coasting to work

hamishbarker

Well-Known Member
Just a short and wordy post to celebrate riding my vendetta, it's fun!

living at the top of a small hill, I have a very nice and quick ride to work, just a couple of km. It is of course much too short to justify riding the vendetta, but I have little spare time so I ride it just to keep my skills current. But there is the extra benefit of the FUN of riding a Vendetta.

A few pedal strokes gets me over the saddle from my house onto the steepest part of the descent, which unfortunately has a 10m radius bend at the bottom, necessetating a bit of hard braking to not lose it on the bend. This morning and the last few days there have been frosts, so I have to go extra slow (30km/h) on the bend. After that it's still a nice enough slope that a few seconds can get me back up to well over the 50km/h speed limit (I won't say how much!), and some mornings I have to either brake for the mostly law abiding cars to avoid overtaking (it's only single lane each way), or just coast behind at 50 all the way to the bottom. Then a couple of minutes of flat and unfortunately 2 badly timed traffic lights gets to the office.

Even on the flats, I do enjoy the acceleration of the V, although only once rolling. From a standing start it isn't as impressive as a DF who can really jump down on the first crank stroke to leap away, but the V does keep accelerating (if the engine can make the revolutions to do so!) in a most satisfying way, and the zippy cornering is also fun.
 
I like how much faster my Vendetta accelerates from a standing stop than my previous bents. She may not jack rabbit like a fast DF, but in social riding, the difference is negligible. I no longer drop way off the back of the group making a left at a light.
 
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