SPEEDX LEOPARD
£1299 › $2 million crowd funded ‘smart’ bike breaks cover
SpeedX’s Leopard set records for crowd funding when more than 1200 pledged an amount totalling $2,319,876. That’s a record for cycling-related projects, and in the top 50 of Kickstarter’s campaigns.
That shows a desire for a connected smart bike and, on paper, the Leopard has plenty of smart stuff – builtin speed and cadence sensors, a low-light-sensing rear light and an integrated computer head-unit in the stem. The Leopard also comes with an app for both iOS and Android, which allows you to see your riding history, and to join a club to view usage rankings of SpeedXs worldwide.
Smart technology is one thing, but the bike it’s applied to has to be worth your time too. The frame is designed to be aero, and built to be tough. Unfortunately, its stiffness is uncompromising, and running 50mm-deep SpeedX alloy aero clinchers shod with 23mm tyres adds to the overall harsh feeling. The front end is solid with little in the way of vibrations, but every road scar is met with a ‘thunk’. At the rear the solidity of the frame puts a sting in its tail, and it’s only thanks to the comfortable Selle Royal Seta saddle that we didn’t come away feeling more punished.
The steering is more steady than sharp, again not at odds with the rest of the bike, just a little unexpected. The dedicated aero post includes an integrated motion-activated rear light and the micro-USB port for charging, but when this tester set their saddle height (79.3cm) the USB port’s rubber cover fouled the seat clamp making it awkward when it came to plugging it in.
Climbing on the Leopard is a mixed bag – the stiffness encourages hard pedalling, but the flexing rims mean that this is countered by a rhythmic brake rub at both ends. Its weight also makes it feel more ponderous than powerful – more loris than leopard. Shimano’s fine 105 gearing helps but it just doesn’t feel anything like a match for similarly priced bikes. And in the rain the TRP brakes simply failed to slow the bike as quickly as we’d like. The grooved brake track seemingly provided a space to trap water, and it took a few revolutions to clear enough for the brakes to work.
Overall the bike misses the mark. The smart tech is intriguing but here it’s flawed. We’ve had plenty of updates but we never managed to properly sync the head unit with its own dedicated app. We do think that SpeedX will iron out the tech bugs, but the bike side of things needs serious refinement too.