Speed 25 Peak Conquering Ride

20 July 2022

You can spend all day talking about a wheel and describing it down to the smallest detail, but there’s no better way to understand how it performs than riding it.

So what is the perfect terrain for the new Speed 25? They are low profile, light wheels designed specifically to ensure maximum performance uphill and great handling downhill. Therefore steep climbs and descents are the order of the day for the latest member of Fulcrum’s range.

This is why we organised the Peak Conquering Challenge, a Strava challenge to climb the weight of the Speed 25 in metres of elevation: 1285 metres in 10 days. 160,000 riders took up the challenge on Strava. Closer to home we decided to invite our riders and ambassadors to try the new wheels and complete the challenge together. But the invitation had a further surprise for our guests: to complete the elevation in a single ride across the Berici hills, our local stomping ground, where we came up with the idea for the Speed 25 and where we tested them extensively first hand.

Many of our guests had never met before so the day began with a leisurely coffee getting to know each other, before hopping on the bikes and tackling the climbs we had planned for the day’s ride. During that half hour at the coffee shop many passers-by stopped to admire the bikes leaning against the walls and with good reason. There were some spectacular bikes on display.

Between Mitch’s snaps, Lina Bo’s stories, Asja from Enough Cycling who told us about her adventures and the guys from the Circolo Ciclistico Cinelli Iuter who filled us in about their future projects, the local girls of Rid_her explained the route to everyone. Being close to our offices the Berici hills are our ideal testing ground too.

The climbing started as soon as we set off. Nicola Duchi, our triathlete, wanted to put the Speed 25 through their paces, and tried to break off the front. But we soon regrouped and waited for everyone at the top, to share initial impressions on the wheels and to fill our bottles at the first fountain available.

Climb after climb we soon covered the final kilometres of the route, and the target elevation, and it was time for a well-earned lunch together. But, however well you plan a route, the final numbers on the computer always seem to be lower than you planned. In fact at the end of the ride we all had different totals that fell short of the required 1285 metres. There was only one thing for it, to climb the last gradient a couple times, until everyone reached the target figure.

The unluckiest was Leonardo Basso, who was still missing 100 metres on his ride. By this stage the heat and the gradients started taking their toll on everyone. In fact Lina Bo joked about whether she was seeing double or whether the @rid_her twin sisters really were sitting close together on the panoramic terrace overlooking the city.

Today we combined business with pleasure: trying the new Speed 25 in their environment and bringing together the Fulcrum family in full. We still don’t know whether it’s easier to climb up the steep Berici hills or getting everyone together in the same place at the same time, but the Speed 25 gave us a big hand in doing both.