Hey all, so I finally got my frame from VB about two weeks ago and finished building it last weekend but was only able to ride it for the first time this past Saturday and Sunday due to life stuff. I'm coming from riding a Cervelo P3 that I converted into an aero road bike. It was actually really fun and fast but there were some issues that I just couldn't fix/get dialed in to my liking. Seeing as how I'm getting into racing I wanted what I thought would be a good reliable training/racing frame. I did as much research as I could and settled on the VB-R-068 aero frame- I chose rim brakes because all of my wheels and groupos are mechanical rim and I'm also a weight weenie who prefers rim over disc for that reason- I don't ride in the rain often and I've never had any issues with brake fade or anything like that on any of the local descents.

The reason I chose an aero frame instead of a climbing/endurance frame is because at 85~kg/185~lbs I'm no lightweight and in my personal experience I go faster on a heavier aero frame than on a considerably lighter climbing frame. I'm still all about the weight weenie-ism but I'd rather get the lightest possible aero frame I can and use the lightest components on it. The P3 had a mixture of SRAM stuff on it- Rival22 right shifter and RD, Red 10s left shifter and a Force (and then Ultegra 6500 b/c the Force FD was quite shitty) FD with Apex brakes and a 6800 crank. I wanted a change and also saw that Merlin was selling Dura-Ace 9100 shifters for $410, R8000 brakes for $87 (the whole set, both front and rear!!) and front and rear Ultegra derailleurs for less than $150. I was going the weight weenie route when I was rocking the SRAM but the front shifting was really underwhelming plus I was ready for a change and honestly felt like spending some money- what can I say.

Here's a list of weights for the build:
-VB-R-068 frame in 56cm: 1276g
-VB uncut fork: 404.5g
-VB uncut aero seat-post: 192.1
-ICAN 38mm carbon clinchers: 1394g
-Bontrager R3 tires (non tubeless): 415g
-Continental/Bontrager tubes: 170g
-VB Headset: 130g
-BBR60 Shimano threaded BB: 75.6g
-Generic Amazon Ti QR skewers: 42.5g
-EC90 carbon stem (120mm/-7): 131.9g
-Selle carbon saddle clone: 97.5g
-Generic Amazon carbon aero drop bars (40cm): 184.1
-Dura-Ace 9100 shifters: 369.1g
-Ultegra R8000 FD: 90g
-Ultegra RX800 RD: 242g
-Ultegra R8000 brakes (with SwissStop Black Prince pads): 367.4g
-SROAD 11-32 cassette: 219.8g
-Amazon carbon bottle cage: 15.8g
-Ultegra R6800 crank- 53/39 and 172.5mm: 696g (as per Shimano's website- I took the crank off the P3 and didn't remove the pedals and forgot to weight everything)
-Garmin V2 Dual-Sided PM pedals: 358g~ (I didn't feel like taking them off the crank just to weigh them and I don't have the numbers at my apartment- this is based on Google search results)
-The cumulative weight is 7.5kg with bottle cage and pedals

I *think* that's about it. The build was fairly straightforward but I'm not sure I'd suggest it for someone that doesn't have any experience in working on bikes. I did a ton of research before buying/building this so I more or less knew what I was dealing with. 2 miles into my first ride on Saturday the rail clamp shifted a few degrees upwards- guess I hadn't tightened it enough. Annoyingly enough, the wedges that I had initially not tightened enough got stuck in the upward position leaving me pretty uncomfortable for the rest of my 30~ mile ride. The drivetrain shifted nicely and was quite in the stand but was noisy once I got it onto the road but that's not all that uncommon- just need to finish dialing in the indexing and maybe the front mech to get it perfect. About 20 miles into that ride, I realized the saddle must've slipped way down because I felt like I was on a clown bike- from from I've read, this is a super common issue on the open mold bikes that have aero seat-posts. I ended up riding out of the saddle for a lot of those 10 miles (silver lining, I set 20s, 30s and 60s power PRs because of that lol).

I get home and remove the saddle and get a flat-head screwdriver and a soft mallet to knock the wedges out of the seat-post and tightened it a little tighter (12nm instead of 8.5nm). I got a piece of plastic from those bags that linen comes in- for some reason that's the shim of choice for these seat-posts- and I rubbed some carbon paste on a piece and wedged it in the back of the seat-post and tightened to 4nm. I also changed the bar tape- I had originally bought some pink Supacaz knock-off tape and it was AWFUL- without a doubt the worst tape I've ever used. The Marque tape I'd ordered two nights before had come so I used that instead. Oh, and this was a first, I noticed that whenever I turned the bars sharply to the left, the front brake would tighten a little bit, so I had to redo the tape holding the cable- I even cut a new length of housing but it wasn't needed.

I went on a longer 50 mile ride yesterday and it was considerably better- I put on a different saddle just to try it out on this bike and it wasn't nearly as comfortable as I recalled- but aside from that it was a fun and dope ride. Two things to note: the front shifting on the 9100/8000 shifter/FD combo is absolutely phenomenal- like, all I have to do is barely even touch the lever and it'll shift from small to big with the utmost of ease- it's honestly so amazing. Gotta say that I'm still getting used to the trim function on the front shifter- having been using SRAM for the past 2000+ miles and having used 1x for a while before that, sometimes I'll downshift when I mean to trim. The other noteworthy thing is the brakes- I was super hesitant to buy Ultegra brakes that were actually a good bit HEAVIER than my Apex brakes but I kept reading about how good they were and since they were on sale, I pulled the trigger and got them. I'm glad I did, I thought I'd felt good to decent braking before but the Ultegra brakes are something else entirely- the modulation, the precision- I'll gladly take a weight penalty to run brakes like this. I tried indexing the RD a little bit before the ride but it was still a bit noisy- I ended up getting the rear shifting dialed in nicely last night once I got home but it's still being a bit loud for my taste- I'm thinking running a 6800 crank with the SROAD cassette and a current gen Dura-Ace chain might just make for a noisier than usual drivetrain. I'm installing a 36 tooth chainring today so I'll make sure there's no undue noise from the FD/crank area.

Here's a few pics- I can always post more if anyone would like.

So, after pining for an open mould frame for almost a year, I finally bit the bullet and pulled the trigger- I ordered an R-068 from VeloBuild about two weeks ago. As far as I can tell, it's pretty much a 2017 Venge Vias clone- at least in terms of geometry, it obviously doesn't have those janky direct-mount brakes (thank God) and aside from not having a lip at the top/tip of the head-tube, the frame looks quite similar to the Venge Vias and IMO it looks pretty fucking dope when painted up. However, because I'm super impatient, I'm just getting it in matte since I want it as soon as possible so that I can hopefully get a few races in on it before the season is over.

While this is going to be a race/training bike, I'm also going to try to build it up with as many budget-friendly weight weenie parts as possible- I know, it's an oxymoron, lol. My current main bike is somewhat of a freak-show; it's a Cervelo P3 that I built up as an aero road bike a few months ago. At its lightest, it was 6.6kgs w/out pedals and 6.85kgs w/pedals, but that was with tubs that I have since sold. Right now it's running either a set of Chinese 50mm clinchers or ICAN 38mm clinchers in terms of wheels and in terms of groupo, I'm running Sram Red/Rival shifters, Apex brakes, Rival22 med. cage RD, Ultegra 6500 FD (b/c Sram doesn't know how to make a FD that doesn't suck asshole), Ultegra 6800 50/34 crank and Sroad 11-32 cassette. With Garmin dual sided power meter pedals and water bottle cage w/Wahoo, it weighs in the low 7s- which isn't too bad for a 14 year old TT frame. The frame itself weighs 1250 grams or thereabouts IIRC.

With my lighter ICAN wheels and maybe either a full Red or Dura-Ace/Ultegra groupo I'm hoping to have the VB-068 AT LEAST as light as my P3, if not a hair lighter. I've had a lighter bike that was 6.3kgs and I hated it (Emonda SL w/Di2 that I built up)- it was set up as aggressively as the P3 but it just felt slow, so I'm rather comfortable building up a light-ish aero frame as long as the position is aggressive and it's kinda aero- I doubt it can be much heavier than a 14 year old TT bike.

I'll definitely be updating this thread with full build pics and weights. I'm *thinking* about maybe spraying the 068 with neon pink or green depending when I get it. if I get a few days before a race and think I'll be able to have it dialed in by race time, I'll probably say fuck spraying it, let's just build it up, but there's also part of me that wants to take my time and make it look goofy as fuck. Someone on here gave me the brilliant idea of asking Chris to put a Made in China or C-Works decal on there but he said it would take 5 more days and i'm just WAY too impatient for that, lol.

So here are some pics of the Cervelo to hold everyone over until the 068 is in my possession.