...:::<<<QUINTANA ROO TEQUILO>>>:::...

During the late 70s and 80s many Americans viewed Japanese cars as the world's robust values. But the containers bringing these cars to America were not empty upon their return. Many Japanese were crazy for American-made cars, though they understood these cars to have the occasional flaw, the doors to be rehung, things like that.

Accepting the flaws of the desirable American car, that's the visual that came into my head while test riding Quintana Roo's $2400 Tequilo. There's a lot to be crazy about. Fundamentally, this classic muscle bike celebrating its fifteenth year in production is conceived, engineered and executed right. But if you want this bike to be perfect -- to be the functional equivalent of a bike twice its price -- you've got to give it a little tough love when you take it out of the box. A bit of its parts and assembly need to be rethought.

Of course all bikes start with the frameset, and with so many tri bike companies over the years getting it wrong right at the start of the process, you can't take this for granted. In the case of the Tequilo, the frameset is absolutely correct in virtually every way, but it's not correct for every style of rider. As is the case with Trek's, Felt's and Giant's new geometries, and Cervelo's existing geometry, the supposition is that you intend to milk every available benefit out of the aero position. Likewise this Tequilo. If either the customer or the retailer fail to understand how these bikes are designed to be fitted and ridden, well, it's like buying a Ferrari to use for off-roading: bad use of a great car. (The mechanics of riding a tri bike is the subject of other articles on Slowtwitch.)

The sense you get from this Tequilo is of a muscle car stripped of everything but its 400 horsepower motor and the drivetrain to push it. The Tequilo is simply a metal muscle. That is not to say this all-aluminum frame is uncomfortable. I noticed suspension during the ride, and quite a lot of it, not unlike the give in the middle of the frame you might expect from a Slingshot (for those who remember this innovative bike design).

Then I remembered the frame's geometry, specifically its 72-degree head angle matched with a carbon fork with 48mm of offset. The point of this geometry is to give each bike size the stability of a bike one size larger, that is, the stability and weight distribution of the 59cm Tequilo I was riding was more akin to that of a 61cm found in most tri bikes, including last year's Tequilo. By sticking the bike's front axle that far in front of the head tube bottom, you also get some give when you go over a bump.

Before I leave the frame I need to scribble some final notes. First, you'll notice that the cosmetics are not the same on the bike I rode as on the studio shot of the bike QR is selling. That's because QR got such a rave reception on its 07 Lucero cosmetics, it quickly ceased producing its 07 Kilo and Tequilo and reworked the cosmetics to match the exceptionally popular Lucero. So I'm riding an 07 frameset and parts with 06-and-three-quarters paint.

Also worth mention is that the internal cable routing is correctly executed: the angle of the shift housing as it leaves the frame does not interfere with the bikes shifting; no popping grommets; no housing getting in the way of anything. And the geometry, well, I'm tired of hearing how Cervelos, Felts, QRs are too low in front. Below is a photo of the bike I rode. The minus-6-degree stem is in its downward configuration, and I have just a single 1cm spacer under the stem. I have this with the low-profile armrests that come on the standard-issue Visiontech aerobars.

I didn't simply ride the bike as it was set up upon arrival. My fit coordinates require the set up on the photo. I ride with the saddle top between 79cm and 80cm from the bottom bracket axle. My armrests are about 15cm below the top of the saddle. This is about right for the 80-degree seat angle I ride, which I get by shoving the Tequilo's saddle forward on its stock 78.5-degree frame. In other words, if the Tequilo's frame was built with a different seat angle, top tube length, head tube height, I'd have had to wrestle with it to get it to fit.

In other words, this bike fits me perfectly, and I'm a fat-of-the-bell curve 50-year-old guy with cheeseburger tastes. This is not to say the average 6'2" age-grouper is set up the way I am, but that mine is equal to, or slightly steeper than, the position the average AGer would choose if he were put through a proper fit process and allowed to decide for himself what is appropriate position would be. (I'm going to catch heck for the implications in the sentence I wrote immediately in front of this sentence.)

The fellow who needs more drop than I need can get it by taking that spacer out, and/or by putting a minus-17-degree stem on the bike. The guy who needs less drop can add a spacer, or flip the stem or swap these bars for some Profile Design T2 bars, and get an extra 3cm of rise. For the guy who feels he need more rise than what's achievable on this bike through the methods I just described, what he may in fact need is a road race bike instead of a tri bike, or this tri bike combined with a more knowledgeable tri bike fitter.

The Tequilo I was aboard has been ridden on the flats, up steep grades, and at descents exceeding 40mph. I never felt top-heavy, front-heavy or in any peril. The bike is quick enough to manage and stable enough to brake and corner on descents. The frameset has all the high-end aero features: a reasonably skinny minor diameter in its main tubes; length-adjustable rear-entry dropouts; aero seat tube and post; and faired rear wheel.

But things did not start off well. Before I could get the bike out the three-tenths of a mile drive leading to my nearest road I had a pair of flats, on the front and rear Continental Ultra Race tires that QR specs with this bike. I turned around, made my way back from whence I came, and slapped on a pair of Bontrager wheels I ripped off a Madone I had in the workshop. Maybe it's just a run of bad fortune, but I've not been lucky with Continentals over the past couple of years. I note that this tire appears to have only about half the threads-per-inch as Contintental's highly regarded Grand Prix 4000. I've had a better time with Michelins and Hutchinsons lately, and I wonder whether the Ultra Race is worthy of the renowned Contintental reputation.

Then there's the brake levers. Can someone please put the Dia Compe 188 out of its misery?! This lever was designed in the 1980s for low-priced upright city commuters in Europe. Yes, it was a creative solution for pursuit bars when nothing else existed. Nowadays there are low-priced, OEM-ready levers with return springs and this is one of those areas where the owner who loves his Tequilo has to excise this bad spec in favor of a lever the frame deserves.

I was surprised at the saddle. It's not bad. Often tri bikes come with a house-branded saddle with features the bike product manager orders his saddle vendor to insert to make it better for triathletes. This mad guess at how to make the saddle usually breeds a seat that's the next thing to worthless, and must immediately be yanked off in favor of an aftermarket tri saddle. In this case QR, having closed its eyes and thrown the dart, has actually hit the board with its tri saddle (not the center of the board, but at least it's on the black corky part). The only thing is, it needs a saddle cover. Fortunately, QR makes the cover the saddle needs. QR might consider throwing one of its covers onto its saddle when shipping this bike.

The Tequilo comes with a Dura Ace shift system and the carbon FSA crankset gave me no problems. The Tektro brake calipers worked fine. I'm certain the Alex 270 wheels work great, but honestly I didn't ever get a chance to ride after them after the two flats. I can attest that the Alex rear wheel remained straight and true even after riding home on the rim.

Visiontech's aerobar clip-ons are bolted onto Vision's popular aero pursuit bar. This is another area where I'd need to "rehang the doors," as it were. If you hold at the ends of these bars, the standard Vision bend is too high in elevation above the plane of the armrests (the 'racing' bend, aka the S-bend, may be a better solution for some folks). One solution for me is to take the spacer out from under the stem, put that taller 2.5cm spacer under the armrests in place of the standard 1.25cm spacer. This makes puts the armrests and the extension ends on the same plane. Or, I could replace these aerobars with a longer-length version, and take a tubing cutter to the extensions, hacking the bar off as low as I can while still being able to get the shifter lever expander system all the way in.

Either method of ergonomically optimizing the Vision's functionality works, but the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that manufacturers are wasting everyone's time, including their own, when they install and route aerobars, shifters and cables onto built bikes. It's just dumb luck when the bars are out-of-the-box correct for the eventual customer.

One final word of caution. QR specs things that require four bolts to tighten. Both the stem and the seat post are of this style. Make sure when you tighten these that all four bolts are equally torqued, and that means tightening each a little bit, until all are evenly tightened. Four bolts may be better than two, but not if they're improperly tightened.

The Tequilo is one of those bikes that cross a threshold: it's enough bike so you can win on it; and it won't provide you an excuse if you lose on it. It's not plenty of bike, but it's plenty enough bike. It may not be all the bike you want, but it's all the bike you need.

But there's a trick to it. Let's face it, if you buy a $7000 bike, your shop's mechanic is going to lovingly assemble parts he appreciates onto a frame he admires. The Tequilo is going to be assembled slam, bam, thank you ma'am. You can make this $2400 bike ride like a $5000 bike if you do as the Japanese allegedly did to their American imported cars, and that's to peel it down and rebuild it with that same sort of love and care. Those few parts that ought to be replaced right at the get-go have been mentioned. Do all this and you'll coax the most out of a classic and storied bike.