These are the same photos from Gary’s excellent timetrial.org website which we sent to him last week but we added some graphics, a little background info and the geometry chart from the .pdf file of the British HED catalog. I hope you guys find it useful:
Tom, this might be a dumb question but why is the seat post so long? Also, just by eyeballing it, what other bike is this comparable to - Cervelo P2K?
Thanks for your insight.
Tom, is this a very limited run of frames? That’s the impression by your article. That would be a shame. For this price I’m sure that Hed could sell a lot of these frames. I just hope that if they do decide to go into high volume production that they then don’t jack the price up.
Tom,
Not to be a smartass, but what’s ‘Area 54’?
snepper,
The seat post is at it’s limit only for display… same reason the steerer is un-cut I suppose. The bike has some similarities to P2K and even the Blade. Not sure why HED went with such a HUGE top-tube when they helped Litespeed redesign the Blade to have a much smaller one. I would guess that is what Taiwan offered???
cerveloguy,
I was under the impression that they would be limited production and only available in Europe… although my shop got a hold of one without much trouble… it might help that HED is local and my mechanic has some ‘connections’. HED prototypes have been making appearances at local TTs for the last couple years. This frame is by far the nicest I’ve seen to date… should sell like crazy!!
JB
Hey guys, I’ll try to answer your questions:
Snepper: The seatpost looks so long because we just sort of “set” it barely in there for the photos. We didn’t want to scratch the post up by sliding it down into the frame. If the customer who buys it runs the post very high we don;t want there to be a bunch of ugly scratches on it. I wouldn’t compare this to a Cervelo P2K since it does not have the variable geometry seatpost head of a Cervelo. The P2K is more versatile by far, and more of a triathlon bike. The HED VO3 is a specialty time trial bike that may have some triathlon application for some people depending on their measurements. Good questions though.
Cerveloguy: Yup, it looks like production is extremely limited according to what Anne Hed told me. I ordered a small for myself but will likely never see it. Remember, HED is a wheel and handlebar company first. That has to be their priority. The frames aare a well conceived and interesting project, but at $1200 retail for frame, fork and seatpost I doubt they are making much money on this project and I’m sure it takes a lot of time away from wheelbuilding, etc.
Pezdoctor: Damn. I thought it was Area 54. I saw some documnetary on the Discovery Channel a few weeks ago on Area 5? and couldn;t remember the number. I looked it up on the internet and under a search for “Area 54” there were a bunch of sites about aliens and stuff so I figured that must be right. Is it Area 51? Let me know, if it is, I’ll change it tomorrow.
Perhaps Tom is showing his age and thinking of “Car 54: Where Are You?”
Ken Lehner
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Tom,
you actaully weren’t far off with 54 either. Nellis Air Force Base contains, along with Area 51, a bunch of other “areas”. I spent summer '02 out at Area 52 for an exercise. F117 stealth figher was tested there back in 80’s.
Brought my bike with me and got in some great rides at 5000-6000’ elevation, along with a great picure of me doing my Slim Pickens impression (ala Dr Strangelove) riding the missle that acts as range entrance marker.
http://www.dreamlandresort.com/info/ttr.html
The whole place was like something out of the X-Files.
Stopped at the “Little Ale’ Inn” in Rachel Nv on the way back to Las Vegas to fly home. It was like talking to the real-life guys from “the lone gunman” but with a sense of humor.
Jim
So, is it Area 51 where they have the frozen aliens, time travel machines, alien space craft and telepathic communications equipment? That was the effect I was going for.
I think Slowman lives near there.
Tom,
So you’re insinuating that Slowman is a time traveling, telepathic alien?
BTW the dimension I was trying to remember yesterday in the shop Front center. If I recall correctly this dimensio non many tri bikes is USAT illegal on many frames out their (even according to printed catalogs).
http://www.hedaerolab.com/hed_vo3.pdf
See attached link. According to this, the Frame has a 73.8 seat tube angle (med) not 76 degree. Weight is between 1.5 - 1.6kg depending on size.
Area 51 is located just outside of Roswell, NM. That is the so-called, ‘alien housing’ area.
It is kind of near Slowman, just a hop, skip and a jump across Arizona.
Excellent. Thank you Styk33. I will make the changes tomorrow monring in the early AM.
I think Area 51 is out by Rachel, NV…closest “city” to Nellis Air Force Base. Could have been abducted and had that thought planted in my head though…
Maybe he mixed together Area 51 and Club 54 and got Area 54? Sounds a like swinging place for both humans and aliens! Yum, interspecies love!
So has anyone actually thrown the leg over one of these babies yet and can give a report? Or are they just for taking photo’s of?
B
Looks like all of the cables are external?..is that so?..
Sam
I am still building my Hed bike and working on the second frameset(the first one had issues and went back to Hed).
The second frame set was fine, except that it was shipped unintentionally with a “sample” fork, vastly different from what you see in the pictures and unlike the first one. It has no mounting hole for a brake caliper and is therefore going back too. It is a shame, because this fork is deeply bladed, and looks great. The folks at Hed are wonderful in ironing out the kinks in this new venture for them.
I sent a private email to Tom Demerly about some of this, but much to my surprise, no response, oh well.
So far, Cane Creek Ti brakes(blacK), Renn Disk with Zipp front, New Profile Alumin X(flat shaped) bars, and FSA carbon team crank.
Only the derailleur cable are external, the rear brake cable runs through the frame, similar to Blade, Cervelo, etc.
This info is 2nd hand. The VO3 built up without any major problems. There were some issues with getting the seat post to not slip (causing some ugly scratches in the carbon). The frame also needed some ‘cleaning-up’ in some areas (bb, brake holes, etc.)… although any ‘real’ mechanic should be doing this already. The fork color/finish is a little different from the frame. It has more of a gloss finish whereas the frame is a ‘military’ flat black. The HED aero bars make things tie together nicely.
No ride impression to date… snow, sault, etc. will be around until Spring preventing any REAL ride. Roller impressions are nothing out of the ordinary. The bike feels comfortable, reasonable weight, and should be a good TT bike.
JB
Is that you Jberg?
Cthug