Maximum Velocite

After much anticipation the moment we had been waiting for had arrived! It was finally time to build up our new Velocite Helios frames. Velocite Co is a cutting edge company headquartered out of Taiwan. DNA Racing was fortunate enough to hook up with them and now have these beautiful steeds to carry us from one race to the next. In a couple of weeks a few DNA members will also be rolling their hoops. I'm syked to check them out also.

Zach and I made arrangements to meet at Al's Bicycles of Norman right after work and start the tear down of my old bike and then dig right into the build up our new bikes. I had the frames almost a week without totally opening and unwrapping them, just waiting to share the moment, it was killing me. The wait was well worth it though. The frames looked beautiful. Smooth lines, subtle details and a very crisp paint job catch your eye right away.

Ah, the feel of freshly unwrapped carbon! Just being in a bike shop puts a smile on my face. The smell of lycra, tires & tubes, the site of all those bicycles, bars & stems hanging on the wall, it's like my shoe store...they have shoes too. What's even better is going in to build up a brand new ride. Once the boxes were opened we couldn't wait to start throwing things on the scale.

First thing to hit the scale was of course the frame. The Helios frame has a 34.9 mm integrated seat post and a BB30 bottom bracket. It also has a tapered head tube going from 1 1/8" - 1.5" and fully internal cable routing. Did I say BB30! Race Ready.

My medium frame came in at 1150 grams. That's with uncut seat mast and rear derailleur hanger. So, just slightly over 2.5 lbs.

The Bora fork, again uncut, weighed in at 390 g's. The Bora is a full carbon fork, including dropouts, in which the steerer and fork blades are the same piece of carbon. Right now, we're at 3.36 lbs for frame and fork.

Cut calories or cut the seat post? I'll go with the seat post this time. Shaving off a whopping 36 grams. Cutting this baby takes us down to 3.31 lbs.

The Velocite ISP seat clamp came in at 142 grams. Frame, fork, headset and seat post all come in at 1760 grams. Roughly 3.89 lbs.

Next up, SRAM Force BB30 cranks. I went ahead and tossed this on the scale because after all the digging I did, I only found the weight listed once. It was listed at 645 grams with bottom bracket assembly. They were about 18 grams off. I'm turning the 172.5 compacts. My cranks came in at 608g's and the bottom bracket assembly (not ceramic) came in at 55 g's. Putting them at 663 grams (1.46 lbs). I'm not sure how much weight savings ceramic bearings bring, maybe that is the extra 18 grams. None the less, if you're looking for an accurate weight of the SRAM Force crankset, look no further.

I've been around most of the time when my bikes have been built up and lent a hand here and there but I'd say this was the build I got the most out of. I was a little more hands on this time and for me it seemed a lot easier to understand why this goes here or that does that actually getting my hands dirty. Of course, we had a little help from our boys down at Al's. A special thanks to Christopher and Andrew who kept the lights on and wrenches turning well past closing time.

Ride report and final weight coming soon!

Frameset

Despite two days worth of drama our frames arrived safely to my office. To be honest, I was a little concerned with our frames getting from Taiwan to California but then figured it would be smooth sailing from there. I kept a close eye on the tracking and my worries were erased once I saw it had reached the good ole U.S. of A. I followed them as they went from Cali to Dallas one day and Dallas to Oklahoma City the next. The day they were to be delivered I was out of the office most of the day and when I came back in to find my framesets not there I knew something was wrong. I got online and looked at the tracking information and sure enough they had been delivered. Delivered to a JSmith at 3:20 that afternoon. Too bad there isn't a JSmith in my office. I got on the phone with the original carrier to confirm that they had the correct address and they immediatly went into action trying to help me recover my lost package. They contacted FedEx and was told
the driver would relocate the misplaced package and have it to me within 24 hours. 24 hours later I found out that wasn't FedEx's intentions at all and now they were telling me they had 48-72 hours to relocate and return it to me. This didn't make me too happy and after half a dozen phone calls to FedEx and some friendly exchanges my package finally arrived about 36 hours after the first call was made.

I gave the box a quick look over and found there to be no damage to it and it hadn't even been opened. I'm not sure how I got that lucky. I was kind of expecting our frames to already be listed on eBay. I opened the box to find each piece carefully wrapped and placed within. Velocite had done a great job of packing our frames along with the forks and headsets. You would of had to drive a truck over our package to damage our frames. I was really impressed with that. Packed with love.

The frames look beautiful. They have a very smooth finish. There a lot of minor details on the frame that aren't that noticable online that really add a lot if character to it. Zach and I are both syked to get these babies built up however we're both trying to restrain ourselves until we find a time convenient for both of us to get together to build them up. As soon as that happens I'll have a fully detailed report on the build along with photos and actual weights of most everything.

Sent from Chad's iPhone

Kappa Slappa Napa

I'm two glasses in to a bottle of "Screw Kappa Napa" chardonnay and I'm hoping it helps my writing a little bit. This post is long over due. It's been a little crazy lately and I really haven't had much time to sit down and put something together. Let's see, where shall we start?

Since my last post Emily has started crawling! Amie and I had been working with her every evening and as much as possible on the weekends hoping she would show some interest in it. Low and behold, she decided to start crawling while I was at work. She's been crawling now for about three weeks and is pretty darn quick. It's amazing to watch her grow up and develop a personality all of her own. However, I'm pretty sure Amie and I just cloned Addi. They are both beautiful, blue eyed, blond haired little girls running short on patients and having a quick temper. So who do they take after most...that depends on who you ask.

At work, my Heart Hospital-South has finally...almost...come to a close. It seems to closeout and reopen daily right now. But it's close. We just found out we have a few items to punch out in the Atrium and then hopefully, we're out. It's just small items right now, which is an entirely different ball game because now it's just based on someone's opinion, and then that someone has to get the opinion of someone else and so on. Not to mention, it is occupied now and more blemishes can be found on our walls daily. This project has been great for me and great for Cherokee Painting. The Genereral Contractor has also been great to work with and hopefully I have the opportunity to work with them again.

In my cycling world it's been a crazy couple of months. We've been going back and forth with kit design and Champ Sys approving and disapproving proofs. It's been a little bit longer process than I had hoped but our kits look AMAZING and I can't wait to get them in and hit the races. We've secured all of our 2010 sponsorships, or at least for now. Within the next month or so it'll be time to start trying to secure race sponsorships but that's another post all in it's own. We've also ordered and received a tracking number on our new framesets. As of Friday, they were in Cali just waiting to make their way to the O-K-C. I'd post pics of them now, but I'd rather wait and post some of my own pics during our build. I'm syked and can't wait for them to hit the street. I'm expecting them one day this week. We will be rolling on Velocite Helios framesets. I'll make sure and get actual weights, and pics posted as soon as we have them on the scale. It's been a pleasure working with Velocite and I'm excited to further our relationship into the 2010 season.

Give me a few days and I'll have approved proofs posted of our kits as well as an updated sponsor list.

If you would of told me ten years ago that I'd be lit after two glasses of wine, I would of thought you were crazy. Funny how things change. Used to, booze was a good time, now it's just calories.