Fuji Sportif 1.1 Ltd road bike

The Fuji Sportif 1.1LE is an excellent bike. It offers a comfortable, assured ride that comes from a dependable frame and fork and a well-considered equipment package that manages to squeeze in Shimano's excellent hydraulic discs for £1,300 without any major compromises elsewhere. If you're looking for a reasonably quick but solid and reliable road bike this will tick a lot of boxes for a lot of people.

Fuji have been making their alloy Sportif for a number of years; for 2015 the range splits into disc and non-disc models. This limited edition bike (don't worry, not that limited) is a UK-specific build that's been specced by Evans Cycles. It shares its hydroformed, double-butted frame as the rest of the Sportif range. The bottom bracket is a BB86 press-fit and the headset is the asymmetric 1 1/8in - 1 1/2in that's become more or less the norm. That means there's plenty of welding space at the bottom bracket and head tube and Fuji make good use of that, with big tube profiles designed to give a stiff backbone to the bike.

The fork has carbon blades and an alloy crown and steerer. It's a cyclocross-length fork which, coupled with the tall head tube (21cm on our 58cm test bike) makes for a fairly upright position. There's 30mm of spacers to play with, but you're unlikely to need them; I like a relaxed position on a bike like this, and I've got the stem slammed right down.

The top tube has a fairly pronounced slope which means that you'll run a bit more seatpost, and it's a 27.2mm wide for a bit more give at the back. I'm fairly tall (1.89m) but although the 58cm bike is the right size for me the seatpost wasn't long enough to get my saddle height and I had to swap it out, which was a bit of a faff. Also, the rather skeletal seatpost clamp feels a bit under-engineered for the job, I'd rather see a solid band than the machined one you get, pretty as it is.

Once that was sorted it was time to head out and knock out some miles. And from the off, I was impressed with the Sportif. I tested the non-disc version back in 2013 and found it a good all-rounder, but with a bit of flex in the frame. This updated bike is noticeably better in that regard. The bigger tube profiles and chunky bottom bracket mean that stamping on the pedals elicits very little movement, except for forwards. The fork is much better, too. It tracks very well and has no problem coping with the braking forces from the disc. Out of the saddle there's very little disc rub either.

It's a comfortable bike, both because of the position and because the 28mm tyres and decent bar tape and saddle take a lot of sting out of the ride. The frame itself is pretty stiff but not harsh but that's tempered by the component choices and the end result is a bike that's easy to ride for hours at a time. And although it's not especially light, and not especially aerodynamic, it's no slowcoach.

Okay you don't want to spend too many hours trying to keep up with your friends of similar fitness on their SuperSix Evos (I know, I've tried) but it's good for big rides at a decent pace. I've done six hours on the Sportif down to the Devon coast (and back again two days later) and I've nothing bad to say about the ride. The bike is neutral in temperament, great for cruising and predictable at speed. It can be a touch ponderous when you're going slowly. But mostly you won't be.

There are mounting points front and rear if you want to fit mudguards, and I did, squeezing them in around the 28mm Vittoria Zaffiro tyres. That's probably your limit with 'guards; without them the frame will probably accommodate a 32mm at a push. There's lots of room in the fork. It's not a bike that's designed for off-road excursions but it's happy enough on unsurfaced fire roads and towpaths, even with the tyres it comes with.

The brakes are excellent. The will-the-pros-or-won't-they debate can run and run (until 2017, at least) but the Shimano R685 brakes are more or less the best you'll get on a road bike right now. They're massively confidence-inspiring on twisty, steep descents (we have a lot of those round here) where it's easy to scrub off a bit of speed without having to grab a handful of brake. They're easy to use and predictable. For the type of riding this bike is designed for, they're perfect.

The wheels those discs are bolted to are Vera rims and Formula hubs, a combination that's best described as dependable. There's nothing wrong with them, although they do blunt the acceleration of the bike along with the fairly weighty tyres. Once they're rolling they do a grand job. At some point in the future you might want to swap them out for something more lively, but it won't be because they're broken.

The other benefit of the R685 brakes is that you're effectively getting Ultegra-level shifting on the Sportif. The derailleurs are Shimano 105 but the lever feel (and the carbon brake levers) are more like the second-tier groupset. The R685 levers will only do two upshifts at a time instead of three, but that's the only compromise.

A mid-cage rear mech gives the opportunity to fit an 11-32 cassette for the widest possible spread of gears. You don't get a Shimano chainset but you do get an Oval one with 50/34 Praxis rings, which is probably better than the Shimano non-series one anyway and certainly an improvement on the lower-grade FSA units that you often get on a bike like this that's being built to a tight budget.

Oval stem, bars and (not long enough) seatpost complete the build, along with an Oval-branded Velo saddle that's quite Charge-Spoon-like in its shape and comfort, and Oval suede bar tape.

It's really pleasing to get a bike that feels so well thought through, and is also so enjoyable to ride. You could easily knock out a sportive on this Fuji, or just bung some mudguards and a rack on it and ride it to work, or use it as a training bike through the winter. You could pilot it on increasingly lengthy Audax rides (I considered doing an upcoming 300km on it and I've no doubt it would have handled it without any issues), or you could fill your panniers and head off for a week's touring. The Sportif would cope very well with any of those, or all of them with minimal equipment changes. Its versatility is a big plus.

If the £1,300 price tag is a bit salty for you then the £950 1.1D build has a more-or-less identical spec with the exception of the brakes, which are Avid BB7s controlled by 105 levers. That's a fairly hefty premium: not far off what you'd pay for buying the levers and fitting them yourself, which is a sticking point so far as value is concerned. That's not to say the bike overall doesn't represent good value – it does – but the price tag of the mechanical bike takes the shine off what is otherwise a really good offering from Fuji.

Verdict

Really good multi-purpose road disc bike that's well-specced and comfortable