 This is where I do cycling videos, both inspirational and entertaining. And I do love a deep dive road bike review. So if that sounds up your alley, consider subscribing below. So this video came about from a deep dive review. I'm gonna be doing shortly on the best criteria in bike that I have ever built. I'm riding it now. It's my first ride on it. And I'm partnering with SRAM Australia for this build. We're putting Zip 808s on it and SRAM One Buy. And as a result, I was out visiting SRAM Australia head office about a week or so ago. And I met with Rob Evo, who heads up SRAM Australia. And he took me up to his office and on his wall next to his office was sitting this incredible bomb. And I said to Rob, mate, do you mind if we take that downstairs and we do a little video on it? And he said, not a problem. So this is Rob's very expensive and very nice bomb road bike. Bomb's always been a bit of a mystery to me. I've known Darren for a long time. I don't even care to know how long it is. Who's Darren? Darren Balb, who's the owner. So he's down South Coast way, down to Longway. And it's got a great little business down there. Very professional, very clean, exclusive. You know, I've always been a bit of a mystery. I've lived on the mountain bike side. And Darren said to me one day, I guess, well, I remember you riding those Shazangs or titanium bikes. And I've always loved the titanium. I've loved the feel, I've loved the ride. You know, that mysterious gray look about it. I've really enjoyed it. And Darren says, we should build a bike for you one day. I said, oh, you know, it doesn't matter. I'm not, you know, I'm not riding that much mountain bike at the moment. I'm doing a bit more road and gravel. And he got, no, no, we're gonna build a bike for you. And it was probably a three month process to get me measured up down there with Ryan. And I was blown away. And he found a couple of faults with my pedaling and my cleat set up straight away. And I was quite intrigued with these holes set up from the start to the finish was amazing. Wow. So right away, you found all those problems. And then I took my three best. He says, bring your three best bikes down here and we'll measure them up. We'll do the size, you know, and we'll get the saddle right and everything. And he put me on this bike and changed around to bunch of things, went away for a few weeks, went down there and said, right, you gotta ride at 200 watts for half an hour, go and do this and do this. And after a bit of playing around, he goes, right, I'm about to push a button and see what you think. So he pushed a button and goes, you know, it's so this bike and it's all hydraulic. And it moved me back to this position that felt awfully unfamiliar to me. I'm like, this is horrible. He goes, that's where you were. We'll go back to where we've reset you. Wow. So he reset my position. And, you know, when you're buying a bike from a bike shop, the majority of the time, it's, it's, it's, what's the word? It's a comparison, you know, like they're trying to go, right, it's a 54, 56, 58 and you would fit in that size. That's the geometry you're gonna like. That's the head angles you like. That's the bottom bracket you're gonna like. But it's not gonna be exactly what you want or prefers you. So Darren came up with a design for me and this is my new bike here. And he said to me, you're gonna love the geometry and he didn't tell me anything about it. And I went and rode it and I was just blown away by one how comfortable it was climbing. There was no harsh back kickback on any of the bumps or anything on my climb. But on the downhills, I could find, I was pedaling through corners where previously I was a bit nervous, ready to break on. So my cornering speed's a lot higher. What's the fastest you've cornered that on downhill? Well, I've got one corner that can consistently go through at about 80k an hour. It's a pretty hard corner. Not many people can ride it through at that speed. Well, I'm doing 86k an hour on this one on my GPS. So give or take a K. And I've improved my time by about eight to 10 seconds on this downhill. And I've done this one thousands of times. So it's quite easy bike on the downhill. And it's noticeably an advantage on the uphill because it's not beating me up. It's not stiff at all. Is it a race geometry? No, it's not. It's a relaxed geometry. So it's a little bit of a hybrid. So he's slackened off the geometry. He's got a little bit lower bottom bracket on it. And I've asked him, what's actual size it? And he said, well, it's a Rob Eaver. That's what size it is. So it's a one off. And every frame that he builds is a one off. So he doesn't do a 54 and it's going to fit everyone. He's not into that. He'll build a frame specifically for everyone. And the forks, are they carbon forks? Yeah, it's a carbon fork. I think that's a generic fork of some stuff. But there's lots of different geometries on forks and different standards. But one thing is the parameters we had to work around. It had to be electronic. So there's no holes in the cable. Got to be E-tab. And it needed to be disc brake. Yeah, okay. So apart from that was open. I would like to be able to have the application to run a bit bigger tire if I want it up to 32, 34 mil tire. As we said, you never know where the rod's going to end up. You never know where they're going to end up on a gravel road or all the rest of it. So I do have the application to go up on a bigger tire. And what wheels you got here? So I have, I think the world's fastest wheels for a road bike. It's a 454. I was a bit skeptical at first. I'm like, oh, here we go. You know, it's a little bit of a marketing hype. But after riding them and riding through the high country over some very nasty windy sections and watching my mates getting blown all over the road and I'm just cutting straight through the wind, what I'm watching when I'm getting to the end of the ride and I've still got plenty of energy left. You know, they work. They really do work. And you know, if you're riding down beach road or it seems like most capital cities are around a windy, beachy area, try them out. They work really well. I'm really surprised. Yeah, okay. And the groups that you're running is SRAM Etab, is it? Yeah, SRAM Etab. This is a Wi-Fi system because I'm not getting any younger. So this goes up to a 32 on the rear because I do live in the hills. I do prefer the hills. And if I need to just spin up a hill and take it easy, I can. So it's a compact Wi-Fi system. Yeah, okay. And so do you use this bike all the time or what do you use it for specifically? Look, this is my sunny Sunday bike. I mean, it's, you know, if I do a big group ride or I do a charity ride or I've got a multi-day ride, this is the bike I'll take for sure. But I've got some other bikes because to be honest, I don't want to throw this one over the gravel yet. I don't want to scratch it. Darren's asked me and told me, make sure you get a dirty. But you know, it's like getting a new Ferrari or Porsche or something like that. You don't want to take those down a dirt road. That's where I'm at with this one. Right. How old is it? It's going on nearly, nearly 12 months. I think I got delivered the first of December. So it's 11 months old. Yeah, okay. And what's the Orbis there? What's that? That's the model name of this bike. So it's a disc brake, bigger tire bike. So yeah, so that's the model he has. He had many different model names. You'd contact Darren or go to their website and have a look at that. But this is what he recommended for me after a long multi-year deliberation about what I should be riding. This is what I ended up with. And I couldn't be any happier. Best bike I've ever had. Thanks, Darren. Wow.