The AWOL is unapologertically designed to be Specialized offering in the bike packing, do anything category of bike.
Bikepacking and as it used to be know touring are not new concepts, take your bike and everything you need on your bike and go on an adventure. It doesn't matter if its for a day or a year as long as its an adventure. However over the past couple of years there seems to have been a very conscious shift by a portion of the cycling community to move away from target driven mileage (how fast, what heart rate, how far?) to just riding for the sake of riding and bikes like the AWOL perfectly encompass this attitiude. This is exactly what appealed to me when I took delivery of my Specialized AWOL Comp, back in November 2014.
The AWOL is not alone in this market place, there are a number of like-minded cycles out there including the Surly Trucker, Kinesis Decade ATR and Salsa's Vaya. All very similar but with their own twist. If you're after lovely titanium framework then the Kinesis is your bike, if you want something a little bit different with some lovely design touches its the Surly. For me the Big S won on the basis of how flexible the drive train and tyre options are. It comes with a fairly standard SRAM 2x10 drive train but want single speed? done. Belt drive? No problem. Hub gears? it's all possible. For me it was the most future proof of all the bikes, in that I could make it what I want and there's very little I couldn't do with it. If you need more proof check out Eric's awesome Alfine Di2, Gates belt drive equipped Peacock Nuke AWOL. Its equally flexible with its wheels and tryes, coming with 700x38 but it can run up to a 2.0 mountain bike tyre.
Anyway after a lot of debating I took the plunge and bought a AWOL Comp in November 2014, however due to a broken hand and a hectic Christmas schedule I've only managed a handful of short rides.
So what are my initial impressions? First of all its big, really big. Mine is an XL and while the rear triangle sits very similar to my Kinesis Racelight T, the front end is tall, as you can see from the photo below. And yes before you all start I know these photos break all the rules of bike photography, non drive side, pedals all over the shop but I was tired the light was fading fast and ....you get the idea.
There a lot of spacers under the stem and I've swapped a few out to drop the stem slightly. In terms of ride and comfort this hasn't made much difference but it has made the handing slightly less vague. On early rides I found the steering to feel a little detached but lowering the stem has put a little more weight over the front and made all the difference.
I've heard talk of sitting in these bikes not on them and that's definitely true of the AWOL, its a really nice relaxed, comfortable ride but one where you still feel you're riding a responsive, modern bike. A very clever design.
As mentioned the rides have been limited to a maximum of an hour so far but with the plan that as soon as the weather picks up and the next few weeks of hectic commitments die down I've got some serious one-to-one time planned with the AWOL. However I've recently got some additional time on the bike, with heavy snow the AWOL has been thrown in to commuting duties, due in no small part to the Schwalbe 38c spiked ice tyres someone with a crystal ball bought me for Christmas.
With the disk brakes, relaxed geometry and decent tyre clearance its performed flawlessly. Although the additional weight over my usia Kinesis commuter bike is easily noted. The eagle-eyed among you will also have noted the Tubus front and rear racks that have appeared. You'll definitely be seeing a lot more of these in the future.
So to sum up, I'm a little bit smitten with the AWOL, it does everything very well and while my mountain bike is better off road and my light weight road bike is better faster on the road the AWOL has so many bases covered that its rapidly becoming my go to bike. Its also got one special factor, its fun to ride, it has that feeling that only certain bikes have that makes you want to do another lap of the block when you get home, just because you can. Whether my AWOL will ever get used for a huge expedition like many of them remains to be seen but I can guarantee it will see a lot of use regardless of how far from home it goes.
www.specialized.com
There a lot of spacers under the stem and I've swapped a few out to drop the stem slightly. In terms of ride and comfort this hasn't made much difference but it has made the handing slightly less vague. On early rides I found the steering to feel a little detached but lowering the stem has put a little more weight over the front and made all the difference.
I've heard talk of sitting in these bikes not on them and that's definitely true of the AWOL, its a really nice relaxed, comfortable ride but one where you still feel you're riding a responsive, modern bike. A very clever design.
As mentioned the rides have been limited to a maximum of an hour so far but with the plan that as soon as the weather picks up and the next few weeks of hectic commitments die down I've got some serious one-to-one time planned with the AWOL. However I've recently got some additional time on the bike, with heavy snow the AWOL has been thrown in to commuting duties, due in no small part to the Schwalbe 38c spiked ice tyres someone with a crystal ball bought me for Christmas.
With the disk brakes, relaxed geometry and decent tyre clearance its performed flawlessly. Although the additional weight over my usia Kinesis commuter bike is easily noted. The eagle-eyed among you will also have noted the Tubus front and rear racks that have appeared. You'll definitely be seeing a lot more of these in the future.
So to sum up, I'm a little bit smitten with the AWOL, it does everything very well and while my mountain bike is better off road and my light weight road bike is better faster on the road the AWOL has so many bases covered that its rapidly becoming my go to bike. Its also got one special factor, its fun to ride, it has that feeling that only certain bikes have that makes you want to do another lap of the block when you get home, just because you can. Whether my AWOL will ever get used for a huge expedition like many of them remains to be seen but I can guarantee it will see a lot of use regardless of how far from home it goes.
www.specialized.com
