Wanna see my VD?

By the way VD also stands for Van Dessel, as in the bike company. Check them out here if you like what you see. Once I decided to try CX I wanted to get a CX bike - I could have started on a mountain bike but felt it would be a huge disadvantage. And on some courses it would be. I first bought a RedLine Conquest pro, I very nice bike and had great reviews. But there was something wrong with it. It was a 54 and I ride a 56. I thought you were supposed to go down 1 size but that was wrong. See what Mr. Myerson says on the subject here. I found this info out by helping a friend get into CX. So after realizing that the Redline was to small I've decided to find a new CX bike before the season starts. Bikes I looked at were the Redline Conquest, Specialized Crux, Masi, Marin, Rocky Mountain, and Van Dessel. After researching all of them I decided on the Van Dessel Gin and Trombones.

I've always loved the look of their bikes. A little flashy, great paint, and from the reviews I have read great geometry. The forks are massive, very stiff and full Carbon including steerer tube. They also have carbon rear stays. Ordering was painless and the frame arrived a few days later. I immediately opened it up and unpacked it. It looked great! In the box was a frame, fork, headset, carbon fork plug, and a bag of miscellaneous parts. I should say that I have never built up a bike completely from scratch before. I have always wanted to try and this was the perfect time to give it a shot because I was going to use all of the components from the Redline which included Rival, Avid Ultimate brakes, FSA stem, bars, seatpost. Just needed to order a BB30 crank since the Redline had gpx.

Build Specs

Frame - Van Dessel Gin & Trombones

Shifters - SRAM Rival

Rear Derailleur - SRAM Rival

Front Derailleur - SRAM Rival

Brakes - Avid Ultimates Canti

Cranks - FSA Omega (upgrade will be SRAM Force)

Saddle - Fizik Aliante

Wheels - Ritchey Pro (Upgrading to Industry Nine i25's)

Tires - Schwalbe Racing Ralphs

Just unpacked the G&T now it's relaxing on the sofa.

 

 

 Beautiful Carbon - looks like it's made of snake skin to me.

 

 

First time in the stand. Seat tube, Fork and headset installed.

 

 

 

Took me awhile to figure out what these little horse shoe shaped pieces were in the package. They are so you can use a mountain bike wheel with 135mm spacing instead of the traditional road spacing 130mm. I love it when a manufactured pays attention to the details!

 

Another View from the back of the spacers. 

 

 

 

Avid Ultimates and Racing Ralphs! Soon to include I9's. 

 

 

Massive Carbon fork with Ultimates. 

 

 

 Rear of the bike. This will be how all of my fellow competitors will see my bike as I go by them.

 

 

 

Clean cassette and Rival Derailleur taken from the Redline.



Still waiting on Crank. Just got an email that it should be here Monday. Hopefully by next weekend I'll be able to fine tune the fit then cut the steerer tube, and wrap the bars.

 

 

 Almost finished. Sorry about the bad picture.

 

 

 

Conclusion: I had a lot of fun building my own bike. As I said before I've wanted to do this for some time now and can now cross that off of the Bucket List. I would totally do it again given the right circumstances and being cost effective.