if possible, take a close-up photo of the dropouts!
If you objectively evaluate the 068 frame, what are its disadvantages?

I'll take pics later, but I'm honestly pretty let down overall. The communication with Chris was horrible- anywhere from a day or two to a week for replies. I'm not sure if he was purposely lying or just terribly misinformed about his products, but he assured me that the saddle rail clamps were compatible with carbon rails. When the frame came, it was about 100 grams heavier than advertised at 1260g for a 56 when it said it would be 1050g. Not the end of the world but it pissed me off a little. In terms of the paint/carbon- the threads for the bottom bracket were covered in primer/paint/carbon or whatever- I had to scrub with acetone and buy a thread chasing tool on Amazon to clean the threads and make them usable- I ruined the threads on a Shimano BBR60 bottom bracket before doing that. So that was strike 2, so to speak. After installing the groupo and doing the first ride, the seat-post slipped all the way into the seat-tube, despite having tightened it to the torque that Chris provided me and using carbon paste. I ended up researching how to get the seat-post to stick in place- on here and other places and was able to get it clamped in place and to keep from slipping. Although, from everything I've read, that was a common issue, still- strike 3. Final issue that pissed me way the fuck off- VeloBuild says that it fits 25c tires, I ran Bontrager R3 and R2 tires and Continental GP5000, as well- all three in 25c and the left non-drive side of the tire kept rubbing on the inside chain stays, even though it appeared to have at least 5mm~ of clearance on either side. So yeah, that pissed me off a lot and it contributed to me feeling it lacked stiffness.

So yeah, that's  my evaluation of this frame and I would NEVER do business with VeloBuild ever again no matter what- the frames are ok at best and the customer service is horrible. I'm not anti all Chinese carbon/open mold frames, I'd consider buying something from one of the more popular ones with a good reputation that's been around for a while like DengFu, ICAN (who I've bought wheels from and they've held up amazingly  for 4K miles and they have terrific customer service) or Winspace.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask- and, I'll try to get pics of the drops, but IIRC, they're carbon.

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.

FSA makes sub-compact cranks and they're very reasonably priced- you can get a set for under $200. They have 48-32 as well as 46-30.

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.

TanTan (Lisa) are sending out the spare derailleur and handlebar spacers via EMS. I might wait for spacers to arrive. China Post are predicting 2 weeks. We are in 5km from home lockdown, so I wont be able to do much cycling until 5th March.

I was wondering which headset bearing is on the top and bottom of the Fork? the wider one or the narrow one?
The internal wiring is very difficult. I am waiting for a better bottom bracket than the Zrace one.
I assume that you get the internal cabling working before inserting the Bottom bracket. The front derailleur is tricky with the wire protruding from the frame. There is a small allen key bolt on this. Do you tighten it?

Here is an early picture.

Not familiar with this particular frame but what helped me on one of my frames was using a strong magnet to guide the cable(s) to/through the hole. I know Park Tools also sells a internal routing kit that looks like it can be potentially helpful- a shop that I worked a couple of shifts at had one and I can definitely see it being useful depending on the particular situation/application.

Hey that looks great and the weight is quite impressive for a bike of this age.
The stickers on the wheels are a bit too flashy for my taste... but sometimes it is a pain to remove stickers if the manufacturer used a sub par glue.

What kind of wheels do you have on order?
I hope some Chinertown conform species...  ;-)

The Emonda SL frame also sounds interesting, what groupset do you plan to use?

Have a great weekend!

Ican carbon wheels, 38mm deep weighing in at 1370 +/-20 grams, came out to $565USD with tax and shipping on Amazon Prime. As far as I know they're high quality Chinese wheels. I was REALLY close to getting a TanTan/Seraph or AirWolf frame but two things got me set on the Trek 1) It was $520 shipped to my house in good condition and the frame weighs about as much as most of the Chinese frames (with the exception of the super light frames that weigh like 800 grams) and 2) I'm really impatient. All the frames I liked on eBay wouldn't get to my house until late March at the earliest and some said they wouldn't get here until May or even June... so fuck that lol, I can't wait that long- I'd loose my mind. The Emonda was the lightest production frame at the time so I'm honestly really psyched- according to FedEx, it should be getting here on Monday.

I have a mix of R7000/R6800 stuff on my Klein which for the time being I'll transfer to the Emonda. R7000 GS medium-cage rear derailleur, R7000 braze-on front derailleur, R6800 crankset with both 50/34 rings and 53/39 rings, Sensah 11-34 cassette I just got that weighs 228 grams(!!!!over 100 grams less than the Shimano 11-34 I had and only cost like $85USD!!!!), I haven't ridden outside yet but I put the cassette on last night to see how it shifted and though it *might* sound a bit more noisy, to loose that much weight on an 11-34 cassette, it's an acceptable trade-off IMO. I have Look Classic 3 pedals, not too light- something like 285~grams for the pair, and I have SRAM Apex brakes I'm taking off the Trek- the Klein uses long-reach brakes in the back so I'm using the Shimano long reach that came on it in the back and Ultegra 6600 on the front, so I'll probably use some old Ultegra 6500 brakes on the green bike (which are still fairly light- a little over 150 grams a piece).

What I'm planning to do is build up a Di2 groupo for the Emonda, I already got the shifters from Merlin for like $137USD (amazing fucking price and they are SO light- 313 grams for the set) for a set of 10/11 speed 6770 shifters- so I still have another $500-$700 to go in terms of buying derailleurs, wires, junction boxes, batteries, etc. However, since I can't afford the Di2 setup for some time and I'm not going to have this dope-ass frame just laying around for months, I'll just throw the R7000/R6800 groupo on there in the meantime.

Oh, so with that Sensah cassette, my Klein weighed in at 7.8kgs/17.2lbs last night- those Ican wheels are coming today and I have a set of Bontrager R3 tires (405~grams for the pair) so I'm *pretty* sure I'll have the Klein (which is alloy with carbon seat-stays and an EC90 fork) in the mid 16s and mid or hopefully low 7s. I ordered a lighter carbon fork for the green Trek last night which should be getting here on Tuesday, so with the fork and the lighter wheel/tire combo it might even be lighter than the Klein- which is a bit surprising because I'm running that huge 11-42 cassette , the Sensah long-cage derailleur is pretty heavy and the shifters aren't exactly light either. I guess no front derailleur and only one chainring balances it out a little bit. We'll see once the wheels and tires get here. I'd post pics of the Klein, but it looks really fucking goofy with the green wheels- I'll post another response with the wheels on the green Trek and the Klein when they come in and I mount the tires later today- will update the weights, as well.

Any tips/advice/suggestions for removing those green decals? Sometimes I like them, but they're definitely very green and they only work with one bike- and I also really like the look of bare deep-section carbon wheels. I've heard of the hairdryer method and also a heat-gun but I'm kinda scared of using a heat-gun on carbon wheels and maybe delaminating the carbon.

The M5 screws that come with the ZTTO kit are 30mm long.
For the GR029 M5x35mm bolts should work perfect.
I will get them this week to fix the rear break mount.

EDIT: Sorry about the huge pics, I haven't posted on forums, with the exception of reddit since my late teens/early 20s.


Let me know how you like the groupset- I just got my SRX Pro today and I'm in the process of putting it all together- not sure when I'll be able to ride it as it's snowing in NY (where I live) but the shifters feel WAY more solid than they have any right to, considering I got the shifters and rear mech for about $150USD. I'm running it with a 48 tooth narrow-wide chainring ($25 Amazon special, lol) and an 11-42 cassette out back. Not using a Chinese frame, though, this is on my Trek 1.5 and I'm planning to use it as an all-around training bike to experiment with 1x and just have a project. I have a R7000 2x11 on another bike so this is purely for fun- when i saw the price and read the (usually) good reviews, I decided to pull the trigger. I'm running an 11-34 cassette on my 2x11 and it's nearly as heavy as my 11-42, so if I like this 1x thing, I can splurge on a lightweight 11-42 or 11-46 off of eBay. BTW, your GF's bike is dope! Do you have any idea how heavy your cassette is? my SunRace is 412 grams, whereas according to Shimano's site (I'm too lazy to pull mine off the hub and weigh it) the 11-34 is 379 and eBay has some of the 11-42/46 that are under 400 and i *think* are less than 379 grams. Speaking of weight, do you know how much the finished build weighs?

Here's a pic of the mini-group and the frame as it stands ready to be built up- if there's any interest, I'll post pics of the complete build probably tonight or tomorrow. BTW, nice to meet you all, my name is Dmitry.