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Salsa, the greatest name in bikes, has put together a super spicy lineup for 2013. Salsa continues to hold true to its tagline: Adventure by Bike. This year's adventure is all about attaching a bunch of stuff to your bike and hauling it all out into the mountains. Once in the mountains, you take a picture of your fully loaded bike, upload it to Facebook and then commence to have a really kick-ass time. Whiskey, fire, raccoons, unicorns -- all of that.
Salsa is a Minnesota bike company, and like any backwoods Midwestern state, Minnesota apparently doesn't have paved roads. So most of Salsa's bikes are designed for dirt and gravel surfaces, which, coincidentally is a lot like San Francisco's pavement. In other words, Salsa bikes make great bay-area commuters.
Recently our first shipment arrived: a fresh load of 2013 Vayas. The Vaya is Salsa's all-around, all-road touring bike. Â By "all-road" Salsa means that the Vaya can tackle pavement and gravel--no problem. Â Salsa ditched the Casseroll (light-touring, brevet bike) this year but stuck with the heavy-duty touring workhorses, the Vaya and the Fargo. Â We will be stocking both!
Like last year, the Vaya comes in two different varieties: the Vaya 2 and the Vaya 3. Â The most important difference, other than the paint scheme, is that the Vaya 2 has integrated levers; the Vaya 3 comes with bar-end shifters. Â I suppose that makes the Vaya 2 a bit sportier and the Vaya 3 a true touring dude's bike. Â Whether bar-end shifters or integrated levers are superior, the Vaya 2 is definitely an upgrade in componentry in pretty much every department.
At $1,900 here is a look at the Vaya 2:
And at $1,450 here is the Vaya 3:
On to the Salsa Fargo, which is the only thing close to a mountain bike that we stock. The Fargo is a truly bad-ass off-road touring bike. A steel 29er designed for something that Salsa calls bikepacking, the Fargo has so many mounting eyelets drilled into the frame that you could probably haul the entire contents of your home on this thing. The frame is also suspension corrected, which means that you could throw a suspension fork on a Fargo if you need a more forgiving ride. Like the Vaya, the Fargo comes in two models -- one with integrated levers and BB7 disc brakes, and one with bar-end shifters and BB5 disc brakes.
At $1,950 here is the Fargo 2:
And at $1,450 the Fargo 3:
New for 2013 are two models, the Warbird and the Colossal. Both are in classes of their own. Starting with the Warbird, apparently there is some new adventure out there called "gravel-road racing," and somehow it is different from cyclocross. The bike of choice for said adventure is going to be the Warbird -- alloy frame, carbon ENVE CX fork, disc brakes, and clearance for a 38mm tire.
At $2,500 here is the Warbird:
The Colossal is, simply, a steel-frame, disc-brake road bike. Like the Warbird it comes with a sweet carbon ENVE fork, but it doesn't have as much tire clearance; only room for a 28mm tire on this beast. The frame geometry is somewhere between an aggressive crit bike and a all-day road bike.
At $2,400 here is the Colossal:
Over the next couple of weeks/months these bikes will be tricking into the shop. So far, we only have a couple of 2013 Vayas, but expect more soon. If you want to check availability, give us a ring at 415-484-6575.
We are your Huckleberry!
