The Rocketship

The Rocketship

I’d been looking at upgrading my bike for awhile.  Something was telling me that I was rapidly approaching the far edge of what I was capable with on my Bacchetta Giro 700.  After all there is just so fast you can go on a 42 pound bike with water and gear.  Sure, others could push it farther and faster, just not me.  So I decided it was time to see what was going to be my next bike.

I looked hard at the new Schlitter Encores that are coming out and figured that was going to be the way to go, even to the point of giving Vite bikes hard confirmation that I wanted one.

Of course best laid plans and all that are subject to change.  During the wait for the ordering process to be figured out for the Encore a very lightly used Bacchetta Carbon Aero 2.0 showed up on the used market for about what I was expecting to pay for the Encore.

Now Vicky and I had been debating bikes as she wanted to upgrade her bike also.  We wandered rather far afield looking at Metaphysics, M5’s and various other high end light weight recumbents.  All sorts of stuff were considered but I kept going back to the CA2.0 that was up for sale or the new Schlitter Encore.

Since the order process and delivery time frame was still up in the air on the Encore and the Hotter than Hell was fast approaching I decided to pull the trigger on the Bacchetta CA 2.0. 

And to prove that God has a sense of humor, as I was pulling the trigger on the CA 2.0, Schlitter bikes had figured out the ordering system for the Encore.  Vicky and I ended up committing to the CA 2.0 and the Encore the same evening.

As my normal with buying on the used market, the new bike came with a few challenges.  These were overcame before the Hotter than Hell by throwing cash at the problems till they went away.

The bike is build up with an eclectic mix of parts, a mixed drivetrain of SRAM and Campagnolo, (I know, strange but it works).  The drive train is a SRAM Apex medium cage derailleur, a SRAM 10 speed 11-32 cassette,  SRAM TT900 bar end shifters and a Campy Chorus front derailleur and Chorus triple crankset.  The wheelset is a Vuelta Corsa light set that I picked up off Ebay, tires are Continental GP4000II with the black chili compound.  An M5 front brake and a Bacchetta brake combined with a set of Paul levers handle the stopping duties.  The seat is a lightweight carbon bucket.  Without bags the bike weighs in around 23 pounds, a 13 pound change from my Giro.

 

Everything that I’d read about the CA 2.0 was true, this thing is a freaking rocketship.  My average speed showed an increase of about 2-3 mph over my times on the Giro 700, I averaged 20.0 mph on the Hotter than Hell, and I started crushing my previous best times on Strava.   Where before it was a long slow grind up what passes for hills around here, the CA 2.0 flew up them.

The first ride on it I ran across one of the local shop group rides.  These rides are generally populated by lots of testosterone fueled competitive types and although the rides are billed as a 16-18 mph rolling average, usually average somewhere above that.  On the CA 2.0 I not only managed to run them down and pass them on a flat section, but hold them off on the long shallow uphill grind to Weston.

The bike is smooth and compliant over the local chip and seal roads; the carbon frame absorbs a lot of the road shock.  It’s super responsive to rider input without being twitchy and uncontrollable.  The bike really excels at long fast rides, converting your efforts into speed and distance. 

Overall, this bike looks to be my perfect platform for my ultimate cycling goal and one of my long term bucket list items, a double century..  Hmm, maybe next spring.