But I think Edwin might be doing a decent job of reinforcing Van Dessel's message with the dark finishes.  Industrial, raw, no-nonsense, purpose-built, aggressive, tough, durable, cheap, and eco-savvy.  

If I were in the market for a new frame, I'd want to ask him if the aluminum bikes could be anodized another color for me.  But I'm sure he'd say something about it being a waste of time and an increase in cost, and he'd say it more colorfully.  It might take doing some rides where I'd have to make him say uncle first. I rode with him last monday, me on a hellafaster and him on a motivus maximus, and we rode just below the point at which we'd have to take an occasional breath while talking.  

My basic feeling was they rode pretty close.  Know that I was riding on smooth roads and every component of the bike was new to me.  

I took a look at the specs, and I found out why.  The geometry in the 56, my size, is within a few mm of identical.  If I were to guess, I'd think the Hellafaster is a bit heavier and a bit more compliant, in both cases due to the smaller overall tubing diameters.  

We must group buy Ritchey products. This will be the last order of the year. Another parts order (with Ritchey or another component company will be early spring).

Please note, there is a lot of administrative work on the backend being performed by Ride Brooklyn. Please understand they are providing a valuable service to us and be respectful of their time. They are not making any money on this program, yet are spending much time on it.

You will find a price sheet of all of the Ritchey products here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/x2hol7xea7i94ts/Ritchey%20pricing.xlsx

Please save a version of it to your computer and complete the form by entering the quantity of the item you want in the quantity column. The form will total your order based on your selections. Please save the form with your entries with a new filename following this format:  Ritchey_pricing_[YOUR LAST NAME]

Please email your form to Ride Brooklyn at Daryl@ridebrooklyny.com and cc: sponsorship@kissenacycling.com. The subject line of your email should be Ritchey / Kissena Order – [LAST NAME] (fill in your last name).

In your email indicate if you will be calling or stopping by to make payment. If you want, you can include your credit card info in the spreadsheet. Doing so is at your option. Payment needs to be made prior to Ride submitting your order to Ritchey. NY sales tax will be added to the amount shown on your form (8.875%). If you'd like, include a list of the items in the body of the email. That way nothing is missed when we look over the form.

We will keep this ordering window open until October 10.

Please note you can check availability of the items on the Ritchey website, however stock status may change prior to Ride submitting the order to Ritchey. If Ritchey is out of stock, Ride will inform you and work with you to select a substitute product if possible.

As a reminder, this deal is for Kissena members only.

Yep, stem and handlebars for me.  Those wheels are pretty tempting, though, all of them. . .

"As for tires. the Speedmax is my preference for racing as it’s a very versatile tread with exceptional corner grip, but the new Shield is a great setup for fast and loose courses especially if they’re bumpy."

I wanted to point out that Daryl's email address as listed in the instructions seems to be missing an 'n'.  It should be

According to RB the following people have not paid for their order:

Jesse Lash

Chris Yack

Tim Wang

Those that have:

Vlad

Michael Perlberg

Stokes

JP

Bruce van-Schalkwyk

Dave Sharma

Eloy 

Ryan J