Lynskey Sportive review

After the sale of Litespeed, the company the Lynskey family nurtured to such great heights, they decided to get back into the bike business. Their newest addition to an already well-represented stable is the titanium Sportive.

With tube surfaces treated with what Lynskey call an industrial mill finish – a rough, wire-brushed effect that gives a subdued sheen – the Sportive strikes a handsome note and provides a solid and reliable platform for anything from a quick 45-minute training loop to an audax brevet.

Ride & handling: Immediately likeable; quick responses combined with comfort

We eagerly swung a leg over this great machine and found it to be immediately likeable, with a sweetness of ride quality and handling. Miles of groomed dirt towpath are a piece of cake – the bike soaks up pebble-induced vibrations with gusto.

Equally at home in a highly strung peloton as on a dusty towpath, it responds quickly to pedal and steering input. While trialling a local audax event, staying in a tightly knit bunch felt easy. When the pace started feeling a bit slow, the Sportive had the lightness and willingness to leapfrog to the next gruppetto in search of a more vigorous speed.

While the front end of the bike feels strong and torsionally rigid carving through high-speed corners, this has no noticeable effect on front end comfort. In contrast, a simple deflection test of the rear dropouts revealed a considerable springiness in the stays. Yet with the wheel clamped in and closing off the structure, the back end always keeps up with the front, while providing noticeable shock absorption.

With a longish head tube and shortish top tube forming part of a mildly sloping geometry, the Sportive will go a long way towards keeping you in a pleasant comfort zone, minimising the usual shoulder and neck aches and pains on those longer rides. Whether you use it for an easy stroll, screaming quarter-mile or the full 600 miles of an audax brevet, the Lynskey is always ready. Even when the going gets rough, the Sportive will do it in comfort and style.

Frame & equipment: Well thought out chassis plus robust yet light finishing kit

Made of cold-worked 3AL 2.5V titanium, the frame features a fine balance of sophisticated tube manipulation and more straightforward sections, with welded cable guides in all the right places and riveted bottle cage bosses. The rear triangle is comprised of gently curved, constant diameter round seatstays, below which lies a graceful set of oval-round chainstays.

Anchoring the rear wheel are some very thick and burly dropouts, decorated with a three-leaf clover cutaway design for a little aesthetic enhancement. A standard head tube with reinforced zones for traditional headset cups finishes off the front of the bike. Single eyelets on the rear allow you to join in with traditional audax crowds if required, with plenty of clearance for a decent-sized tyre and mudguard.

Complementing the well-proven Shimano Ultegra drivetrain on our test bike was a nicely homogenous finishing kit and wheels by Pro-Lite, which were robust yet light.