First Vendetta Ride WooHoo!

[Itripper]

BTW I thought you might like to see, the bike has reflective tape all over it, not too noticeable in the daytime but at night it lights up super bright!

 

[JOSEPHWEISSERT]

The cage (single bottle) I have has a tab at the top that retains the bottle and fits perfectly into the podium bottle indentation ( I actually dont have the bottle fully inserted in the pic), it retains it perfectly, I have gone over some very rough stuff it never even moves, if you look at the pic carefully you can see the tab in the indent. Also the conventional under-seat bag just below the bottle wraps the cage so it doesn't get force open in bumps from the angle. I have been using that setup for a while it works great, I am testing out the underseat camelback, I like using that better but do not have enough miles on it to be sure it is reliable, it rests only on inch from the tire. It rained all day today so I didn't get to take bike on shakedown run. Once I am happy with the camelback Ill probably get a smaller podium bottle.

I will be doing a lot of hammering practice, the roads are long, smooth and empty here. Perfect for this bike. I am not a racer so normally I just cruise along at a comfortable sustainable pace (24 mphish) and only hammer when I need to (or want to) pass peeps. It is really fun to whoosh by 3 man pacelines Next item is to replace the 28mm GP 4000 with a Gatorskin, had 4 flats on the rear 4000, none on the Gatorskin I run up front, and grind the fork a bit to run a 28mm vs the 25 up front now.

I m interested in that someone mentioned moving the brifters so they are inline with the bars for aero rather than at an angle like mine are, do you think it is much of a difference? Next time I replace the bar tape I may try this.

Also is there any nice bar tape that is cork like in black?

Keep in mind that Gatorskins, while awesome for puncture resistance, are noticably different in rolling resistance. When I switched from Gatorskins to Conti 4000s, I could feel the difference before I got out of the driveway. But if you need puncture resistance, Gatorskins are great.

 

[JOSEPHWEISSERT]

There are those that lose bottles. And those that use lezyne flow cages.

Can you post a link to this type of cage? I'm not familiar with it.

 

[Itripper]

I am not a racer, just ride for fun, flats suck the fun away. If you notice I am running touring wheels too...bike still moves along at a great clip despite this. Reliability is # 1 to me, haven't had a bike leave me stranded in 15 years.
don't like the idea of running slower tires, but honestly when I put the front one on I didn't notice it any slower.

 

[Rick Youngblood]

Can you post a link to this type of cage? I'm not familiar with it.

I'm pretty sure this is the one Ratz recommends. I intent to purchase a set myself.

http://www.amazon.com/Lezyne-Flow-B...=1444507065&sr=1-2&keywords=lezyne+flow+cages

 

[ratz]

I'm pretty sure this is the one Ratz recommends. I intent to purchase a set myself.

http://www.amazon.com/Lezyne-Flow-B...=1444507065&sr=1-2&keywords=lezyne+flow+cages

Correct. Takes about one ride to learn angled insert and the twist to lock in. After loosing 8 bottles I went on quest And found those. The price is good too

 

[Itripper]

First ride in a few months not too bad took me 10 minutes to get my legs back. Unfortunately it is 50 degrees here with 20+ mph steady wind. But oh man how easy it is to eat up the miles on this bike. I am right here right now as I post this! Awesome Internet everywhere in Korea

 

[Itripper]

Flat tire #5 for the rear GP 4000, 0 for the Gatorskin up front.

I swear when I pull up to a group of roadies to say hi it is like I am riding a war rig from Mad Max from the looks on their faces. To make things worse I am also wearing a full buff (like a bandanna) over my face due to mass numbers of insects so I look like some kind of road warrior.

Me pulling up on Vendetta with all my bags and accessories...

All I am missing is my rear Gatorskin and bike will be bulletproof like this!

 

[ReklinedRider]

The locals might think you're a North Korean inflitrator in that get-up, invading on two wheels!

 

[Itripper]

All the local riders here are covered head to toe even in summer. They all wear a bandanna around their face. I thought they all looked like ninjas. There are times right at sunset where you are literally being hit by 20+ insects a second. They go away in the dark and are not too bad during the day but sunset oh man!

 

[DuncanWatson]

I have a few recumbent facebook friends in Seoul, South Korea. They all wear the masks. It is nice to see an explanation. There are few guys on Optima Barons in Seoul and an assortment of other random SWB recumbents, trikes and deltas from the pictures I have seen.

 

[Itripper]

Finally got a 28 mm Gatorskin in the rear to match the 25 Gator up front, hopefully this will stop my rash of rear flats. Been doing war games or raining last couple of weeks have not been able to ride, it is killing me. I am from Tucson normally so I can ride year round, I am not liking rainy/snow cold weather, I really appreciate Tucson much more now. I added some A-10 Warthog decals to my bike as I have done a couple of years as Pro-super on the flightline for the A-10's and they are bad-ass planes. I love that I can add these to my bike as there is nowhere to add stuff like this on a DF. I now declare my bike as "set-up" as I have camelbak, normal bottle and some bags ready for day long trips. Even have a blutooth speakerfor listening to music on lomg rides.

 

[ReklinedRider]

Love the warthog decals!

 

[Itripper]

Wiped out on my bike tonight! Was doing a few laps around the flight line perimeter road, hit an area of 1 to 3 inch sharp gravel rocks while doing 23 mph, pinch flatted tire and bike and myself slide for a while. Very strange sensation, the bike slowly rotated about 45 degrees, back kinda slide out, it felt exactly like I hit black ice. It happened so fast I didn't apply brakes, but back end slid around. I stuck my foot down, it was late at night and really didn't realize how fast I was going ( i looked at my gps later for speed), once foot jammed into pavement I went flying. Derailleur got ground down quite a bit but still works fine. I have road rash, really bad on forearm it went deep. I called the after hours base doctor line, it went right to the base fire dept, I asked if they could come by and just clean the wound as I ground my forearm down good, they just said report to sick call in the morning 9 hours from now...the military sure isn't what it was when I joined over 20 years ago. Happily the bike seems to be in good shape still. Also this was the first time I ever left without tube or repair kit, so I got to limp on my injured foot with flat tire bike for two hours to get back to barracks. The crash sucked sure enough, I can imagine it would have been much worse on a df (never had it happen tho).

BTW the 28mm Gatorskin is much different than the GP4000 I had on the rear previously. The gator is much narrower and less volume than the GP.

 

[JOSEPHWEISSERT]

My 28 mm Gatorskin measured 26.5 mm. My 25 mm GP4000 tires measure 25 mm.

 

[Itripper]

"My 28 mm Gatorskin measured 26.5 mm. My 25 mm GP4000 tires measure 25 mm." That is strange as my Gator skin is noticeably smaller than the GP 4000 II I had. I do not have to deflate the gator to insert rear wheel in frame for brake clearance but had to with GP.

 

[LarryOz]

I have road rash, really bad on forearm it went deep.

sorry about your fall and road rash. I'm an expert on road rash from this year - Went down at least 5 times. First time was really bad and had about 1/4" of skin gone from my forearm.
Make sure just coat everything with Silvaderm (or equivalent). It works miracles, and speeds the healing process at least by half maybe more. If you keep the Silvaderm on the wound all the time, it will never scab over either, and the new skin will just grow up through the wound. Great stuff!

 

[ratz]

I have road rash, really bad on forearm it went deep.

Clean and disinfect;

Cover with these if you can

http://www.amazon.com/Tegaderm-Tran...=UTF8&qid=1447769821&sr=1-1&keywords=tegaderm

make it air tight as possible; wrap with ace bandage; and like larry said in 6 days you'll have fresh pink skin.

I got to much practice with that stuff this year thanks to fresh chip-seal gravel.

 

[Itripper]

Awesome, thanks! My mom, who is a retired nurse, gave me the exact same advice. Now for the bad, I am at a small AF base in Korea in a farm area (Kunsan) and am S.O.O.L. until sick call opens in the morning, I hope they have stuff like that here. I think I may have fractured some stuff in foot too, can't walk on it now. I am lucky in that I have an electric bike here also so I can get there (no car). And yup I took enough skin off forearm to see out muscle layer a tad.
On the plus side, I was wearing those Nashbar spd sandals, they did a great job keeping me from getting any damage to toes, so glad they have a toe cap, greatest spd sandal ever.

 

[Itripper]

BTW it was the front tire.