Trying out the short stem riser

I received the short stem about 2 weeks ago and I immediately swapped the medium one with the new short one. As you can see on the pictures, it does make a difference ! While the cables certainly need adjusment, they never caused any problems. Since my wife had a week off from school, we spent some days on the seaside, so I took the Z Pro with me to try out this new combination.

the medium stem riser


the short stem riser

The lower position of the handlebars feels more natural to me. It's still not as aerodynamic as I would like it to be, but it's a start. I managed to do 3 rides with a total of 150 miles in the windy flat lands and I never got uncomfortable. However, I did found out that I'll never be as fast on a CF bike than I used to be on my regular road bike, mostly because of the position of the upper body. As soon as you have to ride against the wind, the body position of the CF bike slows you down, period. You can bend your upper body a bit forward, but it will not help much. To be honest, I tried all kinds of "aerodynamic" positions, only to find out that most of them create some discomfort and/or soreness in different body parts.
Personally, I do not think that anyone on a CF bike can be as fast as someone on a road bike, unless you ride in a pack. Does this bother me ? Not really, I've never been and never will be a speed freak and I prefer comfort over speed anytime.So when it comes to the Z Pro, I'm very happy to be able to ride this bike for over 3 hours and still not feel uncomfortable or sore afterwards !

Another thing I found out this week is that it is impossible for me to ride the bike standing up. Due to the shorter stem, my knees hit the handlebar when standing up. I don't know whether it really is necessary or not, but I can think of some conditions when you wanna ride your bike standing up. In order to do so, I need to try out something different, maybe go back to the medium riser or the curved riser and change the handlebar.

Miles and miles of open roads -and a lot of wind !

Riding time ....

Due to the bad weather these last weeks, I did not ride my Z Pro much lately. Not that I did not want to, but it rained a lot and the few days that it did not, the roads stayed wet with a lot of debris. I only managed to take a ride or three, that's all :-(
Last Sunday, I took my bike to a friend of mine, who rides a regular road bike and got a hernia from riding it. I told him about my "wonderbike" so I passed by his place to show it to him. He only took a short ride on it, but couldn't feel comfy because he wasn't used to it. Anyway, while riding to his place and back, I realized that I was sitting way too low. I checked the seat post, but could not find any signs that it had slipped. I noticed that it was extended 'till the 3" mark (it is marked by inches, right ?), but that still did not mean anything because I never payed any attention to it before. Anyway, I extended the seat tube a little bit, rode a few miles, extended it some more, rode another few miles, etc. The seat tube is now stuck at the 7" mark, where my riding position feels comfortable. The only change I feel now is that I have to adjust the seat pan angle, for I tend to get a kind of recumbent butt after more than an hour on the saddle.
I still do not feel aerodynamic enough with the medium handle bar riser, so I ordered the short 3" riser to try a more bent forward position. Might not work out as I hope for, just as it did with the 7" curved riser, but I'm willing to try it out anyway. To be continued ....

Swapping the riser

I received the curved riser I ordered yesterday and I put it on my bike this morning. Not only did the curved riser put the handle bars more forward, it also raised it a couple of inches (the curved riser is 2" taller than the 5" one that came with the frame set. When sitting on the bike, the only difference I noticed was this new height.
When taking the bike for a ride, I immeditely noticed that my upper body was more upright. It was pretty windy today and riding against the wind was harder than usual. Certainly not much of an improvent when it comes to aerodynamics. It just did not feel right, so I'm gonna put the straight riser back on tomorrow. I'm considering ordering the 3" riser, which would lower the handle bar, forcing the upper body to move down a bit, that should be a more aerodynamic position. Don't know if that'll be comfortable though, I guess I have to find out by trying ....

the original riser


the curved riser

Nightriding

In contrary to my previous road bike, I do feel comfortable riding my Z Pro at night. However, visability is an important issue when riding in the dark. I've always been a fan of bright blinking tail lights. I've been using the CATEYE TL-LD600 for years now. Since the seat post of CF bikes is bigger than conventional ones, we had to think of something different to mount this tail light to the Z Pro. My friend came up with a very simple idea : he drilled a small hole just underneath the seat pan to attach the tail light holder :

After that, it's as easy as on a conventional seat post to put the tail light in its holder (or take it out, if necessary). The light is positioned just underneath the seat and very visable !

In front, I use 2 5-LED head lights from PRO. They both got a steady and a flashing mode and provide plenty of light :

All of my lights run on rechargeable batteries, which is the right way to run them, if you care about the envirement ;-).

First ride !

Yesterday I finally made my first ride on the Z Pro. After almost 2 weeks of constant rain, skies were finally blue and even the sun was up, so in the late afternoon I took off for a ride.
I was comfortable on the bike from the very beginning : there was no adjusting time, at least not for me. Everything felt natural. The Z Pro felt as responsive as my Giant TCR, total weight of the bike should be around the same too, which is a very good thing. Personally I think the Z Pro is even a little more responsive than a regular racing bike, giving you more confidence when manouvering.One thing I noticed immediately when taking turns is that the Z Pro is as stable as a brick. Due to the longer wheel base, you can take sharp turns easily without any trouble. It sure is a blast to take turns at high speed on this bike !
The seat felt a little awkward in the beginning, but only took a couple of minutes to get used to. The nose of the seat points a little down and when you sit on the bike without riding it, it makes you slide off. This totally disappears when you start to pedal though, there's absolutely no sliding off forward. Although I did feel the edges of the seat pan with my upper legs, it never became an issue during my ride. The carbon is a little flexible, which is a big plus. Although I probably still need to find my sweet spot when it comes to adjusting the seat, I never had the urge to stop and change the angle of the seat during my ride. Everything felt just right and pretty comfortable. My bum did feel warm after a while, but not up to a point where it became a nuisance. It might have been caused by some friction but like I said : I just noticed it, nothing more. The seat is way more comfortable than any saddle I ever sat on, that's for sure !!!
What did trouble me though were the cracking sounds coming from the carbon seat. I never rode anything carbon before, so I don't know whether it's normal or not to produce some sound. When riding throuhg potholes or on rough spots, the seat sometimes produced loud cracking sounds. At one point during my ride, there was such a loud crack I was sure something was broken. So I stopped and checked the seat pan, but everything was stil okay. I don't know what causes these noises, since I'm well between the weight limitations for the bike, I don't think it's me. Sure would like to find out what causes the seat to be so noisy, 'cause it's a little bit irritating and does not make me feel very comfortable.
When it comes to the cockpit, only one thing was missing : bar ends. While the handle bars are pretty comfortable and natural, I missed the variety of putting my hands someplace else. I'm going to put the carbon handle bars from the Giant TCR on my Z Pro. This will alow me to vary my hand positions and look for an even more comfortable ride.
Speed. Hmm, can't say much about it yet. When I started to ride, I just woke up from a recovery sleep after a night shift at work. I know that I'm not that fast after I had a night shift and I don't really mind. I tried to maintain a speed of around 18 - 19 m/h on the Z Pro, which was a hard thing to do sometimes, especially since the wind was pretty strong yesterday. I expected that I'd be slower on the Z Pro than on my regular racing bike but now I think that in time, I'll be as fast on it. The Z Pro sure felt more responsive than my Giant TCR, making manouvering the bike very easy, even with the longer wheelbase. Even after only one ride, one thing is sure : I will not go back to a regular racing bike !!! The CF concept does work, thank God for Randy Schlitter ! He just developed another winning bike !

First pictures

Finally picked up my Z Pro at my friend's place yesterday, but unfortunately, no weather conditions yet to take it for a spin. This afternoon, it stopped raining for an hour, so I took the bike outside to take some pictures. Did send some of the pictures to Alan's recumbentblog as an entry for his Recumbent Gallery.
Can't tell much about it yet, although it does not seem to weigh much more than my previous Giant TCR. I did sit on it once and felt like the nose of the seat pointed down too much, like I was likely to slide off. Gonna read more on the
CF forum to get the seat height and angle ride before I start to ride it. According to the weather forecast, Sunday should be a great day for riding a bike, can hardly wait until then !

my new and shiny Zenetik Pro


the cockpit

Waiting for my first ride

I received a call from my friend last Saturday, saying that the bike was ready to be picked up. Unfortunately, it has been raining since last weekend, so I did not pick it up yet. Don't wanna ruin the bike by riding it in the rain -I'm a wussy, I know ;-) ! The weather should improve in the next days, so I'll pick it up as soon as possible.
He did take it for a short ride around the block and told me that it was not "his kind of bike", but he's a hardcore mountain biker. He also told me that the front wheel touches your feet while pedalling, so you have to be careful. Can't remember reading about this on the CF forum, but I might have missed that. Anyway, the next post on this blog will defenitely be about my first ride. To be continued !

My frame set

The frame set I ordered, arrived yesterday. Felt like a little kid at Christmastime again when I unpacked the box. To my big surprise, the frame set was yellow ! I was convinced that the Z Pro only came in silver, so I did not mention any color when I ordered my frameset. Even when I received the confirmation mail of my order, there was no question about any color, so it felt a bit awkward to find a yellow metallic frame in the box. Thank God it's not that ugly yellow like the Z Tour (sorry, don't wanna offend any Z Tour owners out there !), it has little sparkles all over, which makes it kinda funny looking. If I'd live in the USA I would swap the frame set for the silver one, but I already had to pay FEDEX 273 $ when they delivered the box, so it's out of the question to send the frame back.
The biggest surprise however was that the frame set was incomplete : the riser stem was missing ! I checked all the wrapped papers and plastic inside the box at least three times, but no riser stem. and you'll need one to ride a CF bike, so guess I'll have to call RANS next monday and ask them to ship me the missing riser.

little sparkles underneath

Why ?

Why would anyone order a different kind of bike without even trying it ? Well, just as in 1999, there was no possibility to try one out when I ordered my Stratus frame set back then. I did a lot (and a mean a lot !) of reading about that wonderful bike before I ordered it, and I haven't regretted it for a day ! It was (and still is) my most favorite touring bike. The same thing here with the CF concept : there are simply no CF bikes available here in Europe, so before ordering one, I did a lot of reading about it: mostly on the internet and some in publications (very limited, I know). But the main reason for going for it anyway was a ride on my road bike a couple of weeks ago : after riding almost for 2 hours, feeling uncomfortable almost all the time and having stared only right in front of the front wheel, I decided that that was my last ride on the road bike. Period. So I ordered myself a CF frame set. Why the Zenetik Pro ? Very simple : since the Z Pro is the only bike that accepts 700C wheels, I can swap the components from my road bike to the Z Pro.
What I'm expecting from the Zenetik Pro ? Well, most of all : more comfort and more fun. I'm not worried about the comfort part : anything will be better than a regular saddle ! So, I might be little slower (I'll propably be anyway, but I don't care) and it'll take some time to get adjusted to the new riding position, but hey : that sounds like some kind of challenge to me ! Why the heck not ???
I'll keep things posted on this blog. Feel free to comment anytime.