Two weeks ago at the Vineman 70.3 I met the owner of Beyond Fabrication, a California based bike company that makes race wheels and some really nice carbon frames. We got along pretty well, and he agreed to let me ride a couple of his bikes. I just finished building my new Time Trial bike, a Blink Carbon:
For the past week I’ve been riding my new super light, super stiff Radius Carbon road bike, too.
This is like having a 3 birthdays in the same week. I love these bikes, they feel so much better to ride. After being on the road bike for about 100 miles I went back to my Guru for some intervals early in the week. It felt like picking up a lead weight, and the difference in stiffness is obvious. After being on a stiff bike, I could actually feel the bottom bracket bending side to side during my intervals. I’m so stoked for racing my Blink TT bike this weekend. The coolest thing about the ultra-aero frame is the internal cabling. All three cables go inside the frame, but unlike the B2 or the DA that use the same strategy, the cable housing goes in via the front of the head tube, so there’s no knee bumping, and the cockpit stays clean. The rear dérailleur cable goes through the top tube, pokes out around the seat post, then goes back inside the rear stay. Very cool.
Now the reason it’s like three birthdays, is because I also got 2 sets of Beyond’s race wheels.
The 50mm wheels will be my race wheels with the Radius for road racing and ITU circuit, draft legal triathlons, and the 85mm deeps are wind cheating machines for non-drafting races. Check out the grooves on the 85’s, which have been shown in wind tunnel testing to reduce negative effects of side winds, without affecting the frontal aerodynamics.
Only problem is, I’m a bit of an artist when it comes to gluing wheels. Loren’s garage is a wreck, there’s glue everywhere (the box was Loren’s idea after my first two loops ended up with his swim cap stuck to the ceiling and his allen wrench set permanently put away on the top of the work bench.
Beyond Bad Ass sums it well Ben. I’ve been riding a blink for about 6 weeks now and have suddenly found myself qualifying for Kona and Clearwater!! I’m glad to hear some one else has some similar thoughts – i think we may have stumbled upon one of the best kept secrets out there.