Horse for the Course: Felt Z4 Disc for the Lionheart Sportive

Felt’s Z4 Disc is an endurance road bike through and through, with compact, upright geometry, a compliant, buzz-absorbing frame, SRAM’s spin-happy WiFli gearing, and that new must-have sportive bike feature: hydraulic discs.

Picking an endurance bike over a race machine was something of a careful choice, because frankly, as I stood astride the Z4 for the very first time at the start of the Lionheart Sportive in Wiltshire, it wasn’t only the magnificently grand Longleat House casting a large shadow over me. I'd been rather less diligent in my trainer sessions over last winter than in previous years. The sight of the chilly start line of my first sportive of the season seemed to drain away the false confidence I’d carried up to that point by convincing myself that cross training would see me through.

On the plus side, I was tackling the 100km (62-mile) route, rather than the 100-mile option that I'd previously completed. In that longer iteration I had suffered badly towards the end, riveted to my Garmin as each 0.1 of a mile crept interminably by.

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This year, the element causing the most pointed dread was also the most pointed mark on the route profile: the wall-like ascent up to King Alfred’s Tower near the gorgeous National Trust estate of Stourhead, which climbs 158m over a 2.3km stretch that starts easily enough, but ramps up to 19 percent in places.

• The course: The Lionheart Sportive (100km distance) with 1,460m of climbing
• The equipment goal: See how disc brakes, endurance geometry and SRAM WiFli gearing fare on a hilly season-opening leg tester
• The horse: A Felt Z4 Disc completely stock plus Time Xpresso 2 pedals, Garmin Edge 800

After a briefing that hammered home the difficulty of the Alfred's Tower climb, our wave was off, with more than 1,000 riders already up the road ahead of us. The course began by whipping around Longleat’s grounds, famous for being home to one of the UK’s biggest safari parks. I took it as a good omen that the monkeys weren’t screeching eerily through the cool morning air this year.

The Felt floated over cattle grids without hint of peril. The SRAM hydraulics gave a sense of braking power that bordered on overconfidence. The brakes weren’t as sharp as the fly-over-the-bars-twitchiness I’d been expecting, but proved strong and easily modulated. The transition from lifetime rim-brake user to being completely comfortable with the discs took at most five minutes. Then it was on to enjoying the extra speed that can be comfortably held coming into bends.

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