The 2009 Scott Speedster S30 is still available, but it’s likely to be selling out fast. You can blame Manx Missile Mark Cavendish if it does, as his great Tour de France stage wins were all achieved on a Scott branded bike – albeit one a bit pricier than this.
The S30 was originally a 105-equipped road bike, but Scott has released a limited edition in the UK with a complete Ultegra groupset. The options included Ultegra’s triple chainset, and it was this model that we tested.
The frame is made from hydroformed aluminium and features a mixture of unsmoothed and smooth welds – smooth where the down-tube and top-tube meet the head-tube, and unsmoothed at the top of the seat-tube and around the bottom bracket; the forks are carbon fibre.
The result is a reasonable if not stunning all-up weight of 9.04kg (19.93lb), but when you’re riding it the bike feels lighter. True, it comes with a triple chainset, but this is still most definitely a bike with a racing heritage and pedigree.
It may not score top marks when it comes to tipping the scales, so why did we like the Scott so much once we got in the saddle? Well, it’s strong, tough and efficient. Aluminium may not be seen as being at the cutting-edge these days, but if you’re a powerful rider then you may ind that it’s still a material worth trying out – especially if you’re looking at spending around a grand on a road bike.
The speccing of Shimano’s second-string groupset complements the bike extremely well – it’s race-ready, shifts smoothly and works faultlessly – and while the triple chainset may not please everyone, unless you’re riding competitively the extra range of gears offered should more than make up for any negative considerations.
The rest of the kit also majors on durability rather than lightness. Hutchinson’s 23mm Equinox tyres are paired with semi-deep section Alex rims, while Scott branded components are evident elsewhere, from the bars and stem to the saddle and even the brake callipers.
