IT WILL TURN SOME HEADS WHEN YOU PASS BY
Before my officially start at FFWD I had some sleepless nights. Switching from a big global company to one that was still starting up is not the ‘normal’ choice. One week before the first working day was the tourist version of the Amstel Gold Race which my friends and I did every year. A weekend of cycling where stories are born about how much pain we had on the bike. Coming from The Netherlands most of us only see flat roads so the short and steep hills of the South of The Netherlands will definitely hurt you.
Having mentioned my bike weekend when talking about my new job obviously led to the question which wheels I would ride, or would like to ride. I always was a fan of all cycling material and made sure that looking good on the bike was on point. Wheels are (like it is with cars) one of the most important parts of the way you and your bike look. So when the talks started to take this direction I was aiming high, meaning I would be thrilled to ride a high profile set of wheels. Most of the wheels which are considered a high profile are around 50mm to 60mm high. At FFWD there was a new model back then which was slightly higher, 90mm…
It is not your typical choice for a road bike, let alone for a course which includes a descent amount of climbing.
Nevertheless the coolness factor of this set is as high as the rims itself so there was no question if I would ride these or not, no hesitation at all. YES please!
One remark was to be made though, the wheels are tubular but tires are glued already. So there I went with a spare tubular folded under my saddle. Not thinking about what could happen, just enjoy the ride. When I took my bike out of the car at our destination all eyes of my friends where on the new wheels. “Oh my, what do you have there?” was their first response.
The sound of the bike with these wheels is something else. It’s a constant rush! You hear the wheels spinning through the wind and when you shift gears the carbon rims are like an amplifier for the sound. That's an amazing feeling for yourself and you can say the wheels are a real motivation to ride faster. The additional benefit is that the sound of the wheels cutting through the wind and attacking sound when shifting is also heard by the ones you ride with. It will turn some heads when you pass by. Especially when you are close to the one you want to pass and just when you're super close you shift and they'll hear that hard sound of someone attacking them. Occasionally one would look back scared as they did not expect anything like this. Hard not to smile every time you're able to do this.
Being in the middle of a lot of wheels every day has never got boring as we live by the phrase (You can never have too many sets of wheels). It's a bit the same as they say for bikes, the number of bikes or wheels you should have is N+1. Over the years we have worked on many beautiful models and I've ridden all heights (you gotta know what you're talking about, right?). Nevertheless I can not deny that my heart went a bit faster when we started working on the new high profile version in the RYOT family, the RYOT77. I couldn't wait to get these in my bike and relive the feeling of the Amstel Gold Race of 2009. In the back of my mind I already thought about the combination of 77 in the rear and 55 in the front in case the Dutch winds get too strong.
It might look over the top for some but it gets my motivation going for sure!
Personal story by Rik van Putten, FFWD Master of Marketing since 2009.
