcefully clamping that plug and not the steerer itself. I ordered a plastic Profile Design 1" plug and invalidated that theory.
(12 nM later...)
Finally, I pulled the front end apart again and installed the extra stem I had with a flat mountain bike bar for leverage. I torqued the pinch bolt to spec -- this was not the modified bolt but the bolt that was stock in the extra stem -- and I was still able to rotate the front end around the wheel with relative ease. Then I installed the modified bolt, and that worked! For good measure, I obtained another 1" mountain bike stem with the flat bar, and it held pat too.
In sum, through process of elimination, I had found two issues with my front end that rendered it essentially inoperable -- the length of the bolt and the tolerance or construction of that stem. I have experienced a bolt length issue of a Felt before, so maybe this is par for the course with manufacturers, but the stem/steerer interaction issue is surely not. The stem has significant heft and there is a single pinch bolt, so it's a problem. Another problem is the Diamondback personnel basically refused to believe or acknowledge that it was an issue, questioning my mechanical skill (which is challenged, admittedly) and recommending silly non solutions like use of a microshim and a cleaner bolt, despite evidence of this happening before with the same stem structure.
(Well this looks familiar...)
After dragging their feet a bit, Diamondback agreed to send me a replacement 105mm stem. There were no apologies about the fact that I would have to rewire the front end, which requires an act of Congress, on account of their manufacturing failures. I think that's kind of shitty, and I hope they examine the stem I sent back and diagnose the issues so that future customers don't have such a poor experience.
Disc Brakes
I should talk about the brakes. At first I thought these full mechanical TRP disc brakes were unexceptional, and from a modulation perspective, I still think they are. But in terms of consistency and stopping power, they are excellent and far better than my Felt's carbon clincher braking, which is to be expected. Since I experienced braking with the Andean, I decided I liked stopping the bike on command, so I replaced my Felt's front center pull aero brake with an ee cycle works brake, and my god does that brake make all the difference. I'm going to pretend that it's a fast brake, even though it looks slow.
I thought my time with mechanical disc brakes would be short lived. But the full hydraulic Dura Ace brakes, which I hoped would bring to the bike that razor sharp modulation that I have on my other bikes, have been delayed. Still, in the future, having those on a TT bike, at least for training, will be a game changer.
If you train in crap conditions year round, you need disc brakes. We had some awful wet days on the east coast in the past month, and these brakes performed. It's going to be hard to go back to carbon clinchers in the rain on any bike ever.
(Disc brake weather)
On the downside, I shudder to think about flatting in a race with disc brakes. Removing and reinstalling the wheels is much harder. I've only flatted once in a race -- it was a rear flat, and I lost almost four minutes from my 70.3 bike leg. I think a rear flat with this bike, especially if you need to carry a wrench to remove the thru axle, would take me nearly six minutes. With these Enve's, it's even more difficult than normal. I suppose you can run them tubeless and pray.
In sum, the disc brake infrastructure and components just aren't there yet. There's not much advantage to being an early adopter. On the other hand, this is about to get a lot better. Soon, we'll have beautiful Shimano 9100 series rotors and calipers and brifter. By next year, I expect Zipp to have a mold for an outstanding tubeless-ready carbon rim that you can get a tire on without breaking multiple tire levers. Reynolds and Flo and Nextie should follow soon after.
There aren't all that many reasons to oppose disc brakes anymore, especially since we know they aren't slow.
Other Comments & Conclusion
One thing you should know: NARPs are fascinated by this bike -- they want to look at it and marvel at it and talk to you about it and, of course, ask you if it's expensive ("No! They sell this brand at Dick's Sporting Goods -- it's like a Walmart Mongoose," I tell them.) If you stop at a service station during a ride, be prepared to field questions about the bike. In general, non-athletic regular people are fascinated by aero super-bikes, but this is in a class of its own when it comes to attracting attention...which triathletes love, so maybe this is a plus for you.
Now that I have it together, I do like this bike. I'm glad I bought it, and I suspect it will grow on me now that I have it fully operational. Diamondback has a long way to go, but I'm glad they are entering this vertical and developing equipment for our sport -- I hope they continue to make improvements to these products and investments in this space. I like what they are doing, and I especially like how responsive and helpful they have been, generally speaking, throughout the process. That goes a long way.
Is the bike fast? It is surely fast and eminently capable. So I am going to continue to ride this bike, at least for this season in training and in races that I can drive to. At the end of the year, I'll probably sell both TT bikes and pick up a Canyon CF SLX or a Premier Tactical. I will not continue to have two triathlon bikes -- only the most successful dentists and crazy people keep highly expensive, duplicative depreciating assets in their shed -- but at this point, and for very different reasons, I like both my Felt B series and my Diamondback Andean, and I don't know how I could choose one at the expense of the other. Neither bike is a silver bullet.
The quest for the perfect triathlon bike continues...