V-R-O. VRO. V-R-O. VRO. V-R-O.

in preparation for a translap in ~5 weeks i went for a ride yesterday. a local trail of 73km with 1100m of climbing. it follows, for a part, the old Iron Curtain border in germany. very green with lots of nice singletrack. the area was once a complete no-go zone once and is now know as the Green Corridor due to the plants and animals being to it.

took me 7 hours including smoke/feed breaks. not too bad but not race speeds. i’m guessing that it’ll take about the same amount of time to cover similar distances in the alps – although half the distance ‘should’ be downhill. yesterday was very much slog up, pedal down.

now, the VRO. so glad i bought this. it turns my HC-HT into a XC friendly ride. loosen two bolts. swing the bars forward. gain 50mm of reach. tighten bolts. repeat again once you are at the top. left it where it was yesterday but i can see myself using this quite often on proper climbs/decents/mountains.

It is a very clever thing. 🙂

I wonder whether the Alpine guides who helped Mike develop / test the frame bothered with that? I can’t see Ash with one TBH ;-S

I’ve never used one, I do like gadgets, but that just *looks* like a waste of time and effort. Why not just get a stem that’s mid point between the two VRO positions and avoid the *apparent* faff / get on with riding?

Still, sounds like a good ride 😎

translap ? Cross-gender abuse ?

not really much of a faff. i prefer a shorter stem for general mucking about but it makes the bike a bugger to climb at times. for the sake of a 60 second job climbing is made a lot easier. the benefits are greater the longer the climb. then, when at the top and looking down on a 1500m descent you can flick the bars back and know your chances of going over the bars because of your long silly XC stem throwing your weight forward are greatly reduced.

V-R-O. V-R-O. V-R-O….!

I’d file it with wind-down forks as one of those things that

a) helps a bit, but it’s pretty easy to adjust your technique to compensate, and

b) increases the amount of annoying faffing at the start and end of a descent – which, in the UK, can add up to a whole lotta faff.

i don’t ride in the UK and have 2-step forks.

There you go then. I remember my first ride with a couple of mates who’d just got U-Turn forks. Bottom of every hill: click, click, click. Top of every hill: click, click, click.

I’m not saying it made me angry enough to kill, but it did strike me as a bit of a pointless interruption (unlike, say, having a chat or stopping off at the pub).

So I guess we all want to know, what tabs for teh transalp win?