 In this video today, which has brought you by Squarespace, thank you very much for supporting the channel. I'm gonna provide my long-term review on the magnificent rim brake, Factor 02 Vam, a bike you can still purchase moving into 2022 in rim and a bike that, as mentioned previously, has been out of all the bikes that I have used and owned in 2021 and there's been quite a few. This one has been the quietest and least irritating of them all. Now, I purchased this bike with my own money. Full transparency, I did get a little bit of a discount but I still paid many thousands just for the frame set alone and this happened in January this year. Then, the Factor was built up at Taylor Cycles in April this year and then I provided my first impressions on the Factor 02 Vam in July this year and now in December 2021, I'm gonna provide my long-term review and this is gonna be an interesting review for me to deliver because to be honest with you, I've had quite the standoffish relationship with this bike, kinda similar to the relationship I have with the Cannondale System 6 but for different reasons. Now, I've already provided quite a lot of information on this bike in previous videos, particularly the first impressions, which I'll link to below but to reset the foundations for this review. Let's quickly for about a minute revisit the numbers, including weight and price. So this Factor 02 Vam frame set with black ink bar stem combo, seat post, bottom bracket and some other minor bits and pieces comes in at $7,800 AUD. I know that is a significant amount of coin and for my build, you can add in some super lightweight, decadence or cadence, 35 millimeter carbon tubular wheels at $2,000 AUD, SRAM red mechanical 22 which came in at $2,750 AUD, tires cages, smaller bits and pieces, totaled $750 AUD, totaling this bike at $13,300 AUD. So this is actually the most expensive bike I have ever owned in my 11, 12 year riding or cycling history, is it the best? We'll have to wait and see. In terms of weight, and this is where Factor destroy the field, the frame at a 54 centimeter level came in at 715 grams and the uncut fork, 266 grams totaling 981 grams combined. The complete build without pedals, cages and mount was 5.6 kilograms and the bike fully loaded. The Factor 02 Vam came in at just over six kilograms which is borderline ridiculous. So if you want more information on say geometry design check out the first impressions video below but for the rest of this piece I'm gonna focus on my riding experiences and who I think this bike is best suited for. Now, keep in mind while I've had the opportunity to test ride and review a number of bikes my experiences that I'm gonna share with you today are mostly anecdotal and clearly should not be taken as gospel, I'd also like you to keep in mind that I am roughly 80 kilograms in weight or 176 pounds and I am 179 centimeters in height and rider medium. For those of you who are going to ask that question below but it's the body weight that I'd like you to keep front of mind as we go through this review today because I feel if I was maybe five to 10 plus kilograms lighter, my experiences here this story could be a little different. Now, before we get into the meat of this video these projects are quite the investment so I did wanna thank today's video sponsor. Being Squarespace, if we actually have a look at my wife's website here which was built just recently it's on a Squarespace platform and you can see how clean, simple yet intuitive it is. And my wife who's a non-techie personally loves how easy it is to go into the backend, altered text, layouts, color schemes, et cetera without needing any development skills. If you're keen to get a website off the ground go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com backslashcamnickles to save 10%. See all the relevant details below in the video description area. So, my standoff relationship with this bike it can be broken into two parts. It all started with the Cayden or Decadence 38 millimeter tubular wheels. Now, I selected these wheels for their weight being roughly 1000 grams for the pair for this featherweight build or with all the bits and pieces. That's a light wheel with the tyre on it. That's the front. 11 plus 750 that's 1850 with tyres and the cassette and quick releases. And from a riding experience these wheels have certainly delivered in terms of their responsiveness and aerodynamics which I wasn't really expecting given the rim profile but it's certainly there. Yes, there is some flex at times when you're really pushing it out of the saddle but I've had zero brake rub and I've also tested this bike with some heavier alloy wheels and as stiffness to weight ratio goes I've been highly impressed with these Decadence wheels but they are tubular and while I've heard you're a lot less likely to get a flat with a tubular setup and I am yet to get a flat with these tyres if you get stuck down the road say 50 K's down the road with a massive gash in your tyre that say a can of hope won't resolve what's a man supposed to do? So after a month or so of this initial standoff relationship with the factor O2 I invested into a spare tubular tyre which is now jammed into this bag. You can see it there. And after that I had the confidence to go long. If I got a really bad gash in the tyre you can literally just pull a tyre off and put a new one on and get yourself home and that's because the tubular tape that was provided by Cayden which is a special type of tubular tape which was installed by Jay at Taylor Cycles I'll link to that video below. And that tape that you just saw should still have enough stickiness on it for you to be able to bolt on a new tyre while you're out on the road and get yourself home without doing anything silly of course. So once this issue was resolved I started to ride the factor a lot more. To date I've ridden the factor O2 Vam in the local bunches here. I rode it in the famous Nusa Classic 100 mile or 160 kilometer Fondo event and I raced it in the local club race here at the Glass House Mountains recently. I did also intend on taking this bike down to some local criteria races which I've just started to get back into but to be honest it's not the type of bike that I will ever take to a crit race even though that was originally part of the plan and I'll explain why for you shortly. So to date after all these experiences the factor tends to sit in my office gathering dust. It's not a bike I'm choosing to take out. So why is that? Well I'm gonna lead with the two big advantages that this bike provides which makes me wanna lean into it and then the one big disadvantage which makes me stand away. Now the weight of this bike is clearly a massive advantage. For two reasons, obviously climbing with a bike that's one to two kilograms lighter than the other bikes is going to ensure you climb faster. But for me perhaps the biggest advantage was when I raced this bike in a local club road race. As you can see from this iPhone footage you can see some riders in blue kits. They're a continental team in my local area and they don't turn up to these races to race as a team. They turn up to race against each other. And that my friends turns these friendly local club races into not so friendly leg tearing affairs. And I think it was lap three or four of six 12 kilometer laps in this road race on a false flap section where there was three leg tearing attacks in a row and I just managed to hang on. I had saliva all over me, it wasn't a good look but it was the responsiveness of the Factor O2VM, the ability to get it up to speed really quick and to jump onto a wheel that I felt was a real advantage. In fact, so much so that I reckon if I was riding another bike that was one to two kilograms heavier I probably would have got dropped in that section. So in addition to the weight, the Factor is very comfortable. Probably the most comfortable road bike I've ridden even more so than my beloved BMC team machine. Although that would be a close call the day. I rode in the 100 mile Fondo event. I also rode to the start line and home. So I did roughly 200 kilometers on that day and when I finished that ride I definitely noted less fatigue in the upper body neck and lower back. So the factor was really absorbing the harsh country roads we have here on the Sunshine Coast well. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that it's a soft ride and there is quite a considerable amount of flex that comes through the frame which is where the big disadvantage for me comes into play. Now when I talk about flex, please know that I'm not talking about anything that would suggest a loss of power. Say a flex coming through the bottom bracket area. It's something that I notice in particular through the top tube and the seat tube area. And even these black ink handlebars are soft. They're comfortable but with quite a noticeable amount of flex, I particularly noticed that when I did that road race I just discussed and while flex does get a bad rep at times. Let's flip the coin. It obviously can create a very good comfort effect and clearly has enabled Factor to create this lightweight machine with less carbon construction. For me though personally at 80 kilograms in weight, 176 pounds is somebody who likes to push it. This type of frame flex isn't so much suited to the types of rides that I like to do nor my riding style. So I guess you could almost call my review and riding experiences a paradox because yes, I have used this bike on climbs and there are a lot of lumps in my area but I'm not really using it for its intended use being a climbing bike. And perhaps if I was and perhaps if I was also five to 10 kilograms lighter, then this review would have been a little different but I think at the end of the day, many people will buy a bike like this and use it as their general riding bike. So I think you need to stand back and have a think about okay, what type of riding do I enjoy doing? What's my body weight? What's my riding style? How is this going to play into a bike like this? I think if you live in hilly terrain and you love the climbs and you're not intending to ride this bike where stiffness becomes a critical advantage, then there is a lot of compelling reasons to own this factor O2VAM, including the fact you can still get it in rim. I'll catch you in the next video.