(door opens)
- Oh, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy.
(door closes)
(footsteps cross the floor)
Morning, Trainiacs.
It is new bike day.
This is the Ventum NS1 with Alto wheels
and Shimano Ultegra DI2,
and I wanna get right in here literally (sniffs).
It's beautiful.
Let me have some breakfast, and I'll introduce ya.
(fast-paced, upbeat electronic music)
(heavy, grinding electronic music)
(stripped-down electronic music)
I caved, and (bike rides with road traffic)
alter ego did the hard stuff,
rightfully so.
Look at this thing.
(bike rides with road traffic) So nice.
(heavy electronic music)
Ladies and gentlemen, Trainiacs of all ages,
this is it.
This is the Ventum NS1.
This is new bike day.
This is the new bike day.
I know that I enjoy and put that tri bike
through the paces, the Ventum One,
(claps hands) but I like me some road bikes.
I look at tri bikes as like, pain, as work.
I look at road bikes, as fun, enjoyable,
goin' around with friends, comfortable,
and let me tell you, I took this for a spin today,
and it's nice.
It is very, very nice.
Lemme tell you about it, and lemme tell you
about why everyone out there should have a road bike.
The Ventum NS1 is an aero road bike
that is still very, very comfortable.
Historically, road bikes have been either very comfortable,
made for climbing, a little more compliant
and easier on the body, or they've been aerodynamic
and very hard on the body.
But what's happening with new carbon labs
and new road bike designs, is you're getting both now.
Also, with more room for the wheels and bigger tires,
you're being able to use 28, 32 millimeter tires
with lower psi so that the tires and the air pressure
in the tires end up taking a lot more load off the body.
So, I took this thing for a spin today,
and it was everything that I wanted it to be.
I had to do some really, really hard intervals,
and it was very smooth getting up to really high wattages,
but at the same time, going over all the potholes,
all the bumps, all the cracks in the road,
that normally jar me that I don't enjoy going over.
This really didn't take anything out of that.
Normally, when I go over a certain section of road,
my power drops by about 20 watts, but in this case today,
it maybe dropped by about two or three
because this bike took all of those vibrations
from the road, like a champ.
Let's go through every last little bit.
Starting at the front, I ended up going again
with the Alto wheels.
Why Alto?
Because Alto has hub technology
that as you are pushing really big watts in the back,
it ends up transferring that power in such a way
that the wheels stay straight instead of flexing
the entire bike back and forth.
These Alto wheels are capable of doing tubeless tires,
so I went with the new Continental 5000 tubeless-ready tires
that I put together myself.
So, you end up taking the tube out,
taking a little bit of rolling weight
out of the circumference of the wheel,
so that it can actually spin a lot smoother.
You can also get flats, and then the tire
basically repairs the flat itself.
They are roughly a 60 millimeter deep wheel,
so it's kind of a nice combination of being able to climb
with the bike and being really nice and aerodynamic.
Going down, at the bottom of the fork,
you can see that this is a disc brake.
Here in Winnipeg, we don't have a lot of hills,
so the disc brake is a little bit of overkill.
But if you ride a lot of hills,
the disc brake does a couple of things.
Number one, it ends up taking more weight
out of the circumference of the wheel because you don't need
that really big, beefy braking surface on the outer edge
of the wheel that adds a ton of weight.
It takes that weight out of the rolling weight
of the bike and puts it into the center of the wheel,
which is much more stable now.
The Ventum also has thru-axle,
instead of a thin skewer that you have to clamp on,
the thru-axle is a big, thick axle that adds
a ton of stability into the bike.
I took a couple of corners today really, really narrow,
and it was just as stable as when I was out
riding perfectly straight.
Now, what you'll notice about the road bike here
is that there is a down tube, unlike on the tri bike.
Ventum actually ended up talking about this internally.
Should we make this UCI legal or not?
Should we be the company that just throws
all the UCI regulations out the window?
Or, should we just make the best bike that we can?
And they decided to just be the best bike maker
that they can be.
That says a lot about the Ventum One tri bike
because it sends a statement that they're not
in the business of making gimmicky bikes.
They're in the business of making good bikes.
On the down tube and on the seat tube
for the bottle cages, because that actually does make
a difference with your weight and your aerodynamics,
I went with the Elite Vico Carbon.
Really, really super light.
Obviously, in red, it matches the red
of triathlon Taren and this bike.
On the bottom bracket, I did upgrade
to the ceramic speed bottom bracket
because that nice, loose rolling resistance
from your bottom bracket, I feel, makes a nice difference.
As far as the groupset goes, I did just go with Ultegra.
I would've liked to obviously go with Dura Ace Di2.
But I checked with Shimano, and they said,
"Sorry, we just don't really have that in stock
"for sample and promotional purposes,
"but you can do the Ultegra DI2."
And I figured, actually thinking back to it,
not everyone can afford full Dura Ace Di2,
and what I've been hearing and what I've been saying
is that Ultegra and Dura Ace are largely very comparable
as far as function goes.
I should probably see if that's actually the case,
and in the ride today, the shifting was just as crisp.
The road feel was just as crisp.
The braking situation, just as crisp,
as what I would expect from a really high-end groupset,
but the Ultegra is a little bit cheaper.
The downside to it is that it weighs a little bit more.
Upside to it, though, is that the chain and the cassette
on Ultegra actually last a little bit longer.
They're a little bit heavier,
but they wear a little bit better.
So, there are a number of people here locally
that will have a Dura Ace groupset,
but then an Ultegra chain and cassette.
And as far as the seat goes, I went
with the Cobb San Remo saddle.
This is actually the same saddle that I took off
of my old bike because I really like the feeling of this.
It's worn really well.
All of the rails on all of the Cobb saddles
are a little bit longer, so that actually gives
a little bit of shock absorption for the saddle,
so that you don't actually just have
as much roughness on your undercarriage.
As far as working on it goes, the bike shop and myself,
it wasn't that bad to work on.
All of these super, high-end bikes are getting
a lot more user-friendly to work on,
so that it's not hundreds of dollars,
an entire day's worth of work to adjust your height,
here in the integrated, awesome cockpit
that I put rubber grips on, so that I can really grind
into hanging onto those really hard efforts
down in the drops.
And it's fast, Trainiacs.
It is fast.
I'm a big fan of this.
Everything that I've heard about it from people
that aren't necessarily sponsored by Ventum,
but have been lucky enough to be able to ride this,
way before I did, they said that this is one
of the best bikes on the market.
And, I will say, I'm very excited.
My first ride out today, I dug it.
Also, fun little thing to know, NS1 means Nour, Seear,
as in Diaa Nour, Jimmy Seear,
the two founders of Ventum Number One.
So, that's it.
I am gonna ride the hell out of this thing.
That's all, Trainiacs.
That's all.
I'm happy.
It's new bike day.
How can you not like this?
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Later.