Music Excuse the red face. I've just been out doing one minute and three minute efforts on the chapter two rear-ray. And this video, what I'm going to do is give you my first impressions on this road bike. Now chapter two is an emerging road brand out of New Zealand. And this is their Aero machine. And I'll link to their website in the below description area. And my subscribers will know I like to do a first impressions video after the first few rides. Now I've actually had this bike. This would probably be my seventh or eighth ride today. But I've had a favorite disruption recently. This bike was built about a month and a half ago by Omara Cycle. There are bike shop in Melbourne. And I did a build video on that. That's been my most popular video of all time. 80,000 views. I'll link to that one below as well. And the thing is what happened was after this bike was built literally about two weeks later I put it in a bike bag and it got shipped up here. And I had to hand the Zip 808 wheels back to Shrampestray for the summer. I'm going to get them back. So they've sent me some other wheels. But the process of them swapping over the wheels and sending me new ones and coming up here was about a three or four week period where this was in a bike bag. So it's only really been the last couple of weeks where I've really got to get a good feel for the chapter two rear-ray. So this is going to be unadulterated. I haven't done my one to two days of research which I typically do for the full reviews. I don't have multiple cameras. There's no lighting set up. It's just me and my initial thoughts on the chapter two rear-ray. So as I said, I've just moved to the sunshine coast and I'm still figuring out the best places to film. But I think there's a little place over the road we can go to sit down and have a chat. So just a couple of things before I find my little spot to do this first impressions video. Brad, one of my subscribers, he was after a full review video on the chapter two rear-ray for his birthday, the 20th of January. Sorry I'm not going to be able to do that mate but I want to wish you a happy birthday for the 20th of January and I promise you maybe a couple of weeks afterwards we'll get the full review done on this bike but hopefully this will wet the appetite. Number two, just I wanted to explain. Originally I wanted to get this bike built before the start of the Criterium season in Melbourne which is a number of months ago now. It was supposed to be my crit-winning bike which unfortunately didn't happen and the reason being it I raced on only twice in the end. I hope to race on it more up here but we changed from rim to disc sort of at the last minute. I had to wait for a disc version of the rear-ray and I got to tell you this is the first time I've ridden a disc bike so far. No issues with the disc brakes have been absolutely perfect so fingers crossed it stays that way. So to let everyone know at front this is actually my bike. A lot of the bikes that I review on this channel except for one being the specialised of the lay which I've still got it's my personal road bike and I'll link to that video below. They're bikes that I take out online for two to three weeks and then I review them and I hand them back. This bike is mine and a lot of people might be saying well how come you don't know much about the technicalities of the bike? How come you haven't done a lot of research on this bike if it's your own bike? The reason behind that is I fell in love with the chapter two brand after I went to the chapter two launch in Australia about six to eight months ago. I met the founder of the business Michael Pride and listening to him talk his passion they're focused on road the fact that they're New Zealand see my mum is from New Zealand so I'm half Kiwi the aesthetics of the bike the way they blend in the New Zealand Fern all those things can mine I just I fell in love with the brand and I wanted to get behind it I wanted to have the chapter two Rere Ray and as I said before this is their Aero road bike so in the full review I'm now after riding this thing for a number of weeks I'm looking forward to doing the research because it is a unique proposition there some very interesting things on this road bike that I'd like to take you through right now. Now the first thing I want to talk to you about is a lot of people in the build video they said that thing looks like the Servello S5 and I can kind of get where people are coming from particularly if you look at the back end of the bike now the back end the seat stays in the way they sort of drop there that is very sort of Servello S5 S however if you go to the top tube it's this almost like a circular shape it's very interesting love the way the Fern sort of integrate here the light baby blue and the E for the chapter two that's their logo beautiful looking little touches and then if we look at the down tube the down tube is a similar shape to the S5 but it's a lot more narrower the US 5 is very thick here and it's also very thick around the around the bottom bracket here there's a lot of robustness in the bottom bracket but it's certainly a different type of look and feel to the Servello S5 and the front end is certainly a lot different and the manner handle bar system from chapter two I'm loving that it's creating a super stiff front end and a lot different to the fishbone that you get with the Servello S5 so I guess there are some slight similarities with this Servello S5 but I haven't I haven't reviewed that bike by the way and I want to I've asked Servello and Australia they still haven't heard or received anything back so if you're listening if you're watching out there I'd love to review that bike but I have reviewed the Modone and I have the ultimate Done not the new Modone and I have reviewed the most recent Venge and the Venge is a great bike but it's so different to this bike now the three big call outs for mine on this bike in terms of riding experience clearly I'm a fan of the aesthetics I like the look of it but the comfort on this bike it's really surprised me it is the most comfortable aero road bike that I have ever ridden and I was surprised about that because when I looked at the way it's a short seat tube and you've got a lot of post there and I'm thinking that's that's interesting that might cause a bit of vibration or shock now when you hit a big bump on this bike you certainly you're aware that you're riding an aero road bike but the way it handles the road vibrations particularly some of the country roads around here in the Sunshine Coast I've done some big rides on this bike so far 130 125 and I come back and the level of fatigue that you're quite often get with an aero bike isn't there so the comfort factor I'm very impressed with the chapter 2 rear a so far the front end as I said is exceptionally stiff the way this manner handlebar system integrates up and out of the saddle super responsive very stiff at the front end and descending on this bike so it's a bit of a pro and a con here that the descending I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to descending I don't want to go anywhere over 70 to 80k's to start to freak out a little bit well I was going about 90k's now to descend the other day and I felt like I could keep going so the stability was very very good on the chapter 2 rear a however what I noted was because I do a lot of filming while riding is quite often I'll take one hand off one side of the handlebar and I'll hold a camera and then inadvertently you put a little bit more weight on the other side of the handlebar despite the fact that I try and use my core you're going to put a little bit more weight on the other side of the handlebar now when I did that I felt a little bit of instability on this bike however when both hands are planted evenly the stability felt elite like next level so that's an interesting thing that I'm going to want to drill into further on the full review and I think it's going to have a fair bit to do with the wheelbase so what I've noted down here is this the front end wheel is very close to the pedal so quite often when you turn the wheel here you'll hit your shoe now just quickly as well on the cockpit the Manor handlebar system as I said, it's aesthetically very pleasing and it creates super sort of aerodynamic front end that's very very stiff what I have noted with the handlebar tape though is perhaps impractical you can see my greasy sweaty hands up here in the sunshine case a lot of humidity in the air made it look a bit gritty and dirty which isn't ideal so perhaps more practically a black handlebar system handlebar tape system would work better there now lastly on the bits and pieces we've got some zip 30 alloy clinches on this chapter 2 rear right now I'm going to get the zip 808's back as I mentioned but I'm going to review these zips separately because I'm very impressed with them and the shrem one by a lot of people are going to say did your chain looks a little bit dirty there yes it is we've lost or I lost my chain cleaner in the move and the local bike shop doesn't have one in yet so I'll clean that chain but I'm sure somebody out there's going to pick up pick up on that one the shrem one by we'll do a full review on this channel in another two to three weeks time as well so that's kind of it first impressions hope you enjoyed stay tuned for the full comprehensive review and if you haven't subscribed and you want to see that video make sure you subscribe below and I'll catch you all in the next video