Off season upgrades. Don't you love them? In regards to my bike, I always have the next upgrade in mind. I've had my eye on some new aerobars, since that is definitely the most glaring deficiency on my B16. Of course the real reason was that it became time to put new bar tape on there, so I thought it would be easier just to get new aero bars. There are a lot of options out there, but I mostly looked at the HED Corsair, 3T Brezza Team, and Zipp Vuka Aero.
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| I almost cringe looking at them now. |
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| All Aluminum |
I wanted to go through my LBS (IOS in Charlotte) to get them because I wanted them to install them and run new cables as well. So I spoke to their resident bike guru about the different options. I definitely wanted a full carbon bar. We kinda eliminated the Zipp (price) and the 3T (because of the way the extensions sit on top of the base bar). So I was leaning toward the HED's when it was suggested to look at Felt's bars. I had kinda forgotten about their offering (embarrasingly). But after talking about it, I decided to go with the Felt Devox full carbon bar. I also decided to go with the 39cm wide full matte black version. I liked the color and the width better. My only issue is that I really don't know how to pronounce "Devox".
Felt had them in stock and soon it was on its way from California. IOS got them in a week later, then the following week I took my bike in, as they needed a few days to get it all done.
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| All the components |
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| The basebar (also DI2 compatible) |
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| The extensions are light as air |
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| Lots of accessories |
Thursday afternoon before Good Friday, I went to pick up my bike. It looked absolutely awesome! We did a quick check of the fit on the trainer. The location of the pads (forward and lower) make me sit much further ahead, which is definitely a good thing. They moved my seat forward some to compensate.
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| Main Side View |
The main reasons for the new bars are to go lighter and lower. Both of which the Devox bars deliver. I definitely have a lot of room to go lower with flipping the stem and reducing the spacers underneath it.
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| Full Side |
I had Good Friday off so I got in a nice 40M ride after I dropped the kids off at Grandma's to color Easter eggs. My arms and shoulders were really sore after that. I took the carbon computer mount piece off and rotated the extensions inward. This seemed to help a lot on my rides on Saturday and Sunday.
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| Very Clean Front |
I didn't think that I would notice the width (39cm vs 42cm before) but on that first ride climbing the hill to get out of my neighborhood, I noticed it right away. After a couple of rides however, it now feels normal.
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| Cabling looks cleaner in Black |
I was able to get my Speedfil A2 rigged up between the bars, and zip tied my Garmin mount up by my hands.
Whether it was the placebo affect or not, I sliced through the wind on a particularly windy ride on Sunday to average 21.5 for the whole ride (windy rides usually kick my butt). All in all the bars are just awesome. They look great, they are super light (595g), super aero, narrow, and easy to adjust. The 2 bolt design makes it easy. In the immortal words of James "Mr. Cervelo" Haycraft, "The bars are sick, I'm really jealous".
My plan is to ride them for a while, then look at lowering them some more once I get good and used to the height. Now, I am a "made" member of the Felt Mafia. So watch out, Green Lightning just got a little faster!
