Bike Review: Pedal Force ZX3

I've been meaning to write a review of this bike for a while. Outside of being lazy I don't really have any good excuse for the delay. However, in hindsight I think it's worked out better that I waited as I have now put in a ton of very different types of miles so I've experienced the bikes performance in a lot of areas. Since I've never reviewed a bike outside of conversation with other cyclist I may leave out things that other people might want to know. But, mostly, I don't see many of you getting past the picture.

First off, I get asked all the time, "What kind of bike is that?" Pedal Force is an online dealer that sells mostly carbon frames. None of these frames are badged so it took me a long time to have an answer to that question. I was on a ride one day and a guy with a Scattante something came up to me and asked if we had the same bike. I told him I didn't think so but after further comparison of both of our bikes it was pretty obvious that we did indeed have the same bike. I don't remember the exact model, but it is an unbadged Scattante of some sort. And, since Scattantes are made on the same line as all the Fuji carbon bikes, it's essentially some sort of Fuji. This line of logic really doesn't mean a thing to me, but since it does exist, I figure it's worth maybe pointing out.

When looking to buy a new bike there are two things that matter most to me. Weight is not one of them. This bike is advertised as fully built (without bottles) at 16.5lbs. That's not insanely light, but it's lighter than my old Cervelo Dual (which is Soloist), but I can't really tell.

Geometry is really important to me because I am essentially a freak of nature. My legs are insanely long. My torso is incredibly short. This combo makes for very weird bike fit issues. The ZX3 in a 58 fits me really well. I have to use a 90mm stem to shorten the reach a bit, but that's better in the long run than having an extra foot of seat tube creating constant torque on the frame. And, I can't tell the difference in handling.

The other factor I really look for is stiffness. The other selling point for me was the gigantic over sized bottom bracket in the pictures. I don't care about road dampening or any of that crap. When I push the pedals down I want the bike to go forward. The Cervelo was stiff. When I'd start to lose a wheel in front of me on that bike I'd mash two or three hard pedal strokes and I'd be right back where I was. For a while I owned a Salsa Campeon, but not for very long because that frame simply didn't respond to those kinds of accelerations. My ZX3 is stiff! Whether it's following surges from other people on climbs, accelerating to stay on wheels in groups, sprinting or riding people off my wheel this bike moves forward. No complaints about the stiffness.

The price of this bike was another great factor. Total build was $1,650 with SRAM Rival. Since I'm going to be racing a ton of crits this year this price doesn't make me squeamish when thinking of the carnage that can be made of a bike during crashes.

This is also my first time using a SRAM groupo. It took me about two rides for the double tap shifting to become intuitive. Since then I've noticed that it takes much less fine tuning than Ultegra. Aesthetically speaking I also like that all of the cables are routed inside the bar tape.

The only complaint I have about my ZX3 is that there are occasional noises coming out of some new place. The noises come and go so I've sort of learned to ignore it for a bit and see what happens. The happening is usually the noise going away within a few days.

Overall I am very happy with my bike. It's stiff. It climbs well. It handles well. I'm learning to be a better descender and I feel like this bike is helping with that as well. And, after spending the last hour trying to write this, I've also learned that I should not be a professional product reviewer.