Different Bikes - Vancouver Bike Store

and another shot of the headbadge and headtube. That stamped foil headbadge only weighs 1 gm.

And here’s what spiffy Next carbon cranks look like when mounted on a spiffy carbon bike. And they go very nicely with the carbon rim DT Swiss wheels.

If you take one of the new Rocky Mountain carbon Vertex RSL frames to Dekerf Bikes along with a reasonably large bag of cash, you too can have a paint job that harkens back to the classic maple leaf look, in fact the 2004/2005 era maple leaf look. That’s official Canadian flag red. 

And to answer the question on everyone’s lips…. 20.21 pounds

Here’s a close up shot of the arm with the clear protector applied (after the first heel scuffs were already done to it).

I picked up a set of the Race Face Next crankset from the WV location a couple of weeks ago in my pursuit of the light and sturdy build. They replaced a set of XTR cranks so it’s an incremental improvement in weight savings. The Next cranks with BB weighed in at 738gms versus 796gms for the XTR cranks/BB.

Weighing the BB bearing shell assemblies was interesting, the RF bearings were 113gms with one 2.5mm spacer and the XTR bearing assembly was 89gms with the 2.5mm spacer. So there’s another 24gms of weight savings to be had by using an XTR BB with the Next cranks. That brings the Next cranks/BB down to 714gms for a heft 82 gram saving over the XTR cranks. That’s almost a 0.2 pound saving.

These are a departure from the Deus/Atlas in that the spindle is permanently fixed to the drive side cranks, just like the XTR.

The cranks themselves are incredibly stiff, I can’t feel any flex with my 195 pounds riding on them at 3/9 o’clock. Shifting is standard Race Face, not quite the near-magic of the XTR chainrings. Too bad it would require some major grinding to get an XTR middle ring to fit.

The clearcoat on the arms does heel scuff easily, and there’s slightly less heel clearance than the Deus/Atlas so they seem to be more prone to heel scuffs. Some clear ski protector film would be a good investment in these pricey cranks. Yeah sure it weighs a little more, but a worthy weight investment.

I’ll update more long term info after some more use.