JustTooBig
New Member
HI, All .... not sure if this is the appropriate forum for an intro, if not I'll just have to learn to live with the crushing guilt. *Admin, feel free to move to the right forum?*
I'm a long-time crit racer and trackie (sprinter, kilo and kierin) and am now in a position to add a recumbent to the bike stable upon the strong recommendations of several medical professionals. I've had the opportunity to test out some 'regular' recumbents and found them pretty disappointing; I'm a big guy and relatively short efforts of big horsepower are clearly my forte. The 4+ft long drivetrains, multiple idlers and frame design of those bikes made them feel like wet noodles. I rode a Meta, a Bacchetta and a Performer, all of them felt alarmingly flexy at even moderately hard efforts (600 W or higher). My frustrating search led me to CruzBike and I've read every review, article, blog and related forum posting that I could find.
I'm convinced the Vandetta is my best hope of a recumbent suited to my riding style and I ordered a frameset last week. My shop is filled with about 30yrs worth of accumulated bike parts, building the V with my road components shouldn't be a problem. All of my high end wheels are for my track bikes so I may need to build a go-fast pair for the V later on sometime, but not any time soon.
I've been training with power data for a few years and have a ton of accumulated power files -- it will be interesting to compare power vs. performance between a Vandetta and my upright bikes.
So .... hopefully I'll have something worthwhile to contribute to the discussion at some point in the future.
-CF
I'm a long-time crit racer and trackie (sprinter, kilo and kierin) and am now in a position to add a recumbent to the bike stable upon the strong recommendations of several medical professionals. I've had the opportunity to test out some 'regular' recumbents and found them pretty disappointing; I'm a big guy and relatively short efforts of big horsepower are clearly my forte. The 4+ft long drivetrains, multiple idlers and frame design of those bikes made them feel like wet noodles. I rode a Meta, a Bacchetta and a Performer, all of them felt alarmingly flexy at even moderately hard efforts (600 W or higher). My frustrating search led me to CruzBike and I've read every review, article, blog and related forum posting that I could find.
I'm convinced the Vandetta is my best hope of a recumbent suited to my riding style and I ordered a frameset last week. My shop is filled with about 30yrs worth of accumulated bike parts, building the V with my road components shouldn't be a problem. All of my high end wheels are for my track bikes so I may need to build a go-fast pair for the V later on sometime, but not any time soon.
I've been training with power data for a few years and have a ton of accumulated power files -- it will be interesting to compare power vs. performance between a Vandetta and my upright bikes.
So .... hopefully I'll have something worthwhile to contribute to the discussion at some point in the future.
-CF
