To our left: A narrow irrigation canal dug into the hillside, flowing bright and clear out of the mountains and into farmland closer to the Mediterranean coast. To our right: A spring-green valley crisscrossed by farm fencing, then the white peaks of the Pyrenees. We’re on a narrow strip of packed earth, overhung by trees, wiggling away at the sort of perfect grade only found when paralleling flowing water.

This isn’t quite mountain biking, and it certainly isn’t road riding, even though my handlebars have drops on them. We’re on the last stretch of a 75km day that will take five hours in the saddle. A 15km per hour average. A day that includes pavement, dirt roads, singletrack descents, tiny canal paths, and a two-hour lunch stop for local beer, blood sausage, and calçots, whole onions charred over a wood fire then dipped in garlic and tomato sauce and eaten whole.

If this is cycling now, I’m not complaining.

We’re at the edge of the Pyrenees, outside Perpignan, to ride on and in Mavic’s new Allroad line. It includes wheels and tires, of course, but also clothing, a helmet, and shoes. Every item in the line is like a sedimentary stone — attributes from various types of cycling cleaved off, chopped up, thrown in a bucket, and smushed together into a single being. The shoes have SPD cleats but very little tread; the helmet has a visor, but it’s a tiny one; the baggy shorts aren’t that baggy at all; the jersey uses performance fabrics but also Merino wool and has a collar; the aluminum wheels use technology from the Ksyrium but are designed for the 40mm tires we’re riding, which are grippy and tough enough to slide down stony singletrack, but smooth enough to inspire a bit of racing on the final paved climb of the day.

You can call it whatever you want: Gravel, groad, alt-road, or allroad, as Mavic does. But at the end of the day, it’s just a return to cycling’s origins. It’s riding bikes. On any surface, at any speed. Wearing whatever you want.

For years, most riders into this sort of thing got creative with gear selection. Clothing was cherry-picked from mountain bike lines and commuter lines, equipment was borrowed from cyclocross. Other brands tried to push the envelope — remember Giro New Road? It’s all but dead now, a line launched ahead of its time. But now gravel is the fastest growing category in the cycling industry. So, of course, that industry is responding.

Some may decry the arrival of big brands like Mavic into this purest of two-wheeled pursuits, or despair at the co-opting of what has been a largely bottom-up evolution, running ahead of the industry itself, but I don’t see it that way. Gear designed to blur the boundaries between types of riding can only be a good thing as those boundaries continue to break down naturally. The industry should react to the way we use bikes these days. That’s exactly what Mavic has done.

So let’s take a look at it all:

Mavic Allroad wheels and tires

For all the ingenuity in Mavic’s Allroad line, the company very much decided against, ahem, reinventing the wheel. There’s no carbon and no whiz-bang tech; just solid and hopefully reliable builds that utilize details from the company’s existing road and mountain lines.

The highlights:
• Four wheel models at three price points — three 700c options and one 650b — all of which are built as wheel-tire systems (WTS, in Mavic speak).
• The 700c tires will be available in 30mm, 35mm, and 40mm widths. The 650b tires don’t technically exist yet but they’re coming, and will be around 47mm wide.
• All wheels come with tires.
• All rims are aluminum, UST tubeless, and hookless.
• The 700c rims are 22mm-wide (internal), for use with tires from 28 to 40mm, and the 650b version is 25mm wide (internal).
• All hubs use Mavic’s ID360 freehub, a ratchet-style design that’s been in use for the last three years and has proven reliable with minimal maintenance required (unlike the old FTS-L hubs).
• All hubs use Center Lock splined rotor mounts, except the Allroad Elite UST, which is also available for rim brakes.

Allroad Pro UST (US$1,000 / £859 / €1,000, 1,610g)

The top-of-the-line option uses much of the tech from Mavic’s venerable Ksyrium road wheel, including Zicral aluminum spokes, ISM4D rim machining, FORE drilling, and other acronyms. This is the wheel we rode in Perpignan.

Aluminum road frames are seeing a bit of a resurgence at the moment as folks realize that the cost/benefit ratio of carbon is often out of whack. There are good arguments for a similar embrace of aluminum in the gravel wheel world.

Aerodynamics are key on the road, and to build an aero wheel it needs to be carbon. There’s simply too much material, and the shapes are too finicky, to make them out of aluminum. In mountain biking, the stresses put on wheels can be enormous, so the stiffness and strength of a carbon rim, while maintaining low weight, is desirable. For both, carbon makes sense.

Gravel has neither of these problems. This type of riding has neither stresses of mountain biking nor the aerodynamic needs of road riding. So a simple aluminum wheel can check all the boxes. In fact, they’re often better than some of the off-brand or house-brand carbon stuff out there, all for less money.

Mavic is hyper-focused on inertia, and on low rim weights in particular. There’s some math out there (I try to avoid it) that suggests that inertia in a wheel isn’t really that important for going fast, or for accelerating quickly. But it is important for having fun.

Anyone who has ridden heavy wheels and tires knows they take more effort to flick around and can make an otherwise light bike feel slow. Getting out of the saddle and swinging the bike back and forth feels different. In gravel riding, there are lots of small movements to avoid obstacles, trace a new line, etc. A light wheel just feels good in these circumstances. More specifically, a low-inertia wheel feels good. It feels fun and energetic.

This is a roundabout way of saying I was pleased with how the Allroad Pro felt. Even with a relatively large tire, they flicked about admirably. First impressions were good. I’ve been relatively unimpressed with the performance-per-dollar ratio of most carbon gravel wheels; the ratio for the Allroad is much better. They felt light and nimble, but should be plenty durable.

Allroad Elite UST (US$800 / £659 /€749, 1,720g)

This wheelset uses the same rim and hub as the Pro, but with steel spokes. Available with a machined rim brake surface or Center Lock disc hub.

Allroad Elite Road+ (US$800 / £629 / €700, 1,740g)

650b version of the Allroad Elite. 25mm internal rim width, UST compatible, steel spokes. This rim doesn’t use Mavic’s FORE drilling, which leaves the rim bed intact. Instead, it uses standard drilling, meaning there are holes in the rim bed. Mavic says this increases vertical compliance slightly, which is supposedly necessary given the smaller diameter.

Allroad UST (US$300 / £225 / €250, 1,890g)

The entry-level model retains the 22mm rim width of the other 700c models, but little else. It uses sleeve-joint rim construction instead of welded seams, steel spokes, and traditional rim drilling, but the same ID360 hub.

Yksion Allroad XL tires (US$79 / £52 / €59, 450g)

I tend to think of these sort of tires along a sliding scale of surfaces. 10 is all pavement, or super smooth dirt, 0 is me looking for a mountain bike. A big, fat slick is an 8. A Donnelly Strada USH 700×32 is about a 6.5 or 7. Those new Goodyear 40mm tires are a 4.5, thanks to a supple casing and minimal tread. The Allroad XL is a 3, but could go up to a 5 if you put a bit of extra pressure in. It’s at home in the rough stuff, but with that smooth, grooved tread, it still rolls well.

The XL is an interesting tire. It’s what we rode at the launch in Perpignan, and uses a tread pattern that is more grooves than knobs — think car tire. The result is a heck of a lot of rubber between the ground and you. It is unquestionably a dirt tire, designed to handle pretty much anything you can throw at it. We rode rocky singletrack, fast and rocky fireroads, and bumpy 4×4 roads. Everywhere we went, the grip was astoundingly good and the flat protection impressive. With 20-something bike journalists rolling around for two full days, riding like you do on a borrowed bike (like idiots), we had fewer than five flats.

They are also a bit heavy. A Donnelly MSO 700×40, which is similarly capable off-road, sits just under 400 grams. But it doesn’t have the thick tread Mavic used, making it more likely to puncture. So it’s a tradeoff.

There is something to the grooves vs. tread idea. The top of the tire is nicely rounded and grip is consistent across its entirety. That makes it very predictable in corners.

The XL wasn’t terrible on the road, either, comparable to other 40mm gravel tires I’ve been on recently. Gravel tire side knobs tend to squirm under load, making cornering on pavement an interesting experience. The Allroad XL doesn’t really have knobs, so there’s no squirming. Confidence on pavement is improved.

The downside of this design is relatively poor mud shedding. It’s not terrible, but we did have quite a lot of mud on our second day of riding and the tires packed up a bit. That said, any tire that rolls decently well on the road (and I do think that’s a requirement) is going to fare poorly in the mud.

Color me impressed.

Yksion Allroad UST tires (US$79 / £52 / €59, 330g/395g)

The non-XL version of the tire is available in 30mm and 35mm widths, with a much lighter tread pattern relative to the 40mm XL. The tires are also built thinner and more supple, and they’re lighter as a result.

The 35mm version will be available in a dark-ish tanwall. Both versions ship in July.

We didn’t ride them, so I have no idea if they’re any good.

Mavic Allroad clothing

Baggies are a state of mind.

I’m convinced of this. Putting on baggy shorts is like flicking a switch, from go-fast mode to let’s-see-what-the-day-brings.

On the second day outside Perpignan, we dropped down on a dirt road thickened by overnight rain from the little gîte we’d stayed in halfway up some Pyrenean foothill. It was a mess, with sloppy, sandy mud that clogged drivetrains and tore our disc-brake pads to pieces. It was so bad we stopped at the bottom and spent 20 minutes filling our water bottles at a spring next to a cemetery and spraying the gunk away from moving.

We rolled on, riding through a tiny stone town and up onto the other side of the valley. The climb was perhaps 20 minutes, all paved. Streams ran across the road, run-off from the night before, and road spray soaked us through. We stopped for a snack near a stream crossing. Tim Johnson threw a pear at someone. It had been nearly three hours since we left at this point, and we’d only ridden 30 kilometers. It was a rate of movement that would continue until we reached the hotel that night, in the dark, with only tiny commuter lights to guide us along foot-wide paths next to one of Perpignan’s canals.

We raced down fire roads, debated the imminence of a visible rainstorm across the valley, stopped for sheep traffic, and retraced our steps because a section of road had chest-deep rushing water on it.

It was awesome. Because baggies, my friends, are a state of mind.

It’s not that companies don’t already make clothing for this type of riding. In fact, quite by definition, just about any clothing will work. At home, my favorite groad gear is a pair of Giro New Road (rest in peace) shorts over the top of a good pair of bibs, a fanny pack or handlebar bag to put all my stuff in, and a Merino T-shirt from Vulpine. It’s comfortable, casual, and meets the needs of this type of riding. Aerodynamics don’t matter when you’re romping through the woods, and I’m a fan of clothing that allows me to pass as a marginally normal-looking person away from my bike.

That’s basically what Mavic made with Allroad. Mostly.

The line includes four major pieces: The Allroad Jersey (€150), Allroad Thermal Longsleeve (€190), Allroad Fitted Baggy Short (€120), and Allroad Insulated Vest (€160), plus some shoes coming this fall.

The Allroad jersey

It’s like my favorite Merino T-shirt, but far more clever. Most of the Allroad jersey is indeed wool, but it’s matched with a woven poly fabric up top for a bit more breathability. It also has a series of snap buttons that allow the jersey to be opened down to your sternum. That’s key — my only real problem with my wool T-shirt is that it can get a bit clammy. A collar sets the tone for styling. Racing jerseys had collars on them for decades, and I think it’s a nice, classic look. Colors are all muted greys, except for a few splashes of reflective orange striping on the back and arms. The fit is relaxed. It flaps around. That’s fine; we’re clearly not going anywhere quickly.

Three pockets out back can be stuffed full, but it’ll leave the jersey sagging. The most I could fit before the sagging started was a light jacket and my phone. Not terrible, but it means that you’ll probably want some other sort of storage (fanny pack/bum bag/handlebar bag) for longer rides.

The Allroad jersey looks a lot like a cross-country mountain biking jersey, except that mountain bikes have gone a bit enduro-garish lately. The subtle grays are less conspicuous.

Allroad Thermal Longsleeve

The long-sleeve uses a thicker, more luxurious Merino fabric. A full zip allows the jersey to be opened up completely, while a pair of snaps around the collar adds a bit of urban (I hate that word as an adjective for clothing, but can’t think of another) styling. Reflective stripes on the tail and wrists aid in visibility but aren’t obnoxious.

Of the two jerseys, this is the one least likely to get you weird looks at a bar or coffee shop after your ride. It honestly looks like something you might wear out away from the bike.

A couple things contribute to this, and I’m pleased Mavic got them right. First, the tail is not ridiculously long. Yes, it’s important that it be long enough not to ride up when you sit on the bike, but many brands go overboard, and it makes the pieces scream, “I’m a bike person!” Second, there’s only one big pocket on the back. Three pockets also scream, “I’m a bike person!” This is an okay thing to scream if you want to scream it but if you don’t want to scream it it’s nice to have that option, too. Non-cyclists do not have pockets on the backs of their shirts, as a rule. And three, there are no other weird bike-specific pockets or “features.” Mavic kept it simple, and that’s good.

Allroad Insulated Vest

If the long-sleeve is the strongest piece stylistically, the insulated vest delivers performance. It’s warm. Super warm. Too warm to hammer around in. This is no thin, windproof roadie vest. It’s for tootling around in the cold, stopping for coffee, or throwing on for a long descent. It uses Primaloft compressible insulation, so it’s very packable — fits easily in a pocket. It’s reversible, one side bright orange and the other muted grey. It’s going to see regular use in our Colorado shoulder seasons.

Allroad Fitted Baggy Short

A baggy short for drop-bar riding is the hardest piece to get right. Length, tailoring, stretch, pockets, it all has to be perfect. The Allroad short is very, very close.

Pockets — Good. They’re deep enough to hold a phone without worrying about it falling out. A zippered side pocket is there if you want extra security.

Stretch — Just right. A few companies have tried to do some sort of weird hybrid baggie/spandex thing. No. This is not okay. We wear baggies because we want to look like normal human beings, and when our rear ends are made of spandex and our thighs flap like ship sails, that is not possible. Baggy cycling shorts shouldn’t look like some esoteric oddity from a Parisian runway. Mavic did a normal short with a tiny bit of stretch so it conforms when you’re in the saddle.

Fit — Quite slim and tailored looking, with minimal flapping on the bike. Leg openings are the right size and don’t catch wind or inflate the shorts.

Length — This one is all personal preference, but I prefer a slightly shorter short, something that is closer to where my bib shorts end. This is mostly for tanline purposes, because there is still a roadie inside me somewhere, screaming about “aero” and attempting to escape. But it’s also because a shorter short flaps less and is less likely to catch wind like a windsock. Mavic’s shorts have mostly solved both problems thanks to their trim leg opening, but it’s not completely gone.

Allroad Pro Shoes

These will be available in September, and I didn’t get to try them yet. A few of Mavic’s staff were wearing them, though.

The target was a mix between a road and a mountain bike shoe. The tread is simple, just two big blocks of rubber, and the sole takes a standard two-bolt cleat. The upper uses a material called Matryx, which is sort of like Kevlar. It’s exceptionally tear-resistant but quite supple. It looks almost knitted, but apparently, it isn’t. It’s also treated with a DWR waterproof coating.

The idea was to create a shoe that is easy to get off and walk around in — without the clickety-clacking of a traditional road shoe — but that maintains performance on the bike and doesn’t look chunky and out of place like a mountain bike shoe. The shoes are really a perfect analogy for the entire line.

Other bits and bobs

The Allroad line also includes arm warmers, knee warmers, and short-finger gloves, all made from Merino wool. There isn’t much to say about the warmers other than they never fell down on me (which is kind of their only job), and are nice and soft to the touch. Obviously, because they’re wool, they don’t shed water. But they’re Merino, so even when wet, they still retain heat.

The Merino gloves are exceptional. I never wear short-finger gloves, but may actually bust these out on occasion. The palm material is thin with no excessive padding, and the backs of the hands are a soft, thin, breathable Merino. Five stars for these.

Final thoughts

This stuff isn’t for everyone. Where Giro New Road went wrong, I think, was believing that roadies would embrace baggy clothing. They (we) won’t. I usually throw on normal lycra when my tires are less than 30mm wide. So if you don’t ride off pavement, Mavic Allroad is unlikely to appeal.

That’s because lycra makes sense on the road. It’s form fitting, fast, comfortable; it’s designed for a purpose. Gravel’s technical requirements are different. Temperature control, wicking, and comfort all matter. Aerodynamic drag does not.

Road riding is also very much defined by a look and an identity. When one cruises around in public in superhero pants, embracing those superhero pants is something of a psychological necessity. There are unwritten rules about sock height, about tan lines, about shaving, rules that have no basis in anything other than showing other riders that you’re part of the crew. There is something powerful in this, in conforming to an aesthetic because it makes you feel good, or feel fast, or feel pro. I think everyone clicking on this site enjoys that feeling to some extent.

But gravel, if that’s what you want to call it, is defined by a lack of a strict identity. At least for now. It’s wear-what-you-want, ride-what-you-want, be-what-you-want freedom. It’s Merino t-shirts and baggies or bibs and a jersey. It’s a ‘cross bike or a road bike with 28s or a dedicated gravel bike; confused bikes that aren’t great at anything but are somehow fun almost everywhere.

This is all makes gravel a tricky space for big brands to jump into. It has to be done right, but who knows what right is? There is no right because so many things can be right. This is a segment of cycling that is still defining itself. It’s almost impossible to pin down precisely what riders need and want because they don’t always know themselves.

A shorts-and-jersey combination from Mavic will set you back 270 euros. That’s a hefty price tag for what is essentially a more technically proficient version of gym shorts and a T-shirt. Road kit can demand such prices because it’s performance wear. But will gravel, where performance, in the traditional sense, is less important, follow suit? Can Mavic, or any other brand, convince us to pay cycling kit prices for clothing designed not to look like cycling kit?

The Allroad wheels and tires are technical successes, at least from my brief time on them. They work. The clothing is excellent, comfortable and casual. I will wear it, happily, mixing-and-matching with shorts from Kitsbow and that T-shirt from Vulpine and whatever else I feel like pulling out of the closet.

It’s risky to attempt to define a type of cycling that is still seeking its identity. So, kudos to Mavic. For a company that hasn’t always been on the forefront in recent years, risk is a good look.

The post Mavic Allroad, a big brand’s take on gravel gear appeared first on CyclingTips.

I’ve long thought that carbon-fiber road frames have been on an asymptotic development path; even mid-range models these days are exceedingly good for the most part, and whatever gains engineers do make at the high end seem to require disproportionate amounts of work to get there. But nevertheless, manufacturers continue to insist that new bikes continue to get “better” with each passing iteration.

One of the areas that I regularly see touted as undergoing steady improvement is frame “compliance” — otherwise known as how much the chassis flexes beneath you vertically in an effort to enhance comfort. But the downward trend in tire inflation, and the upward trend in tire size, got me thinking lately: Does frame compliance still matter at all? Can’t we all run super-stiff frames and adjust the tires to get the ride quality we want?

Intuition might suggest that to be the case, but the complete picture is a bit more complicated.

The stack-of-springs argument

Road bikes consist of a multitude of different components that each contribute in some way to ride quality — the frame, the fork, the wheels, the seatpost, the tires, etc. While some parts are obviously “softer” than others, all of them will yield to some degree given enough applied force. But when it comes to analyzing the individual contributions of each of those parts, the “stack of springs” analogy is often used. Each component is represented as an individual spring, all of which are laid end to end. In that configuration, it’s really only the softest spring in the series that matters in practical application — or at least so goes the widely accepted view of the matter.

Silca owner Josh Poertner used the same analogy in a blog post back in 2016. He analyzed much of the relevant data that was available at the time, not only from his own company, but also drawing on his experience as former technical director at Zipp, and the wealth of objective lab measurements conducted by popular German publication Tour Magazin.

According to Poertner, while there are a multitude of factors affecting ride quality on a road bike, there are really only three main ones: the tires, the frame/fork/seatpost, and the wheels. Of those, the tires comprise the softest spring in the series by far; the frame/fork/seatpost is roughly 2-5 times stiffer, and the wheels 5-10 times stiffer still.

Not surprisingly then, Poertner’s experiments concluded that tire pressure had the biggest influence on ride quality, with even modest differences (roughly 15psi) yielding as dramatic an effect on comfort than the total difference between the softest and firmest frames he included in the analysis.

“Clearly the differences between the stiffest third of bikes tested and the most comfortable third of bikes tested is very real,” he stated in his post, “but it just isn’t very large in magnitude when you consider that you can go up a tire size and down 1bar [14.5psi] of pressure and be roughly equivalent or even better off.”

Can just changing your tire pressure completely change the feel of your entire bike? Actually, yes. Photo: Matt Wikstrom.

But it’s not quite that simple

Poertner’s argument certainly bolsters the commonly-accepted notion that ride quality is almost completely determined by the tires. One could also draw the conclusion, then, that all of the attention surrounding “frame compliance” is just a bunch of marketing hype designed to sell people bikes they don’t really need.

However, while Poertner — and others — rightfully insist that tires do make the biggest difference in ride quality, it’s not the only thing that contributes significantly to the overall feel.

It’s worth pointing out that the range of frame/fork/seatpost stiffness included in Poertner’s analysis — 150N/mm at the low end, to 250N/mm at the high end — is meant to represent averages for the Aero Race, Race, and Comfort categories as designated and measured by Tour Magazin, not the total range of bikes on offer. Poertner is certainly no stranger to rigorous data analysis, but in effort to make the information a little more palatable to the majority of his audience, some simplification was warranted.

Even straight tubes will flex under the right loads, but pre-bending them, as GT did on the back end of this Grade gravel bike, promotes the movement even further.

Fat chainstays and skinny seatstays promote the idea of a smooth and buttery ride, but looks can be deceiving.

Another increasingly common trick is lowering the seatstays, which helps the entire seat tube flex when you hit a bump.

D-shaped tube profiles are supposedly very good in terms of aerodynamics, but it turns out that they’re very good for bump compliance, too.

Seatposts are still a major source of ride comfort on road bikes. Having more seatpost extending out of the frame makes for a longer, and softer, lever arm, as does reducing the diameter. In other words, the short extension and oversized 31.6mm diameter shown on this Kinesis Aithein isn’t doing much for the bike’s comfort level.

“Our 150/200/250N/mm range was done to build a matrix out for people using the most common stiffness ranges we had seen,” Poertner explained. “I wanted to give a sort of general guide and then also break out the smaller ranges to show effects within a grouping. The vast majority are in the 150-300N/mm range.”

A more complete picture is provided by Damon Rinard, engineering manager for Cycling Sports Group, the parent company for Cannondale, GT, Mongoose, Schwinn, and several other popular brands. Readers may choose to take his words with a grain of salt given his position in the industry, but numbers are numbers, and his are compelling.

Metal bikes are often lauded for their superior ride quality, but that’s often because their skinny tubes flex in all directions, not just the ones you want. Even then, modern carbon fiber frames still have them beat, since the material can be more dramatically tuned. Still, traditional metal frames like this Otso Warakin can ride like a couch if you put the right tires on it — in this case, 650×47 beasts like the WTB Horizon 47.

While some degree of “compliance” is generally regarded as a good thing, not everyone has the same preferences. Specialized made little effort to soften the ride of its Allez Sprint frames, for example, but it’s unlikely that the racers who gravitate toward it will care much.

The Ritchey Logic steel road frameset looks like it should be very comfortable, but in reality, it isn’t as smooth on rough ground as modern carbon-fiber frames that have been specifically tuned for the purpose. That doesn’t mean that bikes like this are bad, however; it’s more a matter of personal preference.

“Frame compliance used to not matter, in my old opinion, but in my new opinion, it does matter, and here’s why I say that,” he said. “Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Jobst Brandt published Bob Bundy’s FAQ on frame stiffness. They measured a bunch of frames and wheels and tires, and the frames were many, many times more rigid than the tires — so much so that even the differences between frames would shrink in comparison to the tires, so we focused on tires, not frames. But modern frames are different. We’ve tried over the years in the bike industry to engineer comfort into frames, and slowly, over decades, it’s worked.”

Like Poertner, Rinard also compiled frame stiffness data from Tour Magazin, including the full range of frame/fork/seatpost results from the past two years — nearly 100 in total — but given that his analysis is more recent, the bikes included enjoy the benefit of additional development work. Either way, when you look at the complete set of data, rather than representative subsets, the span of frame stiffnesses is substantially broader. The stiffest frame recorded is a literal bone shaker at a whopping 423N/mm. However, the softest-riding frame posts a comparatively marshmallow-like 69N/mm.

Going along with that is Rinard’s own tire stiffness data (measured on a flat surface), which he says constitutes a range of about 100N/mm (25c tire inflated to 87psi), up to about 150N/mm (23c tire inflated to 116psi).

Data compiled by Cycling Sports Group engineering director Damon Rinard blows apart the idea that frame compliance is inconsequential as compared to tire stiffness. Photo: Damon Rinard.

Based on Rinard’s analysis, there’s more overlap between tire stiffness and frame stiffness than one might otherwise assume. And according to Rinard, while the total spread of frame stiffnesses is very broad, most of them fall on the lower end of the scale.

“The range of tire stiffnesses overlaps the bulk of the range of frame stiffnesses, so they’re in the same ballpark, when they didn’t used to be. [The frame/fork/seatpost] is one of the softer springs in the series, [and] the tires are now about the same order of magnitude. Neither one dominates anymore.”

Riders often like to say that certain wheels ride stiffer or softer than others (and I’m sure I’m guilty of saying the same thing in the past). But the reality is that wheels, regardless of how they’re made, contribute very, very little to the overall ride quality of a bike.

All springs and bumps are not created equal

The stack-of-springs model may be a popular one, but it’s important to keep in mind that it’s just that, a model meant to simplify a more complicated real-world scenario. While the three major components that contribute to ride quality — the tires, the frame/fork/seatpost, and the wheels — can all be viewed as springs with vastly different stiffnesses, we’re still talking about fairly complex structures here.

One issue is that the spring rates of those components aren’t always linear. In other words, it might take a certain amount of force to compress one of those components by 1mm, but it might take more than double that effort to compress it another millimeter. This is particularly true for pneumatic tires, which, like every air spring, exhibit a distinctly progressive spring curve.

“The springs-in-series theory is roughly a good model, but the spring rates of the tires and frame system aren’t as disparate as commonly assumed,” said Specialized integrated technologies director Chris Yu. “A tire doesn’t behave like a linear spring, so its benefits start to diminish as it compresses. Just beyond the first few millimeters, the frame-plus-seatpost stiffness is between 50-200% greater than the tire, and they become close to equal as the tire compresses more.”

Despite efforts to improve frame comfort in and of itself, the biggest influence on ride quality is still the tires – the size, the inflation pressure, how they’re made, etc.

Furthermore, how a tire reacts to bumps in the road depends not only on the size of the bump, but also the shape.

Poertner is one of many engineers who have quantified that relationship. According to his testing, it takes 184N of force to compress a 25c tire inflated to 101psi by 1mm on flat ground, but just 102N to compress the tire the same amount against a bump with an 8cm radius. When held against an even-smaller bump with an 8mm radius, the force required to compress the tire that same 1mm falls to just 44N.

How much the tire compresses over a bump depends greatly on the tire width, the inflation pressure, and the bump shape. Photo: Josh Poertner.

“The frame stiffness is what it is; it doesn’t matter if it’s washboard, cobbles, a road seam, or the rider bouncing his weight. It’s all the same,” explained Poertner. “The tire, though, has this decreasing spring rate with bump size, so while the tire and frame are pretty matched for stiffness on the flat surface, the tire spring rate is roughly 50% less on the 8cm cobble and 80% less on the 8mm bump shape. This means that over smaller bumps, the system stiffness becomes even more disproportionately controlled by the tire, while on smooth surfaces the tire stiffness is much more inline with that of the frame.

“My theory is that this is why we generally don’t notice low tire pressures or are late to notice them on a ride,” he continued. “On good-quality flat surfaces, there just isn’t that much difference in system stiffness between pressures. The difference between 6 and 8 bar for the [28c] tire is only 167N/mm compared to 235N/mm. On a [Cannondale] Synapse with a vertical stiffness of 158N/mm, the frame is driving the stiffness on a smooth flat road. But then when hitting a road seam with 8mm radius (which is actually still bigger than most things you hit), the tire stiffness is now 37 or 50N/mm, and the system is heavily driven by the tire.”

The engineers at Trek put it in even simpler terms: “To envision this effect, think about how much easier it is to poke your finger into a balloon compared to pressing your open hand against that same balloon.”

Size matters

One major factor affecting ride quality that often isn’t discussed is frame size. Industry-wide, 56cm frames are considered “average,” and are generally the ones used for published manufacturer tests. However, larger frames are almost always more flexible than smaller ones, whose correspondingly smaller triangles are inherently more resistant to flexing. That trend is slowly changing as companies with more engineering resources devote more attention to the challenge, but geometry is still geometry.

“Frames are typically not extremely proportionally responsive to different frame sizes,” said Rinard. “The [carbon fiber] lay-up does change from size to size, but vertical compliance hasn’t been the goal for those lay-up changes; the strength has been the goal of those lay-up changes. More recently, companies are trying to tune not only the strength, but also the stiffness of those different sizes. But just the fact of a frame size being smaller unfortunately makes it more rigid vertically; on bigger frames, it’s the opposite.”

Specialized claims that the new S-Works Tarmac SL6 rides more smoothly than the previous Tarmac SL5, but on the 52cm size I rode, I couldn’t tell a difference. Both ride very firm to me, but that’s not entirely surprising given that smaller frames are inherently more resistant to flex than bigger ones, plus the fact that I weigh a modest 70kg.

Rider weight plays a role as well, especially given that taller riders aren’t necessary heavier ones, and vice versa. In other words, a tall rider who is particularly light will experience a very different ride quality on the same bike as compared to a rider who is the same height, but 20kg heavier.

Take, for example, former top professional road racer Emma Pooley, who weighs approximately 48kg (106lb), and stands at a modest 1.57m (5ft 2in) in height.

“When we were sponsoring Cervelo Test Team back in the day, I asked her about frame stiffness,” Rinard recalled. “She said, ‘I’ve never ridden a bicycle that felt too flexible in any direction.'”

The limits of compliance

Frame designers have sought the holy grail of “lateral stiffness and vertical compliance” for decades, and it’s truly admirable how far the industry has come toward achieving that magical combination. But as good as modern frames are in that respect, and as much design flexibility as carbon fiber allows, there are still limits to what can be done. Now more than ever, bike companies are turning more toward mechanical solutions to increasing rider comfort, instead of just trying to figure out how to inject more selective flex into an otherwise rigid structure.

Trek’s first-generation Domane endurance was truly revolutionary when it launched in 2012 specifically for that reason. The frame’s key feature was the IsoSpeed “decoupler,” an axle-and-bearing pivot at the seat cluster that allowed the seat tube to bend under load much more than traditional joints, without affecting the flex characteristics of the rest of the structure.

The IsoSpeed suspension mechanisms built into the front and rear ends of the Trek Domane SLR are tacit admissions that frame designers are near the end of their potential when it comes to engineering specific types of flex into carbon fiber frames.

Trek’s innovative IsoSpeed “decoupler” was derided as a gimmick by casual onlookers when it was first introduced in 2012. But in reality, it works remarkably well.

Trek has recently expanded the IsoSpeed concept to the front end, too. Carbon fiber offers a wide range of tuning in terms of selective flex, but there are still limits. Once those limits are reached, frame designers have to look elsewhere for additional gains in rider comfort.

According to Trek’s official figures, the range of adjustment on the latest Domane equates to vertical stiffnesses between 99 and 144N/mm, which fall well within the range of tire stiffnesses measured by Poertner and others. That movement can readily be both seen and felt, and equates to a dramatic difference on the road.

Specialized has taken a somewhat more conventional approach with the FutureShock mechanism integrated into the most recent Roubaix and Diverge models. Situated up front, inside the fork, FutureShock comprises a telescoping steerer tube section and a set of steel coil springs, providing 20mm of total axial movement. Given the location of the FutureShock mechanism, test numbers aren’t directly comparable to the test results from Tour Magazin’s frame tests, which measure the displacement at the saddle rails to quantify movement at the rear end of the bike, not up front.

The latest Specialized Roubaix is an intriguing exercise in trying to build comfort into a frame.

Mock the FutureShock all you want, but it works as advertised, offering far more front-end comfort than you could ever hope to get from tuned flex alone.

The unusual CG-R seatpost has been in the Specialized stable for several seasons now. The kinked head is supposed to flex when the rider encounters a bump in the road, but its effectiveness is highly dependent on rider weight and saddle position. Arguably more effective is the lowered seatpost collar and open-top seat tube, which leaves more of the seatpost shaft exposed to flex on bumps.

But that said, the three possible spring rates for the system range from just over 2N/mm up to 5N/mm, all of which are much softer than even high-volume road tires and unusually low pressures, and certainly vastly softer than what you typically get out of a conventional road frame.

Keen-eyed readers will also note the presence of Cannondale Lefty suspension fork data in Rinard’s stiffness chart above. Cannondale uses the 30mm-travel Lefty Oliver fork on its Slate gravel bike, and while that machine is undoubtedly polarizing for several reasons, few argue the effectiveness of the fork on rough terrain. According to Rinard, the spring stiffness for the Lefty Oliver ranges from just 9N/mm at the low end, up to 13N/mm at the high end, on average. Again, that’s much softer than what we see either from either tires or frame compliance, and with the added benefits of damped movement so as to minimize bounciness, as well as the ability to lock out the movement on smooth terrain.

Love it or hate it, Cannondale deserves credit for having the courage to include a proper suspension fork on the Slate gravel bike. Photo: Matt Wikstrom.

The Lefty Oliver suspension fork on the Cannondale Slate is said to provide up to 30mm of travel. Photo: Matt Wikstrom.

According to Rinard, the Lefty’s spring stiffness is lower than that of the tires, meaning it provides more effective ride comfort benefits than what you could typically expect to see from adjusting tire inflation alone. Photo: Matt Wikstrom.

Frame designers will increasingly turn to dedicated suspension devices as riders continue to head off-pavement.

As far as gravel machines go, the Scott Addict Gravel 10 Disc leans more toward the sportier end of the spectrum with its highly responsive carbon fiber chassis and stiff ride, relying more on the tires to provide a modicum of comfort.

Can’t you just get the ride quality you want by carefully choosing the right tires and pressure? Yes and no.

Will we see more development on the suspension front moving forward? If the current trend of riders moving further away from paved surfaces continues, it seems likely. Tuned frame flex can only do so much, so engineers will have no choice but to resort to other means to improve ride quality further.

Additional considerations

I should point out at this stage that while the question of ride quality has been stirring about in my head for some time, what really got me thinking about it in earnest was a comment from reader Tom Anhalt on the recent review we published on Specialized’s latest S-Works Tarmac SL6 Disc. During that discussion, he questioned my practice of systematically over-inflating tires when testing road bikes. I do this in order to minimize the effects of the tires on ride quality, and instead cast a sharper focus on the supposed compliance benefits often touted by bike manufacturers.

That comment reflects the commonly accepted sentiment I described earlier on, that tires are all that matter when it comes to ride quality. However, it seems clear at this point that the subject isn’t that simple. It’s still true that wheels contribute very little to the overall ride quality of a bike (it’s almost not even worth discussing at all), but there’s more overlap between the individual contributions of the frame/fork/seatpost and tires than what is often assumed.

Also keep in mind that all of this still only focuses on one aspect of ride quality — the amount of vertical movement generated by a given amount of force. It doesn’t take into account other factors that can influence rider comfort, such as vibration. Even Rinard, a man who has dedicated most of his professional career to finding objective answers to subjective questions, admits that there is still much work to be done here.

There are practical aspects to consider as well.

Lowering your tire pressure may be the most effective (and cheapest) way to improve the ride quality of a road bike, but it’s not an option that’s universally available. Heavier riders often have to resort to higher pressures to prevent pinch flats, for example, as do riders who regularly ride on roads that are in poor condition.

Likewise, lowering your tire pressure is easier said than done, depending on your current setup. Lower pressures are facilitated by larger tire casings, which help offset the increased risk of pinch flats those lower pressures create. Similarly, wider rims help maintain good handling characteristics at lower pressures by preventing the tire from rolling sideways through corners. However, neither of those options will mean much when your current bike doesn’t have the clearance for higher-volume rubber, or you don’t want to spend the money upgrading their older, narrower wheelsets.

Bigger tires with supple casings mounted to similarly wide rims (ideally with aero profiles) can arguably be regarded as the ideal when it comes to balancing speed and comfort on road bikes. But unfortunately, not every bike can handle the width, nor can every rider afford to upgrade.

Say your bike can only fit 23mm or 25mm-wide tires, but you still want a softer ride. What do you do then?

Performance-minded riders will want to consider, too, that while there is plenty of data available to prove the rolling-resistance advantages of lower air pressures on most real-world surfaces, those advantages are still mostly limited to high-end tires with minimal puncture protection and supple-but-vulnerable casing constructions, neither of which are all that conducive to everyday riding.

And as with almost all performance metrics, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. A softer ride certainly helps when rolling across pockmarked roads, but a ride that’s too soft can make it seem like you’ve overly isolated from the road; almost like you’re in a video game version of the real thing instead of actually riding a bike. Some riders simply want to feel more of the road, and for those that don’t, pairing a super-stiff frame with squishy tires won’t always produce the desired effect.

“With lower inflation pressures, tires offer more compliance, but also take less force to bottom out,” said Yu. “In these cases, the frame may actually need more, not less, compliance to feel balanced.”

None of this takes into account, either, the fact that cycling doesn’t happen in two dimensions. Canyon’s engineers, for example, point out that cycling often isn’t vertically static, and you’re often swinging and swaying ever so slightly. As a result, they design their frames and seatposts to incorporate a bit of specific out-of-plane flex, too.

Like I said, it’s complicated

So does frame compliance still matter? It seems the answer is “yes,” although there are still plenty of caveats to go along with that — shades of grey, if you will.

After purchasing Silca in 2013, Poertner’s livelihood now rests heavily on the importance of proper tire inflation, and how tires can influence overall performance. However, even he says it’s important to keep in mind that there’s a distinction between differences you can only measure, and ones that have a practical impact for everyday riders, as well as gains you can make in theory versus the ones that are actually available to you in practice. To him, it’s about getting everything to work together, and figuring out what works best for your own situation and equipment.

The Cannondale Synapse frame incorporates a variety of features that are proven to improve rider comfort, but they can still be squandered if you over-inflate the tires. Photo: Matt Wikstrom.

“I agree with Damon that things are better now than they were, although I’d say still tire-dominated — if your Synapse customer goes and puts 30mm tires on at 100psi, he’s just undone 90% of Damon’s work to make that bike comfortable,” Poertner said. “Also, I know that the frame guys are really working on this as I’ve talked to almost all of them. The problem for them is where to put the deflection so that it isn’t causing other problems. If you make the rear triangle too compliant, you have torsional problems. But then you still have to spread out the deflections and ensure that there aren’t interference issues under very high-G impacts, but you can’t give too much clearance everywhere as then aerodynamics and aesthetics will suffer.

“The short answer here is that while frame stiffness is far less important than tire stiffness, you obviously want to optimize both if you can. At the same time, the industry is very good at overselling the benefits of frame comfort as well as overselling the benefit of lateral stiffness.”

The post JRA with the Angry Asian: Does frame compliance still matter? appeared first on CyclingTips.

Cycling safety is at the forefront of many riders’ minds in a way it really hasn’t been before. There’s a perception that riding on the road is more dangerous than ever, and incidents involving cyclists seem to be happening more frequently than in years gone by.

With this in mind, it’s little surprise many cyclists are taking steps to ensure they’re as safe as possible while out riding: taking quiet (often gravel) roads instead of busier alternatives, using lights during the daytime, and, for some people, filming their rides to capture any incidents that might occur.

Australian brand Cycliq has made waves in this space with its Fly6 and Fly12 light and camera combinations, helping riders stay visible while also recording the world around them. Now, another Australian company, CycleVision, is about to bring its cycling safety technology to market: the Edge, a bike helmet with two integrated cameras.

The genesis

CycleVision was born in 2014 when company founder, Rob Asker, was involved in a crash while out on his bike.

“In 2014 I suffered the second hit and run accident of my life,” Asker said. “I had another device, I could have put it on the bike and I could have recorded what was coming. But I was lazy. And whilst I was laying there, I think it was one of those lightning bolt moments. I thought ‘You know, if I put cameras into a helmet I would take it everywhere I went.

“When I went to go buy something like this – there’s nothing available. And so I thought to myself ‘Well if there’s nothing available, why don’t I make one?’”

For many people, it would have been an impossible task. But for Asker, an aviation engineer by trade, it was well and truly achievable. In the next few years he designed a series of prototypes, continuously reworking and refining the product. Then, in early 2018 he launched a Kickstarter campaign to try and bring the CycleVision Edge to market.

Ultimately, the campaign reached little more than a third of its target — $33,807 of a $100,000 goal — but with an “alternative revenue source” available, the project is still going ahead full steam.

CycleVision plans to produce its first 500 helmets before July 2018, with Kickstarter supporters getting first access to the limited run.

The basics

CycleVision claims that the Edge is the world’s first helmet with two integrated cameras. One camera sits at the back and the other is at the front; both capture 1920×1080 pixels at roughly 30fps with a 160º field of vision.

Each camera has its own 32GB internal memory card (which can’t be accessed or upgraded without dismantling the helmet) and Micro-USB slot from which stored footage can be pulled. The back USB port is used to charge both cameras.

Each camera has its own WiFi network too, allowing you to connect your smartphone and change settings for the camera in question (via the Cyclevision smartphone app). The WiFi connection can also be used to provide a live feed from the camera it’s connected to — perfect if you want to set up your mobile phone on your handlebars and have a live-feed of what’s behind you. WiFi also provides the potential for online livestreaming from the connected camera (see below for details).

The helmet has an IP65 waterproof rating, meaning it is resistant to dust and water spray. It comes in one size (57-62cm medium/large) and two colours (white and blue). An earlier version of the helmet was standards approved for use in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, the UK, USA and Canada but after “some minor aesthetic changes” further standards testing is required. CycleVision expects this to be completed by the end of April 2018.

Initial impressions

Compared to a regular lightweight helmet, the CycleVision Edge does have a noticeable heft to it. At 447g it is significantly heavier than other helmets on the market, such as the Specialized Evade II (268g), Giro Vanquish (305g), or POC Ventral (264g). But despite the extra weight, I found it quick and easy to get used to the Edge quick and I never suffered any neck stiffness or soreness (that said, I didn’t ride with it for more than three hours at a time). And while it’s a heavy helmet, it’s still impressively light given it contains two camera systems and a battery.

I only found the helmet’s extra weight to be a downside on MTB trails or particularly bumpy roads. When hitting a bump, the helmet would sometimes drop down my forehead slightly, but even that is a minor issue — simply push the helmet back up and you’re right to go.

Besides being heavy, the helmet is big, too. It’s thick and chunky and for that reason alone, the CycleVision Edge won’t take everyone’s fancy. The fin-like design at the back of the helmet won’t appeal to everyone, either.

The helmet itself is not uncomfortable, though. It does feel big — it feels like it sits around your head more than other helmets, and it does have a more obvious presence due to its size and weight. But the padding is soft, the straps perform as expected, and the retention system — a ratchet dial at the back — does a good job of keeping the helmet snug and secure.

It’s a well ventilated helmet too — 21 vents ensure there’s enough airflow to your head, helping to reduce overheating on those warm days.

(On a minor note, the front of the helmet looks somewhat akin to a smiling face. Two silver heatsinks comprise the eyes, the camera lens is the nose, and a recording/charging indicator light looks like a mouth. Hardly a deal-breaker, but once you see that, it’s hard to unsee.)

Using the cameras

It couldn’t be easier to start recording. Simply press the big, black button on the back of the helmet. After a couple of seconds both cameras will start recording and their indicator lights will start flashing red.

The helmet’s button is located above the back camera.

If a memory card gets full while recording, it will automatically start recording over the earliest footage. This removes the hassle of having to periodically erase the memory cards, particularly useful if you’re only using the helmet to capture any dangerous incidents that may occur.

If you want to connect your smartphone to one of the cameras, simply press the helmet’s button once more and the lights will flash green. From there you’ll be able to discover and connect to either camera’s WiFi network.

To turn the helmet off, simply press and hold the button. Simple.

Video impressions

There are a couple of things that are immediately apparent when you watch footage recorded with the CycleVision Edge. First: The footage is captured at a very wide angle. On the plus side this means you’re getting more in the frame; on the downside it means there’s a weird distortion at the edges of the image.

The manual says its possible to change the recording angle but I couldn’t get that to work during my testing period — the option was greyed out in the smartphone app. There is a workaround, however — depending on the video editing software you’re using, there are presets that can be used to “flatten” super-wide-angle images, reducing some of the edge-of-frame distortion.

The second thing that’s immediately noticeable is that the video quality, while fine, isn’t as good as you’ll get from a standalone action camera like a GoPro. Images can be a little grainy at times and colour reproduction is sometimes poor. Colours often appear very dull; other times they appear super-saturated with blues and yellows looking particularly unnatural.

Of course, it’s not all that surprising that the video quality isn’t as high as from standalone devices — these two cameras are smaller, lighter and integrated into the helmet. And video quality isn’t really an issue if you’re simply using the camera to capture any dangerous overtaking manoeuvres on your commute — it picks up number plates just fine.

The video quality might be more of a concern if you’re using the CycleVision Edge to capture footage for your sick new cycling edit (see mine at the top of the article), but even then, it does a more-than-fine job.

Image quality is surprisingly good in low light and at night — there’s no noticeable drop in quality. Footage is impressively stable, too, when you consider there’s no onboard image stabilisation.

By default each camera will add a timestamp to video it captures — useful in some circumstances, but probably more of a hassle for most users, particularly given the camera’s timestamps appear to be slightly out of sync. Thankfully it’s easy to turn the timestamps off — just connect to the camera in question via WiFi and access the camera settings via the CycleVision smartphone app.

While each camera has its own microphone, audio quality is poor — low resolution and quiet. While both microphones record to a stereo track, both only seem to create audio in the left track. In short: don’t rely on the audio from the Edge — use a separate recorder if you want to get on-bike audio.

Additional features

As mentioned above, the ability to stream footage from a camera to your smartphone can be useful if you want to monitor what’s going on behind you. Just connect your smartphone to the back camera via WiFi then turn on streaming via the smartphone app. There’s even the ability to mirror the footage so what appears on the left of the screen is what’s to your left.

For the safety conscious that want to see exactly what’s happening behind them, this is certainly a nifty feature. It has the potential to provide a bit of extra time for an evasive maneuver in some cases, but this shouldn’t replace other safety strategies like using rear lights at all times, or wearing bright or reflective clothing.

The CycleVision smartphone app also sets up the possibility of online livestreaming whatever the connected camera is seeing. This feature has great potential for race coverage — even the prospect of streaming your weekly local crit to your friends, family and social media followers is appealing.

Unfortunately, while the app has the provision for livestreaming, it currently isn’t possible through a phone’s mobile connection. For now you’ll need to use a separate internet hotspot but CycleVision have said they’ll look into this post-release.

Recording time and battery life

CycleVision claims that the Edge’s battery lasts long enough for approximately three hours of recording time. That claim stacks up in my experience — in two battery life tests I was able to record for 2 hours 40 minutes and then for three hours exactly.

As mentioned above, charging is done via the rear USB port. Blue lights below the lens indicate the level of charge in the battery. Battery life can also be extended by using an external battery pack plugged in via the rear USB port.

As for recording time, you’ll get between three and four hours of footage on each 32GB memory card before it fills up and starts recording over itself.

Issues and concerns

In the process of testing the CycleVision Edge I came across a handful of issues and problems. As noted above though, the helmet is still yet to be released so some of these issues might be resolved before the Edge makes it to market.

At this stage the CycleVision Edge breaks the video it records into two-minute chunks, rather than writing it as one long file. This is frustrating if you’re trying to make a longer video using more than two continuous minutes from the one camera, particularly given each chunk appears to have two or three 100ths of a second of black screen at the end. Laying the clips out end-to-end will lead to black flashes every couple minutes or, as I found with Final Cut Pro, will simply stop the video from rendering.

It’s possible to simply chop out the glitchy frames in your video editor and continue in that fashion. Alternatively, it’s possible to run the videos through a converter (CycleVision recommends Video Converter by Wondershare) to strip out the black frames and join multiple clips together.

The team at CycleVision have said there won’t be changes to the two-minute recording length prior to release, but a future version of the Edge will be updated to address various pieces of customer feedback.

Note the black frames at the end of the first clip.

During testing I ran into problems when the back camera’s memory card became full. Rather than recording over the oldest footage, the camera would simply stop recording. The front camera looped over as expected.

On several occasions when hitting the record button, only one of the two cameras would record, even when the memory cards were empty and the battery was fully charged. The only way I could get it to work as planned was to wait for the battery to run flat, before recharging and trying again. (CycleVision has since explained that it’s possible to reset the device by pressing a small recessed button above the main button.)

Transferring files off the cameras was slower than I’m used to with other camera devices and external hard drives. And on the issue of transfers, be sure not to plug a cable into both the back and front USB ports at the same time as this will damage the circuitry. While this is made clear in the manual, it does strike me as a design flaw — many people will use the device without reading the manual and pulling footage off two cameras at once seems like a pretty reasonable time-saving measure.

As for the CycleVision app, it has a rather basic feel to it and seems more like an existing app framework that has been altered for CycleVision rather than something that’s been built from the ground up. While no changes are planned before release, an updated version of the app will arrive thereafter, incorporating user feedback.

Price

Final pricing for the Edge is yet to be confirmed, but CycleVision tells us the helmet will be available for less than the AU$660 (US$515 / 360GBP / 414 Euro) that’s listed on the project’s Kickstarter page. This is due to the fact CycleVision has “been able to negotiate better deals with some of [its] suppliers” and has “trimmed operating costs across the board.” The final price will be announced in the next few weeks.

Assuming the price drops into the AU$500-$600 range, that’s still expensive for a bike helmet. But when you consider what’s inside the helmet, it’s really not a bad deal.

By way of comparison, the Fly6 rear camera + light combination and Fly12 front camera + light combination costs a total of AU$658. That’s without a helmet, but does include front and rear lights. The GoPro 6 Black action camera is $599 on its own.

Conclusion

The CycleVision Edge is not a product without problems, but that’s to be expected at this stage of development. More importantly, it’s a product with potential. If safety is your goal, then you could certainly do worse than to have two cameras integrated into your helmet, constantly keeping an eye out for you and documenting any unfortunate incidents.

As an added benefit, it can also be used to provide a unique angle to cycling (and racing) videos, so long as you’re willing to take a bit of a hit on video quality. And when it comes to racing, the capacity for livestreaming opens up exciting opportunities for the future.

The size, weight and form factor of the CycleVision won’t appeal to everyone, but that’s no different to any other product on the market. Importantly, the weight of the helmet, while initially noticeable, seems to become a non-issue very quickly.

We look forward to seeing how things progress with the CycleVision Edge, and indeed in the integrated camera space.

Photo gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Garmin has refreshed its cycling line with three new products that the U.S. company announced Wednesday in conjunction with the 2018 Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, California. Among the new releases are two new Edge GPS cycling computers – the budget-minded Edge 130 and the more performance-oriented Edge 520 Plus – as well as an update to its rearview radar unit for cycling, the Varia RTL510.

Edge 130

The Edge 130 is a compact and lightweight GPS bike computer with easy-to-use navigation and unique “cycling awareness features.” The 1.8-inch display provides a crisp view of the screen while the five-button design provides ease of use on any terrain. Downloadable routes and turn-by-turn prompts provide easy-to-follow navigation when exploring new routes, while the LiveTrack function allows friends and family to keep track of a rider’s location in real time. In addition, the Assistance feature can quickly send a cyclist’s location directly from the Edge 130 to emergency contacts in case they run into difficulty.

The Edge 130 offers up to 15 hours of battery life and is compatible with Garmin’s Varia line of cycling accessories. It supports Bluetooth and ANT+ for additional sensor capabilities, including the Edge remote control — ideal for mountain bikers looking to start and stop the timer, change the page or mark a lap without taking their hands off the bars. Riders can also race against Garmin and Strava Live Segments in real time, allowing them to see a second-by-second comparison of how their performance measures up against their competitors.

The Edge 130’s smart connectivity features allow text messages to appear on-screen so cyclists can view them at a glance and keep on riding. A new weather page will display current and forecasted conditions, and weather alerts can help keep users from getting stuck in a downpour. When paired with a compatible smartphone, the Edge 130 automatically uploads rides to the Garmin Connect online fitness community and is customizable by downloading configurable data fields from the Connect IQ store.

The Edge 130 has a suggested retail price of US$200. A bundle option, which includes wireless speed and cadence sensors, has a suggested retail price of US$250. A mountain bike bundle, which includes a mountain bike mount, Edge remote control, and silicone case, also has a suggested retail price of US$250.

Edge 520 Plus

The Edge 520 Plus uses the same tidy form factor as the current Edge 520, but packs additional features into the compact case.

For riders that want more advanced navigation functions, the Edge 520 Plus now includes Garmin Cycle Maps, which provides turn-by-turn directions that work either on marked city streets or on the trail. In addition, GroupTrack helps you keep tabs on your other Garmin-using riding buddies, and you can even now send messages to them, too. For riders looking for advanced performance monitoring features, the Edge 520 Plus is compatible with ANT+ power meters like the Vector 3 to track FTP and pedaling mechanics, while built-in Incident Detection can send alerts to designated recipients if the unit has determined you’ve been in a crash.

“The Edge 520 is one of our best-selling cycling computers, so we wanted to take something our customers know and love and improve upon it,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales. “Therefore, some of the navigational and safety features once available only on our higher-end models — like the Garmin Cycle Map, rider-to-rider messaging, Incident Detection and more — are now integrated into the Edge 520 Plus.”

Before heading out, riders can plan and download their routes on the improved and revamped Course Creator in Garmin Connect. Once only offered on the top-end Edge 1030, the new Edge 520 also includes the company’s Trendline feature, which automatically selects the most popular road, mountain, or gravel routes based on information from other Garmin users.

Once underway, preloaded Garmin Cycle Map software includes turn-by-turn navigation and new alerts that notify riders of sharp curves ahead. It will also guide cyclists back to the route — or back to the start — if they stray away or decide to head home early.

Built-in Incident Detection will automatically send a cyclist’s location to emergency contacts if they run into trouble, while GroupTrack and LiveTrack let friends, family, and other cyclists keep track of a rider’s location in real time.

The Edge 520 Plus is compatible with ANT+ sensors — including speed, cadence, and heart rate — as well as ANT+ power meters. While using a heart rate strap, cyclists can see even more physiological data, such as VO2 Max and recovery time, to help users keep track of how their body is performing from ride to ride. Mountain bike enthusiasts can connect the Edge remote control with their Edge 520 Plus to easily start and stop the timer, change the page, or mark a lap without taking their hands off the bars.

The Edge 520 Plus comes with the latest version of Strava Live Segments, providing cyclists with even more competition and segments. Cyclists can star their favorite Strava segments, and while riding, will receive an upcoming segment alert as they approach a start. Riders will then receive second-by-second, real-time comparisons of their performance against their most relevant competitor and will race against their actual speeds – not just their average.

Preloaded with the Strava Routes Connect IQ app, starred routes can now be wirelessly synced to the Edge 520 Plus so cyclists can navigate and compete on their favorite Strava segments at the same time. For cyclists interested in hitting the trails, the Trailforks app, which can be downloaded from the Connect IQ store, lets users send selected routes to their device and head out for a ride. Featuring trails from more than 80 countries, Trailforks can also use a cyclist’s riding preferences to recommend nearby routes.

Featuring up to 15 hours of battery life, the Edge 520 Plus has a suggested retail price of US$280. A bundle option, which includes a heart rate monitor as well as cadence and speed sensors, has a suggested retail price of US$380. The mountain bike bundle option, which includes a mountain bike mount, Edge remote control, and silicone case, has a suggested retail price of US$330.

Varia RTL510

The Varia RTL510 rearview radar is an updated radar unit with a sleek new design and enhanced safety features. When paired with a dedicated radar display unit or compatible Garmin device, including the new Edge 130 and Edge 520 Plus, cyclists will receive both visible and audible alerts for vehicles approaching from behind, up to 140 meters away.

Unlike the original Varia’s horizontal design, the new Varia RTL510 has a vertical design that better integrates with the seatpost for improved aeesthetics and better leg clearance. Garmin says the tail light is visible in daylight up to 1.6km away in both solid and flashing modes, and is visible within a 220-degree field of view.

“The Varia RTL510 rearview radar is just one of many products in the Garmin ecosystem that’s aimed at increasing cycling awareness,” Bartel said. “There’s a lot that riders have to worry about when on the road, and one of the most important things is their safety. Whether riding during the day or at night, this radar is like having eyes in the back of their helmet, helping to ease some of that anxiety by acting like an early warning system.”

When paired with a compatible head unit, the new Varia will provide a visual display of approaching traffic.

International pricing for all of the new Garmin devices are to be confirmed.

The post Garmin launches Edge 130 and 520 Plus GPS computers, new Varia rearview radar appeared first on CyclingTips.

The Sea Otter Classic has always leaned more heavily toward the off-road side of the spectrum, but traditional road bikes nevertheless still commanded a reasonable presence in the expo area in years past. Based on this year’s show, however, those days are over.

More clearly than ever, gravel bikes have taken over the drop-bar scene, at least in the United States. While there was a notable dearth of skinny-tired machines, gravel bikes were everywhere with heaps of new bikes, components, and accessories scattered throughout the infield at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. This is no fad; gravel bikes are clearly here to stay, and there’s a growing tidal wave of interest behind them.

Mountain bikes arguably still dominate the show here, though, and seeing as how we’re now starting to cover the fat-tire scene at CyclingTips, we’d be remiss if we skipped over some of the most interesting bits of the event. It’d be impossible for us to show you everything that caught our eye in one gallery, so we’ve opted to split it up over the next few days. After all, you didn’t really want to get any work done this week, did you?

Syncros uncorked one of the showstoppers of this year’s Sea Otter Classic with the new Silverton SL carbon wheelset. Aimed at XC racing, the new 29ers feature carbon fiber spokes that are co-molded together with the carbon rims. Claimed weight is a staggeringly light 1,250g for the set, but yet Syncros says they’re also twice as torsionally rigid as standard wheels, 30% more rigid laterally, stronger than everything else out there, and yet still soft enough radially to not feel brutally unyielding.

Syncros builds each Silverton SL wheel with an eight-piece mold, whereas carbon fiber rims are normally only built with two-piece ones. The spokes are not only made with three different materials, but each layer of carbon fiber is interlaced at the crossings for even greater strength and rigidity.

Each spoke crosses over the wheel’s center line, eventually joining to the inside of the rim at the intersection point.

The way the spokes are connected to the rim is not entirely unlike what Mad Fiber used to do with its road wheels, although quite different in terms of execution. Either way, it’s a smart way to minimize tight bends in the spoke.

The Syncros Silverton SL rim is dubbed “Tubeless EverReady,” due to how the rim has no holes on the external wall for easy setup.

Syncros says its original mold prototypes for the new Silverton SL wheelset comprised 34 separate parts; standard carbon rims only have two. The tool design was eventually refined, but is still comparatively complicated with eight different parts.

The rim, all the spokes, and the hub “flange” are all molded together in one step. The two halves are then spread apart, and the center carbon hub shell is inserted in between to put the spokes under tension. Syncros claims the tri-material spokes are 35% more impact-resistant than steel.

The aluminum hub insert is used for the rotor and bearing interfaces.

For XC riders that want carbon wheels, but don’t quite have the budget for the top-end Silverton SL, Syncros also offers the more conventional Silverton 1.0. This wheelset is built with a more “normal” carbon rim, aluminum-bodied hubs with DT Swiss hub internals, and stainless steel spokes. Retail price is US$1,700.

Syncros is only using that incredible all-carbon construction method on the XC-focused Silverton SL wheelset for now, but has already hinted that it’ll carry over to other wheel segments as well. In the meantime, the new trail/enduro-minded Revelstoke 1.0 sports a more conventional 31mm-wide (internal width) carbon fiber rim, butted stainless steel spokes, and oversized aluminum hubs with DT Swiss internals. Retail price is US$1,700.

The Syncros Revelstoke 1.0 and Silverton 1.0 wheelsets both use more conventional aluminum-bodied hubs, but still with DT Swiss internals.

Syncros last year introduced the novel Hixon IC SL integrated cockpit for trail and enduro bikes. Now, it’s following up with the Fraser SL IC, which is aimed at cross-country riders with an even-lighter weight of just 230g. Retail price is US$330.

The shape looks unusual, but it’s more amenable to composite construction as it forces the fibers to take fewer sharp bends. Virtual extensions from 60-90mm are on offer.

Likewise, the clamp design is amenable to building in carbon fiber, as the fibers can take relatively gentle bends all the way around the replaceable aluminum clamp hardware.

Scott-sponsored rider Nino Schurter runs an unsually low position, and Syncros has built a special-edition Fraser IC SL for him, too. Regular riders will be able to buy one, but the limited production will command an extra US$100.

Rotor’s new Vegast road crank is a forged-and-machined version of the top-end Aldhu, using the exact same chainrings, spindles, and spiders, but with lower-priced arms that add a bit of weight.

Rotor has updated its INpower single-sided, spindle-based powermeter with the same splined direct-mount chainring interface as the Aldhu. According to Rotor, this change reduces some weight while also adding rigidity. Claimed weight is 510g without chainrings, and retail price is US$800.

New to Rotor’s Aldhu and Vegast road cranks are direct-mount 1x chainring options.

The machining work on the one-piece double chainring is quite impressive.

The splined direct-mount chainring attaches to the new Rotor Kapic mountain bike crank and features the same clever sandwich-type assembly process as the new Aldhu road model. It’s an elegant way to put everything together, although it’s reliant on ultra-tight tolerances and careful assembly in order to keep everything creak-free.

The Kapic is Rotor’s new flagship mountain bike crank, featuring machined aluminum crankarms that are drilled-out lengthwise to reduce weight, a pared-down 30mm-diameter aluminum axle, and a direct-mount chainring interface similar to what the company introduced on the innovative Aldhu road crankset last year. Add-on bumpers protect both the end and sides of the crankarm, and are available in seven different colors to suit your setup. Claimed weight is 536g with a direct-mount chainring, and retail price is US$390 (including chainring and bumpers).

Prologo introduced its short-and-wide Dimension saddle last year, and is now growing the family with two new variants.

The new Prologo Dimension Space (right) is 10mm wider than the original one (left), and is also more thickly padded for extra comfort.

The new Prologo Dimension NDR is aimed at gravel and trail riders, featuring the same basic shape as the original Dimension model, but with a slightly more rounded profile.

Impressively, the ultralight top-end carbon version of Prologo’s Dimension saddles are relatively inexpensive at “just” US$195.

If you noticed Peter Sagan wearing some unfamiliar sunglasses when he won at Paris-Roubaix, wonder no longer what they were. 100% launched the new S2 model at Sea Otter.

Abbey Bike Tools will soon release a smaller version of its awesome bearing press. The new Micro Press features a smaller-diameter threaded shaft designed to work with smaller cartridge bearings. New bearing drifts for the original bearing press (background) are in development as well.

Abbey Bike Tools owner Jason Quade loves to make tools, but he also has a thing for LEGO bricks, too. These bricks aren’t made of injection molded plastic, though; they’re CNC-machined and anodized aluminum, and yes, they supposedly fit. Sadly, they’re not for sale.

Boyd Cycling’s new 36mm Road Disc carbon clincher wheels feature healthy 22mm-wide internal widths (meant for 25-30mm tires), tubeless compatibiity, and a moderately aero profile. Retail price is US$1,650, and claimed weight is 1,580g per pair.

The asymmetrical cross-sections on Boyd Cycling’s new 36mm Road Disc wheelset help even out spoke tension from one side to the other.

If you look closely, you can see that the inner edge of the tire bed “shelf” has a larger diameter than the outer edge, which helps lock the tire beads in place for greater security.

Boyd Cycling introduced its 650b Jocassee carbon fiber gravel wheels last year. Now, it’s following up on those with a 700c version called Pinnacle. Given that the typical tire widths vary between those two diameters, though, the new Pinnacle has a very slightly narrower 23.4mm inner rim width, versus the 24mm width on the Jocassee. Claimed weight for the set is 1,560g, and retail price is US$1,650.

Boyd Cycling actually uses the same outer rim shape on the new Pinnacle 700c carbon fiber gravel wheels as the 36mm Road Disc model, but with different mold “sliders.” The majority of the tire bed looks identical between the two models, but the Pinnacle uses a hookless profile, along with a slightly wider 23.4mm internal width. The central channel’s flat bottom and angled sides supposedly help the tire snap more quickly into place than rounded channels.

Carbon tubular wheels are still popular amongst cyclocross racers looking for the utmost in performance, but most of those wheels are still designed primarily with smaller road tires in mind. Boyd Cycling’s new Pinnacle CX, however, features a tire bed profiled specifically for 33mm-wide tubulars for a more secure glue interface. Claimed weight is 1,475g for the set, and retai price is US$1,450. Mounted on them here are Challenge’s new 40mm-wide gravel-specific tubulars, which look to be stupendous in terms of ride quality and grip.

Irwin Cycling was yet another company debuting a set of gravel-specific carbon wheels at this year’s Sea Otter Classic. The new Aon GX 35 features a 24mm internal width, 1,548g claimed weight, and tubeless compatibility. Retail price is $1,550, which includes six-bolt rotor adapters for the Center Lock splined hub shells, a multitude of end caps, and tubeless valve stems.

Joining the carbon fiber Aon GX 35 carbon gravel wheels from Irwin Cycling is the Arlo GX 27 aluminum version, which features a 21mm internal rim width, tubeless compatibility, and the same hubs as the more premium model. Retail price is a more wallet-friendly US$600.

Whereas Irwin Cycling’s new Arlo GX 27 aluminum gravel wheels use a symmetrical rim design, the carbon fiber Aon GX 35 goes with an offset spoke bed to help even out spoke tensions from one side to the other.

This hub is pictured with a Shimano/SRAM-compatible freehub body and quick-release end caps, but everything is included for thru-axle running, too.

The six-pawl driver mechanism on Irwin Cycling’s rear hub staggers the pawls in two sets of three, effectively turning the 48-tooth ratchet into a 96-tooth one for a 3.75° engagement speed.

Jamis debuted a new rear suspension design from Chris Currie called 3VO. The movement of the rear wheel is dictated by two short links – not unlike dw-link, VPP, and Maestro – but a third link has been added to further tune the shock leverage ratio throughout the range of travel.

Designer Chris Currie says the 3VO suspension system lets the rear wheel move slightly backward initially for a supple feel on smaller impacts. Past that initial stage, however, the effective chainstay length remains more constant – even shortening slightly, in fact – to minimize pedal kickback on bigger hits.

It’s not until you take a look back here that you get a sense of the hidden complexity of Jamis’s new 3VO suspension design. It’s the third link that James and 3VO designer Chris Currie say is ultimately the key to 3VO’s performance on the trail.

Project 321’s mountain bike rear hubs feature an incredibly quick 1.67° engagement speed for its magnetic driver system. More conventional designs typically hover around 6-10°, meaning riders on Project 321 hubs will be able to get power to the ground much faster after coasting, which can be especially useful in technical terrain.

Most hubs that use magnets to actuate the pawls use repelling magnets that push the pawls against the ratchet ring. Project 321, however, flips the magnets around so they’re instead pulled outward. It may seem like the exact same thing, but unlike the linear rate of conventional steel springs, magnets have a sharply digressive spring curve, meaning the effects are very strong when the parts are close together, but fall off quickly with increasing distance. As a result, the pawls supposedly hold tight when they’re up against the ratchet ring, but there’s little force pushing them outward when coasting, so they run very quietly and with minimal drag. As a bonus, the pawls don’t go flying when you remove the freehub body during regular maintenance, either.

Project 321 rear hubs use six pawls, which operate in three staggered pairs. In this way, the driver ring can be built with 72 teeth for good durability, but behave as if it has 216.

The post 2018 Sea Otter Classic tech gallery, Part One appeared first on CyclingTips.

Sensory overload. That’s maybe the best way to describe how it feels to be a gear geek walking the expo area at the Sea Otter Classic. For those of us very much in love with the full breadth of cycling stuff, from enduro mountain bikes to skinny-tire roadies, Sea Otter offers a feast for the senses matched only by massive industry shows like Eurobike. In some ways, Sea Otter actually surpasses those big shows.

The vibe is different at the Otter. There are more small brands, more experimental projects (check out the 3D printed plastic full suspension gravel bike below), and certainly more stoke. Maybe that’s because it’s a consumer show, surrounded by amateur bike races and filled with more groms doing wheelies than reporters taking pictures. It’s fun.

This gallery is full of fun stuff. Beer coozies, mountain bikes, colorful shoes, and much more. When you’re done scrolling through, make sure you catch James Huang’s Sea Otter gallery, part one. And if that still isn’t enough, never fear; there’s more on the way in the coming days.

Chris Chance of Fat Chance fame is slowly making his comeback. Here’s Chris with his new Wicked Fat Chance, his take on an enduro-tailored hardtail. It has a 65-degree head tube angle, 425mm-long chainstays, is optimized for 140mm or 150mm-travel forks, has a nice long top tube, and will easily clear a 2.5″ tire. Wicked.

If rowdy hardtails are your thing, and you always wanted to own a Fat Chance machine, this is the solution.

Fat tires and hardtails. It’s a combination we’ve had quite a lot of fun on in the past.

You want color? Fat Chance has got your color right here. This custom-painted Chris Cross was one of the prettiest bikes at the show — in fact, it was in the final for the People’s Choice victory at the last North American Handmade Bicycle show.

Speaking of Bontrager, the Aeolus Pro wheel range, which sits under the XXX range, offers up tubeless carbon wheels in two depths for US$1200. Each comes in disc or rim version, and goes through the same impact testing as the more expensive stuff.

The disc rim has no brake track. The Pro wheels come in 30mm and 50mm depths, both with 19.5mm internal widths.

The rim-brake version gets a brake track that borrows tech from the pricey XXX wheels.

This steel frame is just a way for Bontrager to hang all its parts in one place, but we found it oddly beautiful. Or maybe it’s not odd at all. Bontrager started not too far from Sea Otter’s home in Monterey, in Santa Cruz, making frames quite a lot like this one. This bike is fitted with Bontrager’s new Aeolus XXX 6 wheels and the R4 Classics Tubular (which will be available as an open tubular/clincher later this year), XXX cockpit, seatpost, and saddle. The 1x Dura-Ace crankset is an interesting touch.

As someone who spends his fair share of time on airplanes (a.k.a. germ tubes), I’m always looking for ways to keep my immune system working better. Nuun has just released its non-GMO certified Immunity effervescent tablets. These feature all kinds of things that are supposed to help boost immune health, including zinc, ginger, echinacea, and turmeric. Plus, it’s tasty. I tried some at the booth.

These clasps will make more sense once you see the next photo.

That’s right — a cooler made by Ortlieb designed to clasp on to a rear rack. It’s called the Rack Box and it’s US$140.

Lake’s take on lace-ups includes the CX1, a road shoe that comes in approximately one million colors and costs only US$130. Like many Lake shoes, they come in multiple widths, in this case standard and E.

Lake also does a podium shoe version.

The regular Lake CX1 uses an fiber-reinforced nylon sole to keep the price low, but it doesn’t look like a cheap shoe. This CX1 Carbon is a bit more expensive at US$200, but gets a stiffer carbon sole.

Don’t try to jump any sharks on this Niner Magic Carpet Ride; it’s actually made of plastic. The dual-suspension gravel bike is a final 3D-printed prototype, and we expect an actual release sometime later this year. Niner was quiet about final specs, including how much travel is at either end. There will be lockout front and rear, apparently. And a dropper post. And drop bars? And at some point maybe just… buy a mountain bike? That said, the Magic Carpet looks incredibly fun, with short chainstays and a tightly tucked rear wheel, plus a relatively slack front end. It’s the trail bike of gravel bikes.

The flared bars match the personality of the Magic Carpet Ride.

NIner uses a tiny version of its RDO suspension, which is apparently re-tuned for better in-saddle efficiency.

A good linkage design will be crucial to a bike like this.

Maybe 30mm of travel? That’s about all you need on a gravel bike, as provided by this cut-down RockShox RS-1 on Niner’s full-suspension gravel prototype.

Let’s say you really love TRP’s Hylex RS hydraulic disc brakes. We wouldn’t blame you, as they have great modulation and the long, thin hoods are super comfortable. But TRP doesn’t make integrated shifters. Bingo. Stick some buttons on. The Hylex RS is now sold with eTap or Di2 adapter kits so you can run an electronic drivetrain with TRP hoods/levers. The adapter kits are US$35 per side.

Shifting from the drops might be a bit awkward with this arrangement.

The TRP Hylex RS uses Shimano-sized brake pads. The system offers a bit less bite than Shimano discs but, in our experience, better modulation.

TRP’s hydro hoods are long and thin, with a much smaller hood bump than SRAM and Campagnolo (or older Shimano models).

K-Edge’s new mount for the Wahoo Fitness ELEMNT Bolt GPS computer follows the same curve as the front of the computer. It’s supposedly more aerodynamic than other GPS computer setups, but perhaps more importantly to some, it also just looks cool. It will set you back US$70.

K-Edge’s aftermarket mount for the Wahoo Fitness ELEMNT Bolt is much sturdier than the stock plastic version, too.

Beer. It’s very important. These vacuum-sealed growlers from Drink Tank will keep your beer cool (or hot cocoa warm, if that’s more your style) for a full day. US$75 for 64oz, US$114 for 128oz.

But wait! What if you need to keep your beer ready to go for more than a day? This CO2-powered keg cap turns a regular Drink Tank into a mini keg, which will keep your beer good for up to a month on the road. It’s US$45, on top of the Drink Tank cost.

Wander around a bike event and Mission Workshop roll-top bags are everywhere — and for good reason. They work, they’re burly, they’re comfortable. The company now has a new hip pack, the Axis, which is made of “High Tenacity 500d nylon” with a TPU-coated nylon liner, so it’s completely waterproof. It’s designed to work with Mission Workshop’s other bags, too. The straps tuck away and it can be attached to most of the company’s larger bags.

New Jersey-based VonHof showed off its titanium ACX cross bike at Sea Otter. It’s made in the US, and available in a bunch of stocks sizes for US$2395 or full custom for more (exactly how much more depends on what you want). The ACX joins the company’s gravel and road bikes in the lineup.

Douchebags, one of the world’s most unfortunate names for a bag brand, actually makes very good bags. The company is relaunching its bike bag, called the Savage, which uses an aluminum space frame to keep your bike safe. It takes road, gravel, and mountain bikes, and that aluminum frame provides some peace of mind.

There’s definitely a beer theme here. Green Guru re-uses materials to make stellar bike bags, and now has this nifty insulated six-pack top tube holder. Each one is made from up-cycled nylon, so colors and patterns will vary. Cost is US$40.

But what if I need to get beer across rough surfaces? The Tubular top tube sling will hold three beers (or Lacroix, or whatever), keep them cold, and straps easily to the top tube. It’s US$40.

Marzocchi is back. The company, now under the Fox umbrella, is jumping back into the ring with a single crown trail fork and a double crown DH fork. The Bomber Z1 trail fork is basically a budget Fox 36, costing US$700 instead of US$900 for the Fox. It uses nearly the same damper and spring internals as its more expensive brother, but uses cheaper (and slightly heavier) uppers and lowers to keep the price in check. So you get almost all the performance of a base level Fox 36 for $200 less. Plus, your fork says Bomber on it, which sends the heart lightly aflutter for anyone who rode mountain bikes 15 years ago.

Chrome’s Cardiel ORP (Operation Readiness Pack) is a light, water-resistant roll-top bag we’ve long been fans of. Now, creator John Cardiel is doing a special edition inspired by the Japanese reggae group Mighty Crowns. It looks cool, and if you’re into Japanese reggae, it’s probably the only bag on Earth made just for you.

Felt’s gone big with its Compulsion enduro bike, which has 170mm of front travel paired with 165mm rear. That rear travel is controlled via a six-bar linkage called Equilink.

The rod that ties the upper and lower links together allows Felt to more independently tune the wheel path and shock leverage rates for a more refined feel. Felt also went to Igus solid composite bearings this year in an effort to increase wear life.

This is maybe more CyclingTips’ style. The Edict FRD gets a major update for 2018, dropping a full pound off the frame. The FRD version is 100mm/100mm-travel front and rear, but Felt will sell the same frame with a 120mm fork as well. Those two longer-travel models are called the 3 and 5, and both can take an internally routed dropper post.

The post 2018 Sea Otter Classic tech gallery, part two appeared first on CyclingTips.

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When it comes to cycling equipment, much of the appeal lies in the massive breadth of choices that are available; with even a little bit of modification, bikes can easily be personalized to suit the rider better than a fully stock machine.

Those modifications go beyond color choice, too, with everything from sizing to component models and even tire treads that can be altered at will to suit the particular circumstances. Tire companies continue to grow the wealth of options on the gravel side, for example, Masi Cycles has joined the list of brands now offering custom paint, and Koo has enough color options for its sunglasses that you can raise your matchy-matchy game to the next level.

Even e-bikes aren’t excluded from the game, either. Want some lighter-weight carbon fiber crankarms for your new e-MTB? Yep, it’s indeed a brave new world out there.

Love tubulars? You’re in luck. Zipp has added new tubular versions of its flagship 454 NSW aero road wheels, in both rim-brake and disc-brake variants. Carrying over are the same features as the clincher version, including Showstopper textured brake surfaces (on rim-brake models), the unique dimpling pattern, printed-on graphics, and the speedy Cognition hubset. Claimed weight for the rim-brake set is 1,435g (640g front; 795g rear), and the disc-brake pair is slightly heavier at 1,515g (685g front, 830g rear). Retail price for either set is US$4,000 / £3,417 / €4,000.

For tubular riders on (slightly) more reasonable budgets, Zipp has added a sew-up version of its workhorse 303 Firecrest, too, which will also be offered in rim-brake and disc-brake variants. New to the rim-brake version are the same Showstopper textured brake tracks as on the flagship NSW models, as well as Zipp’s fancier ABLC Sawtooth dimple design. Claimed weight is 1,339g for the rim-brake set (593g front; 746g), and 1,410g for the disc-brake set (655g front; 755g rear). Retail price for either set is US$2,500 / £2,321 / €2,600.

Zipp has updated its tube-type clincher with a new wider standard size – 25mm instead of 23mm – and a new rubber compound that promises longer wear and improved grip. The Tangente Speed version pictured here is designed for lower rolling resistance with minimal puncture protection, while the tougher Tangente Course version gets an additional layer under the tread to guard against cuts. Retail price for the Tangente Speed R25 is US$70 / £68 / €76. The Tangente Course R25 costs US$68 / £58 / €70.

Zipp’s new Service Course SL80 Ergo drop handlebars sport a versatile 80mm reach, an ergonomic-type bend, and a wider center section for use with clip-on aerobars. Laser-etched markings aid in lever positioning, and the 7000-series aluminum construction helps keep the claimed weight down to 275g. Retail price is US$110 / £109 / €123.

The new Zipp Service Course 80 Ergo handlebar offers the exact same shape as a the SL80 Ergo model, but in a slightly heavier 6061 aluminum alloy. Claimed weight is 315g, and retail price is US$55 / £54 / €61.

Zipp says the new 3° backsweep on the Service Course 80 Ergo and SL80 Ergo drop bars keeps your wrists at a more natural angle for improved comfort. Also aiding that argument are the flattened tops, which help distribute weight over a larger area than standard round bars. The ends of the bars also get holes for use with Shimano’s latest Di2 junction boxes.

Shimano’s new Ultegra RX rear derailleur is the first road model from the Japanese giant to include a clutched pulley cage for improved chain security and reduced noise when riding on rough terrain.

OneUp Components’ new dropper seatpost offers an unsual amount of travel for a given amount of exposed seatpost. According to the company, most riders will be able to gain an extra 25mm of drop. Retail price is US$250 (including the remote lever, cable, and housing), and total weight is about 580g.

OneUp Components was able to offer more travel for a given amount of exposed seatpost by decreasing the stack height. Between the shorter collar and the dropped saddle rail cradle, the company was able to gain about 25mm of travel relative to a RockShox Reverb.

The simple trigger mechanism on the bottom can be manually actuated, so even a broken cable can be overcome on the trail.

The molded fiber-reinforced composite remote lever is very lightweight, and rotates on a large cartridge-bearing pivot. A textured concave paddle promises a secure grip for your thumb, and three mounting options are available to work with most brake systems on the market.

OneUp Components’ EDC (Everyday Carry) line of stowable tools is one of the best out there. New to the line is a tire plug tool and master link pliers. The entire kit either fits inside a large-volume pump or your steerer tube.

Masi Cycles may not be the first company you think of when it comes to mainstream brands that offer custom paint, but that may soon change. Starting in just a couple of months, Masi will offer its Evoluzione road frameset in fifteen different paint schemes, and in both rim-brake and disc-brake variants. The US$2,000 asking price includes the frame, fork, headset, and headset spacers – all painted to match – along with a standard black carbon fiber seatpost. Masi is quoting a three-week delivery time.

Even in the shade, this custom-painted Masi Evoluzione road bike is wickedly bright.

For an added cost, Masi will also include a painted-to-match 3T stem. Matched stems are rarely seen outside of the handbuilt world, so it’s fantastic to see the option at more realistic price points.

Masi Cycles’ CXR is shown here in gravel trim with Kenda Flintridge tires, a Shimano Ultegra Di2 transmission, and Praxis Works’ ultralight Zayante Carbon 1x crankset.

Masi Cycles first showed off its “unicorn blood” paint finish at Sea Otter last year, and it’s great to see that it remains in the lineup. This hue will command an additional charge over other standard options in Masi’s custom paint program, but it seems well worth the investment.

Knight Composites recently released its new tubeless-compatible carbon fiber road wheels and rims, which the company developed with input from Schwalbe. Tire installation and removal are impressively easy, as is inflation with a standard floor pump. Road tubeless is heading in a good direction.

Knight Composites engineer and designer Kevin Quan says there are several things about the TLA’s rim profile that make it so amenable to tubeless tires. The tapered shape of the unique rim hook firmly wedges tire beads in place without allowing the sidewalls to bulge too far outward or blowing off of the rim, the inner lip provides further security, and the precise heights and shapes of the hook and central channel make for easy tire installation and inflation. The generous internal rim widths are well in keeping with modern trends, too.

Knight Composites will offer its new TLA (tubeless aero) carbon fiber road wheels in 35mm and 50mm depths, and in both rim-brake and disc-brake formats. Claimed weight on the rim-brake TLA 35 is 1,430g per pair, and the TLA 50 is 1,510g. Retail price is US$2,300 per set across the board.

Knight Composites engineer and designer Kevin Quan built a test rig that allowed him to see exactly how different rim shapes interacted with tubeless tires.

Other companies have built models to help understand how tubeless tires and rims fit together, but this one seems quite ingenious.

Plus-sized mountain bike tires measuring 2.8-3.0″-wide were once considered to be the future of mountain biking until people realized that the increased weight, vague handling, and pressure sensitivity weren’t enough to overcome the increases in traction and comfort. For smaller 27.5″-diameter wheels, it seems that many companies have settled on 2.6″ as a sweet spot for all-around use – especially enduro – and Continental has answered the call with a new version of its Baron. The tall knobs and open spacing should make it a good match for loose terrain where traction trumps rolling speed.

Continental has actually revamped its entire mountain bike range, with refined tread patterns and all-new casing constructions. The redesigned Cross King, for example, sports a tighter center tread than before to help improve straight-line speed.

The Continental Race King has always been a fast-rolling tire, but grip wasn’t exactly its forte. Continental hopes to correct that with the newly refined tread pattern.

The new Mountain King is one of the more interesting-looking patterns in Continental’s current range. The tread was designed in collaboration with Adidas, who uses a similar design on its trail running shoes.

The previous Trail King was one of Continental’s most popular models thanks to an incredibly versatile tread design that somehow managed to work well on seemingly every type of trail terrain. The new version fills in some of the gaps in the shoulder tread for even more secure cornering.

Cordura nylon is used to reinforce the sidewalls on Continental’s latest mountain bike tires, improving abrasion and cut resistance over the previous models while actually improving rolling resistance. New labeling includes recommended rim widths for a given tire size, too.

Koo continues to expand its range of made-in-Italy eyewear. The new Orion sports a striking dual-lens design, Zeiss-certified optics, and a huge range of lens and frame colors. Retail price is US$200.

Sliding bits on the top of the frame provide tunable ventilation, plus an opportunity for some contrasting colors.

Earstems are adjustable for length. Interference with retention systems isn’t likely on helmets from Koo sister brand, Kask, but it could be a handy feature for other combinations.

For a more casual look, Koo offers the stylish California for US$150. Models with polarized Zeiss lenses will also be available for US$220.

Vittoria’s new Terreno Zero (top) and Terreno Dry (bottom) mixed-surface tires look pretty fantastic for their intended usages.

The new Vittoria Terreno Zero looks particularly interesting with its fast-rolling slick center and fish scale-like shoulder tread. Vittoria will offer it in 650x47c and 700x37c sizes.

Interestingly, the shoulder tread on Vittoria’s new Terreno Zero mixed-surface tire is directional given its dramatically ramped knobs. It’d be interesting to see if the tires are noticeably slower when run backwards.

Vittoria has added a new 29×2.1″ size for the Terreno Dry, making it well suited for ultra-endurance all-terrain events like the Tour Divide.

Vittoria’s new TLR tubeless-ready casing strips the carbon-black filler from the sidewalls and omits any additional sidewall protection for a more supple feel and a faster roll. It won’t be the best choice for riders who regularly find themselves on rocky terrain, but for racers looking for every possible bit of speed, it might be just the ticket.

Foam tire inserts are getting high-tech. Vittoria’s new Air-Liner inserts are made of molded EVA foam, and supposedly allow lower operating pressures to improve ride comfort and traction, but without the worry of excessive casing roll and pinch flats. We’re actually interested in giving these a shot, but the US$80/piece cost certainly gives us pause.

Vittoria’s ultra-fast Corsa Speed has now moved to a 25mm-size to replace the original 23mm one.

Vittoria’s new Elusion carbon fiber road wheelset is offered in both rim-brake and disc-brake versions, and 30mm and 42mm depths, all with tubeless compatibility and 17mm internal widths. Retail price is comparatively low at US$1,200.

Praxis Cycles says its new carbon fiber e-MTB crankarms can save nearly 200g over the aluminum ones more commonly used.

Saris’s new Glide hitch rack supports up to four bikes by the top tube…

…and pivots by a neat parallelogram linkage that keeps the bikes upright while giving you access to the rear of the your vehicle.

Hiplok’s new Z-Lok Combo provides a handy moderate-security solution for quick trips into the store. The stainless steel core is supposedly quite tough, but the nylon exterior and zip-tie design makes it fun and friendly to use. Retail price is US$25 / £17.

The post 2018 Sea Otter Classic tech gallery, Part Three appeared first on CyclingTips.

The Sea Otter Classic has always been a predominantly American event. It’s based in California, it perennially showcases the open-mindedness to new trends that have long characterized American riders, and most of the brands displaying in the expo have typically called the United States its home base. The parking area is lined with big pickup trucks, and burgers and hot dogs are common fare with people walking the aisles.

But just as the Sea Otter Classic itself has expanded outward — there will be another Sea Otter Europe in Girona, Spain in early June — the rest of the world has also devoted more attention here, with more global brands making their way to the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca to show off their wares, and more global trends permeating the ranks. Gravel bikes were the norm in terms of drop-bar machines, not WorldTour racing machines, and e-MTBs almost seemed normal.

What will next year’s show bring? Unfortunately, our crystal ball isn’t any clearer than yours, so we’ll have to wait a year for that question to be answered. But in the meantime, here’s the final round of what caught our eyes in this edition. Next stop: Eurobike.

The Vision TriMax 40 TL uses a carbon-over-aluminum rim.

Vision’s new Metron 30 SL sports a shallow 30mm-deep carbon rim for riders that prioritize low weight over aerodynamics. Vision will offer it in both tubular and tubeless clincher versions.

Want to run full-carbon rims but can’t afford full-carbon prices? With the Vision Trimax 40 TL, your riding buddies will never be the wiser.

Vision’s Metron 4D MAS drop handlebar has built-in ports for a bolt-on aerobar.

As the name suggests, FSA’s new K-Force Flat Di2 carbon fiber handlebar is designed with Shimano’s Di2 electronic shifters in mind, complete with wire channels on the underside of the grip area and access holes for internal routing. They’re also usefully wide at 740mm.

FSA’s new K-Force Light AGX carbon wheels are aimed at well-heeled gravel riders with a 21.5mm internal width, tubeless compatibility, and a 1,465g claimed weight for the set.

FSA has moved to adjustable bearing preload on virtually the entire wheel line, for improved bearing durability and easier servicing.

Want the look of carbon, but the crash tolerance of aluminum? FSA’s OS-99 CSI features a forged aluminum body with a carbon overwrap. Supposedly, there’s also a modest stiffness benefit. Supposedly.

Want some more speed and durability for your SRAM Eagle rear derailleur? Enduro is about to release aluminum-and-Delrin pulley upgrade kits that spin on ultra-low-friction XD-15 ceramic bearings. There’s even an optional XD-15 upgrade for the cable pulley, too.

The hybrid construction supposedly adds more rigidity relative to all-plastic wheels, and the smooth surface has no holes or pockets where mud and crud can accumulate.

Enduro Bearings will also offer an XD-15 upgrade for the cable pulley on SRAM Eagle rear derailleurs.

The new Enduro Bearings XD-15 derailleur pulleys for SRAM Eagle rear derailleurs will retail for US$230; the complete upgrade kit with the new cable pulley will fetch US$300.

Enduro Bearings has been quick to support SRAM’s new DUB 29mm-diameter spindle format with new bottom bracket and bearing models.

Specialized has just released a complete redesign of its Stumpjumper range of trail bikes, complete with modern long-low-and-slack geometry, a stiffer frame for more predictable handling, and a brilliant internal cable routing design.

The asymmetrical frame design looks unusual, but adds frame stiffness by tying the top tube and seat tube together.

The storage compartment in the down tube is bigger than it was on the previous generation, meaning there’s now an even better chance you won’t need any sort of seat pack for all of your repair essentials.

The internal cable routing system really is truly brilliant. The paths are fully guided from end to end, meaning you insert the housing here…

…and then it magically reappears here, with no fishing required.

Specialized says the raised nubs on the chainstay protector dramatically reduces noise when riding through rough terrain.

Specialized designer Robert Egger never fails to impress. E-mountain bikes are often criticized by skeptics as just being electric motorcycles, so why not just embrace the hate?

Knog’s new Plus LED blinkers are cleverly designed for both on-bike and on-body use. Retail price will be around US$20 each.

An embedded magnet easily attach the Knog Plus to the bike mount, while the light itself plugs into a USB port for charging with no cords required.

The Knog Plus also attaches to clothing like a paper clip.

Knog is continuing to build its PWR family of lights with a new MTB-focused model. Claimed output is a whopping 2,000 lumens. The bigger battery offers a claimed run time of two hours on the highest setting. Retail price is US$180 for a complete setup, or US$80 for just the lamp head, which can be attached to other PWR bodies thanks to the system’s modular design.

Knog’s PWR family isn’t just a bunch of lights. It’s actually a modular ecosystem with bar- and helmet-mounted lights, a camping lamp, and even a portable wireless speaker.

Knog will soon manufacture its one-millionth Oi bell, and is celebrating with a premium version called the Oi Luxe. The all-metal construction looks trick, and instead of the usual rubber shim, there’s a strip of leather. Retail price will be US$40.

Giro’s new Chamber 2 mountain bike shoes are aimed at trail and gravity riders who want a more casual look. A still fiber-reinforced nylon shank helps maintain pedaling efficiency, and the cleat pocket is placed slightly more rearward as compared to XC-style shoes for a more centered feel. Two colors are available for now, with a third Aaron Gwin-inspired edition coming soon. Retail price is US$150.

The Vibram rubber sole on Giro’s new Chamber 2 shoes feel impressively tacky, promising good grip despite the minimal tread depth. Tapered edges of the cleat pocket promise quick pedal engagement.

Industry Nine is working with Stickerd to provide custom decals. It’s a cheap and easy way to dress up your bike.

New sock brand Freshly Minted has some heady industry veterans behind it, such as former Crankbrothers designer Tim van Gilder. The look is apparently inspired by mid-century modern patterns, and the company has an interesting release plan. Three or four new designs will be produced each quarter, and when they’re gone, they’re gone forever. Retail price is US$20, and the company will donate US$1 of each pair to the National Inter-scholastic Cycling Assocation.

Bont’s new Helix road shoes feature a unique wire arrangement that spirals around the middle of the foot. Carrying over are Bont’s usual heat-moldable carbon fiber construction and more squared-off toe box shape.

Much has already been written about Campagnolo’s new 12-speed Record and Super Record groupsets. But as far as I can tell, no one has yet mentioned this brilliant feature on the cassette. These small tabs protruding inward from the largest cog prevent the chain from jamming between the cassette and spokes in the event of an overshift. It’s not a new idea, but one that’s nice to see regardless.

Bell showed off an impressively broad array of colors for its top-end Zephyr Z2 road helmet at this year’s Sea Otter Classic.

Stainless steel tubing on this Brompton folding bike adds a healthy amount of visual flair (not to mention corrosion resistance) to this classic British folding bike.

Galfer isn’t a name that’s well known in the bicycle world, but it has very strong roots in the motorcycle world. Its new mountain bike disc brake rotors use a floating design where the steel brake track is allowed to expand separately from the carrier when hot. According to Galfer, this also reduces operating noise and vibration.

Syncros is yet another company that has jumped into the short-and-wide saddle game with the new Belcarra V.

Jaybird’s new Run wireless earbuds look like a good option for riders looking to bring music on the road. There’s no way to pipe in ambient sounds, though.

The post 2018 Sea Otter Classic tech gallery, part four appeared first on CyclingTips.

Building your dream bike is a passion project that often requires little more than money and patience. However, what if that bike is from another era? Wanting to build a bike to use in the original L’Eroica that travels through the hills of Tuscany, Sydney-based rider Daniele Vanolini didn’t just have a vision, patience, and a flexible budget, but also luck on his side when it came to creating not one, but two Italian-made steel rides.

Vanolini clearly lives and breathes Italy and all things on two wheels. He comes from an Italian family, runs annual cycling tours to the Giro d’Italia, and teaches cycling skills on the weekends. And with a background in racing superbikes, Vanolini now fills his weekdays working for the Australian distributor of Ducati.

The Saronni, the definition of new old stock (NOS)

As a Sydney Eastern suburbs local, and member of the Randwick Botany Cycling Club, Vanolini is a long-time shopper at Europa Cycles, an iconic shop that was the natural choice for Vanolini’s pursuit of a ride for L’Eroica. Opened in 1973, and with a deep history in Italian framebuilding, Europa is exactly what you’d imagine when thinking of a time capsule of a store that also offers modern stock. It’s certainly rather unique amongst the many newer single-branded stores of Sydney.

The equipment requirements for L’Eroica aren’t quite as narrowly defined as many might think, but Vanolini definitely didn’t want to push the envelope, seeking a vintage steel bike with down-tube shifters and toe-clip pedals. According to Vanolini, it was Alan Abeni, the grandson of Europa co-founder Ezio Abeni, who was largely responsible for this bike coming to be.

“Alan said he might have something either in the shop or back at the family farm,” Vanolini said. “He had a look out the back and brought out this Colnago fluoro-painted Saronni, which was in my size 50cm, too! Apparently it had never been built up and was sprayed this colour because the frame had started to corrode while it was just sitting in the shop.”

Giuseppe Saronni’s face appears on the head tube. It’s unclear whether this is authentic to the original paint or not, with other examples showing Colnago’s clover logo instead.

A signature product of the early ’80s, Colnago produced frames under Giuseppe Saronni’s name to commemorate his 1982 world road championship. Saronni’s palmares includes the Giro d’Italia in 1979 and again in 1983, and Monuments such as Milan-San Remo and the Giro di Lombardia. His career closely overlapped with fellow Italian Francesco Moser.

“It was sitting in the shop the whole time,” said Vanolini of this historic frame. “The Saronni stamp on the seatstay is one tell-tale sign that it’s proper.”

Finding a suitable L’Eroica frameset is hard enough; finding parts to match is another matter entirely.

“The hardest thing is finding the size for you,” Vanolini said. “Once you’ve got that, and you’re happy with the brand you’re getting, then you’ve got the connection and you want to go further with it. The hardest part is if you’re building something to the period like this, then finding these old derailleurs, shifters and similar is hard.”

This beautiful Colnago crankset was taken off a once-loved donor bike.

“[Luckily] Alan discovered the perfect donor bike, which was an old Abeni frame [made by Ezio, the grandfather] from which we could take the stamped Colnago chainset, brake levers, quill stem, and wheels to complete the bike. The original lever covers had perished, so unfortunately, the black ones are not original.

“The Campagnolo shifters and derailleur they just had in stock, brand new. The (Cinelli) bars I actually had from another bike, and conveniently, Europa had the matching stem. The only thing we don’t have is the original fork; this uses an Abeni.”

Vanolini’s surprisingly iconic and rare bike was coming together far easier than expected, and clearly, the strong Italian history had caused a spark. The frame was sent off to Peter at Star Enamellers for the paint to be stripped and replicated to its original glory.

“The pedals are not from the right time period; they’re just a modern replica product,” Vanolini said. “The wheels that were on it weren’t as good quality and I wanted this bike to do the 200km+ of the L’Eroica and not have any issue. I had these wheels (older Campagnolo hubs built onto newer Mavic Open Pro clinchers) made up as something I wasn’t willing to compromise.”

As nice as it would be to stay truly period-correct, though, Vanolini was more realistic when it came to tyres. Even if you could find NOS tyres, time waits for no one, and rubber is one thing that often doesn’t hold up well to years in storage.

“I’ve done some of the Strada Bianche over in Tuscany when I’ve run my tours, and a few of us have gotten slashed tyres. You need to do it (the gravel roads) with more robust tyres, something like a Continental GatorSkin. There are some big climbs, and this older gearing is going to be difficult.”

A modernised Dancelli for training

Built as the training bike, Vanolini’s Dancelli is a fusion of classic Italian steel and more modern Japanese components.

As it turns out, the Saronni wasn’t the only frame Alan Abeni had. But unlike the Saronni, this one had the original paint and it was only ever used for display.

“To my amazement, he also had this other frame in my size and until then I hadn’t heard of this brand name, Dancelli,” said Vanolini. “I only had the budget to build one, but then I couldn’t resist, and I thought, well why not? Then I had this older Shimano (Dura-Ace 7800) groupset laying around, and I figured it wouldn’t take me much to build it up. It also provided me with a backup while the Saronni came together.”

Italian racer Michele Dancelli had his own brand for a number of years.

Dancelli was the eponymous brand of Michele Dancelli, an Italian professional racer from the ’60s and ’70s. In addition to winning the 1970 Milan-San Remo, he also has 11 Giro d’Italia stage wins and a Tour de France stage win to his name.

Folklore suggests that Ernesto Colnago, while working as a race mechanic for Dancelli, was inspired by his Milan-San Remo win to create the now famous ace-of-clubs Colnago logo. The history is rather sketchy, as well as widely debated, but whether true or not, it’s a nice connection between these two Italian bikes for Vanolini.

“This is my training bike,” Vanolini said of the Dancelli. “I used it at the Randwick Botany Cycling Club’s retro day where they celebrated the 40th year of racing at Heffron Park (a race which Vanolini won). In November, they’ll do another retro day at Heffron Park.

“It rides quite nice; it’s just not as responsive (as a modern race bike). You can feel the weight and the wheel flex. I will have to do a bit of training on the Saronni, but most of my time will be spent on the Dancelli. You do have to learn the gears, and the smaller brake hoods drop down a lot further, and the brakes don’t work quite as good.

“When I do the [full course] event, I want to go over with the Saronni, because you know, it’s got the 1982 World Championship. It’s a talking piece. I know there are bikes there with more original stuff, but this is pretty close. It’s going to give me that feel. The next step for me is maybe getting a more retro jersey, and an old fashion-styled helmet. You need the cap, too.”

Photo Gallery:

The post Bikes of the Bunch: Colnago Saronni for L’Eroica and a Dancelli for training appeared first on CyclingTips.

After a short hiatus, Australia has a handbuilt bicycle show once more. Championed by the likes of Llewelyn Custom Bicycles and Gellie Cycles, the Handmade Bicycle Show Australia (HBSA) had its inaugural event in Melbourne this past weekend.

With the red carpet rolled out for paying attendees, approximately 20 builders were on hand, most from Australia, but a few from further afield. Builders were rubbing shoulders with customers and with one another, sharing their craft and proving just how much collaboration there is in the small, but tight, local industry.

We spoke with the displaying builders and had a close look at their wares. In this first of two articles, we reveal what’s new and exciting from the better-known and more established builders. Scroll down for a look at bicycle perfection from Llewelyn, Gellie, Bastion, Baum, Kumo, Stoemper, Curve and WheelWorks. These are the (mostly) Australian bigwigs.

Geelong-based builder Darren Baum and a few of his team were at the show. Sitting centre-place was this freshly finished Orbis “all-road” bike of a returning customer. This bike features personal details in the paint, custom painted hubs, 3M reflective stickers instead of the stock Enve decals and a long list of other special touches. These photos don’t do this bike justice and a constant swarm of interested parties prevented me from grabbing it away for better shots.

The Orbis is Baum’s all-road bike with room for 34mm tyres. As Darren Baum suggests, for customers not interested in tubeless tyres, they’ll typically suggest the narrower-tyred and higher-bottom-bracketed, Orbis R (Race) instead.

Many Baum customers request matching leather handlebar tape and saddles from Mick Peel of Busyman.

Baum create its fully custom headtubes in-house. With the hidden headset design, that required new machinery and a new hire.

Painted to match stems, seatposts and forks are all pretty standard in the handbuilt game, so what’s next? Baum is offering matched hubs. Those are DT Swiss 240s beneath the lush colour.

The Orbis uses the new T47 bottom bracket, something Baum machined in-house. They also machine their own head tubes. Some dropouts are made in-house, others are custom made by Paragon Machine Works, specific to Baum’s designs. Baum suggests he makes approximately nine titanium bikes to every steel bike.

Baum has earned a strong reputation for its paint, but Darren Baum finds it funny as he considers paint to be very low down in his design considerations.

The Code is effectively a simplified version of the Orbis. It retains Baum’s methods for fitting, handling and performance, but does so at a more reasonable price point. Despite still being titanium, you’re looking at a saving of approximately AU$4,000 by going the Code over the Orbis. That should reveal just how impressive the small details are with the Orbis. A complete Code build starts from AU$6,500.

Baum has a new racing collaboration in the works…

The lug master himself, Darrell Llewellyn McCulloch had a number of fresh customer bikes on display. This classic road bike is an example of what is possible with all hand-cut and hand-polished stainless steel lugs. McCulloch joked that he only does this type of “Tuxedo” signature-level product a couple of times a year, otherwise he’d give up.

No. That’s not chrome-plated. That’s hand-polished stainless steel.

Despite continuously trying to keep his lug production in Australia, McCulloch suggests “nobody in Australia can reliably cast such thin lugs, so I’ve had to resort to having them made in Taiwan.”

No words.

The level of detail on McCulloch’s frames is second to none. However, he made it clear where his first priorities lie, stating “all my bikes are pure functionality first.”

The whole bike features a water-like flowing design in its lugs. This stem alone apparently took 40 hours of work.

In the hands of McCulloch himself, the cast lug becomes something even more unique.

This is a customer bike and also a prototype. McCulloch explains, “this one I used very large tubes, but with lugged construction. As far as I know, it’s the first and only lugged frame in the world to have these large tubes. They’re the largest Columbus make. It’s really for aesthetics, as he’s a large fellow and wanted a rigid-looking frame.” The frame features a 44mm diameter Columbus HSS downtube, kept perfectly round. McCulloch believes that including design time, this frame took 300 hours to create.

McCulloch is a firm believer in lugs, explaining, “lugs are the best way to join a thin wall tube to another thin wall tube and distribute the stresses.”

A huge number of builders look up to McCulloch, and he’s not precious about sharing is craft. In fact, his lugs feature on a number of bikes from other Aussie builders.

The lugs in this stem are something that McCulloch offers for sale. He’s been out-sourcing the casting of his lug designs for 15 years.

McCulloch has cut (filed) playing card-shapes into metal most of his life. This remains a common feature in many of his frames today.

It’s often the easily missed details that make all the difference. This is a DT Swiss Revolution spoke being used to prevent cable rub on the paint. Slim cables, no stickers, just a slick bit of a stainless steel.

How to do a brake bridge and still offer tyre clearance. McCulloch has done the same on the chainstays.

It’s the little details that make it a Llewellyn. For example, the closed cable stops are chosen to ensure the paint won’t chip. The rub-preventing spoke trick sits hidden at the seatpost clamp.

McCulloch has used a Paragon Machine Works dropout on this customer’s cross bike, but has added his own reinforcing rib to ensure life-long service.

The same spoke trick is used to protect the paint from the rear disc rotor. Paint chipping in this area is a common problem due to taking wheels in and out.

This is the new Bastion Superleggera. It looks similar to the regular Disc Road model, but the downtube is slimmer and every tube and lug has had weight shaved. According to Ben Schultz of Bastion, “we use a higher modulus carbon fibre throughout. Every element has been pushed with this, so for example, where we go to .5mm tube thickness on the regular bike, parts of this bike go to .4mm. A Superlegara frame with fork is 150g lighter than the regular model, but the stiffness is the same.” This display bike, in its size 62cm and with disc brakes, is said to weight just 6.2kg.

A lack of paint doesn’t just show off the incredible engineering — it’s lighter, too.

This Bastion SuperLegerra gets a custom painted stem to match.

Bastion is collaborating with Demon Frameworks in the UK. According to Schultz, “It all started about two years ago. We’d be talking with Tom of Demon about how we’d love to introduce his artistic style into our lugs. We met a customer at Bespoke who was keen for something more special than our regular bikes, and it was fate.” Keeping these extremely limited, there’s only one available per country and Bastion will not duplicate a colour scheme. If you’re in the UK, Indonesia or Netherlands, you’re already out of luck.

The design may look very simple to do given it’s 3D-printed, but Schultz tells us that it required them to go back to the drawing board to ensure that it remained structurally the same. These limited-edition collab bikes are every bit as strong as Bastion’s regular models.

Impressive details and fine paint masking are seen at every edge and corner.

Beneath the paint is a 3D titanium-printed seatpost topper, on an in-house woven carbon fibre seattube.

Bastion typically print a custom name into each frame. This one receives the name of the inspiring frame maker.

The rich “turquoise marine blue fade” is seen on all lugs, the fork, the seattube, as well as the bar and stem. The paint is done by “Bikes by Steve”, the painter of choice for both Bastion and Prova.

Only possible with advancements in 3D printing, there’s 96% air in this structure. Compared to a hollow structure, it’s said to add 20-30% stiffness for a 4% mass increase. Further 3D printing gains are seen with variable wall thickness.

Bastion are now using their 3D printed titanium expertise for computer mounts too. At 10g, it’s said to be the lightest option going, and I can attest to it being extremely stiff. Being printed, Bastion are able to do it for just about any stem, any computer and with the option for either a GoPro or Exposure mount beneath. Pricing is to be confirmed, but pre-orders are at AU$99; expect final retail to be higher.

Wishing your tool roll matched your carbon frame? Bastion can help. This roll is made of laser-etched kangaroo leather, with Bastion’s woven carbon fibre on the exterior.

The tool roll includes a Silca T-ratchet set, a Silca Co2 gun, Co2 canister and a tube. I was afraid to ask the price.

Ewan Gellie was showing off a few impressively clean builds. The long-time builder tells he now does the paint himself, meaning the bike’s owner will likely be the second set of hands to touch the frame from when it was raw tubes. Pictured is Gellie’s own road disc bike.

Gellie’s frames offer simple lines and beautiful welds. However, a whole lot of detail goes into making a bike look so simple. For example, Gellie, an engineer himself, spoke about how heat affects the tolerances, strength and ride quality of the frame, and so he reverses the process to handle this. The front derailleur braze-on, bidon cage bosses and other items traditionally brazed on at the end are instead done at the beginning. It’s mind-blowing to think how much more difficult that makes the process. As the saying goes, it’s not as simple as it looks.

The T47 shell provides enough space to guide the brake hose internally. He tells us there’s some tricky things going on inside to ensure the hose can’t rub on the spindle. Unfortunately such beauty does mean there’s only space to run a 24mm crank spindle — you’ll need the cable run externally if you want a 30mm crank here.

The brake hose appears cleanly right before the brake. While it’s not possible to see, the brake hose runs through a stainless steel tube for perfect guiding from entry to exit. No floss, magnets or bent spokes required here.

Gellie’s own bike is using the Paragon Speed Release dropout which uses the new Mavic Speed Release thru-axle. The Enve fork up front is using the same design.

Some of the smoothest lines in the industry. With a background in engineering, Gellie is commonly regarded as a quiet perfectionist.

Gellie will make just about anything, but his own gravel bike is a look at what he’s been up to lately. It’s a gravel racer using Columbus Life tubing.

Gellie’s own gravel bike is designed to take a rear rack.

Handmade in Canberra, Australia, this is the Kumo RADdonneur. “I’ve ‘ruggedised’ a radonneur, rather than turn a mountain bike into a bikepacking bike. It’s low trail, so it holds a front load really well. Production bike will take a 650B x 2.4” tyre. feature 12mm thru-axles front and rear, T47 bottom bracket and different cable routing,” said Mr Kumo Cycles himself, Keith Marshall. Four sizes will be available and turnaround will only be a few weeks. Marshall plans to make approximately 50 of these a year. AU$2,900, frame and fork, including the bottom bracket.

Having pushed his business in the direction of his passion, Marshall is now mostly focused on hardcore radonneur (bikepacking) bikes. Pictured is his own prototype Kumo RADdonneur which he had planned to ride from his workshop in Canberra to Bairnsdale, Victoria (and then catch a train into Melbourne for the show). A fussy knee forced Marshall to pull the pin earlier.

Plenty of detail and thought can be seen throughout the bike on closer inspection.

In addition to the new RADdonneur, Marshall is still making custom racks and other small parts. This top cap is made using watch-making methods and is available for AU$140.

Another example of Marshall’s handy work, this front rack is something he makes.

As the only wheelbuilder on show (Curve weren’t displaying wheels), New Zealand’s WheelWorks travelled across the ditch to be on display. The Kiwis had a large range of wheels to show, but it’s the new Maker SLD that grabbed our attention. Using their own 380g rim and hubs, the Maker SLD is a high-end carbon disc road wheel to suit the new generation of 25-28c tyres with its 19mm internal width rim. The wheelset is claimed to weigh 1,380g and will sell consumer-direct for NZ$3,090.

WheelWorks use their own hub design called the Dial. The tool-free freehub is a licensed design and uses three pawls for 36 points of engagement (72 points via six pawls is available). All WheelWorks wheels offer a lifetime guarantee against spoke breakage.

Travelling all the way from the USA, Stoemper were on show with two customer bikes. Pictured is the bike of Melbourne-based CyclingTips VeloClub member Tim. Tim took sight of his new custom steel “Taylor” for the very first time at the show. This bike features a stock Stoemper geometry, but with a semi-custom paint.

The Taylor is a steel racing frameset, it uses a Columbus Life tubing and a Dedacciai headtube. The stays are bent by Stoemper, and the dropouts are their own, too. The fork is from Enve. A frameset like this sells for US$2,399 / AU$4,500.

Skulls were a custom request from Tim. There’s one laughing for anyone sitting on his back wheel. Tim, what’s the story behind the skulls?

More skulls feature elsewhere, including on the toptube and forks.

Tim selected external cable routing. The brake hose is run internally until the bottom bracket.

Racing stripes.

Announced at the show, Curve’s limited edition Belgie (Disc) Air is a collaborative work with a number of local makers. Bastion make the one-piece woven seattube and help with the bonding, paint is by Bikes by Steve (painter for Bastion and Prova) and skingrowsback is making the matched seat pack. Limited to just 23 framesets, this titanium and carbon ride will set you back AU$6,999 (frameset), and yes, that includes the seat pack.

The one-piece carbon bar and stem perfectly match the painted Curve fork and other accents.

The Belgie Air is semi-custom, and owners can choose between an intermediate or stiff carbon fibre seat tube. According to Ryan Flinn, even the intermediate seat tube creates a noticeably stiffer rear end compared to the usual full-titanium frame.

Ryan Flinn (aka Rhino), a part-owner of Curve, rode the latter part of the unofficial ride across Australia, formally known as the Indian Pacific Wheel Race, on this bike just weeks ago.

Bastion supply its 3D titanium-printed seatmast topper, too. Here, both Bastion’s and Curve’s logos feature.

A simple and elegant headtube from the Australian brand. While this limited edition Belgie is assembled in Australia, Curve don’t shy away from the fact their frames are made for them in Asia.

The post Handmade Bicycle Show Australia 2018: The bigwigs appeared first on CyclingTips.

The inaugural Handmade Bicycle Show Australia proved not only a perfect place for prospective customers and fans to meet the best-known builders, but also get to know the passionate part-timers and eager next generation in Australian frame building.

Some see frame making as a way to share their passion with like-minded folk, while others are looking to carve out a career like local bigwigs Darren Baum, Darrell Llewellyn McCulloch and Ewan Gellie. Taking a look at work from Prova, Goodspeed, Devlin, Mooro, Richard Walker, G.Duke, HTech, Bikes by Steve, TOR and Damu PlyCycles, these are the Australian newcomers.

This is part two (of two) of our Handmade Bicycle Show Australia coverage. Part one takes a look at the better known and established local (and not local) builders.

Mark Hester of Melbourne-based Prova is certainly one to watch. The mechanical engineer was doing composites engineering for a V8 Supercar team when he found his passion for cycling, and three years ago, the first Prova bike was built at the Bicycle Academy in the UK. Today, he shares a facility with Bastion Cycles and has 29 frames out in the wild. This Ripido 29er “party” hardtail recently won the best mountain bike award at the Bespoked show in Bristol – not bad for someone in their early 30s.

Italian for test, develop, and push, Hester says that the Prova moniker came from the license plate of a car in a hardcover Ferrari book he had as a kid. “I kind of always knew that if I had a brand, that would be the name. It relates to the brand in terms of my desire to keep testing and trying new stuff. The models keep the Italian theme going.”

Hester had three of his personal bikes at the show, and all were built using 3D-printed stainless steel parts. “Bastion’s lattice technology has allowed me to do thin-walled, non-round complex shapes. I’m only printing parts where I need a particular technical solution. Flat mount brakes, for example, are usually quite difficult and labour intensive, so by printing it, it’s not only lighter and more accurate, it’s also more efficient.” Pictured is a printed chainstay yoke that is used on both his 29er hardtail and gravel bike for superior tyre and chainring clearance.

A look inside reveals the printed lattice design that Bastion created.

The rear dropout is 3D-printed stainless steel and offers a direct post mount for a 180mm rotor.

Bikes by Steve is the painter for Prova. Here Steve shows a progress photo next to the finished product.

By the numbers. Hester spoke of geometry with progressive insight. “It’s not about how slack it is, but rather the weight distribution.”

Hester says his new Mostro gravel bike is effectively what cross-country mountain bike geometry was five years ago. “Relatively wide bars, shorter stem, longer front centre, bigger tyres. A lot of gravel bikes become sketchy with big tyres. Without enough weight on the front, they’re not stable enough. This type of bike is designed for doing gnarly rock stuff (such as the Mawson Trail) and dirt roads.”

Just as with the award-winning Ripido, Hester’s Mostro gravel bike makes use of a 3D-printed stainless steel chainstay section, which drops down below the chainrings for extra tyre and drivetrain clearance. Doing so allows a 700 x 45c or 650b x 2.1” tyre to fit with a standard road double crank.

More detail from Paint by Steve.

“This is my take on the ultimate steel road disc bike,” said Hester of his new Speciale prototype.

The Speciale features Hester’s own carbon seat tube creation with a 3D-printed lug where it intersects the top tube. “Weight and compliance are hard to match in a steel bike compared to the industry-leading carbon bikes. By going to my own pre-preg seat tube, it saved 400g and matched a modern carbon bike in terms of compliance. Traditional lugs lock you into specific angles and sizes, but no two lugs will ever need to be the same with this 3D-printed method.”

“Being an engineer, I take testing really seriously,” Hester says. “I’ve done structural testing on the example bikes, and I’ve done ISO fatigue tests.” Apparently, the seat tube design of this new road prototype is going in for testing next week.

“This model really creates something desirable…. and it combines some of the best aspects of carbon fibre with the durability of steel.” Framesets will start at AU$6,900, including headset and Enve disc fork.

The 3D-printed titanium seatpost topper is also included with the frameset, and uses Enve’s two-bolt cradle.

More 3D-printed goodness. The frame is claimed to handle tyres up to 32mm-wide.

That’s the polished stainless steel tube peering through the candy apple red paint. I wasn’t there to hand out awards, but if I were, it would go to this prototype bike. I think I’m in love.

Sitting proudly on the Prova is this new Moskito watch / bike computer. It works with your phone’s GPS to give you important cycling metrics and can be removed and worn as a watch, too. It appears to be a more refined (and expensive) alternative to the OMATA One, but relies on the phone to do the heavy lifting.

Travelling 3,400km from Perth was fresh titanium brand Mooro, founded by Chris Morgan and Stuart Dash. The two have known each other for nearly a decade: Dash is an experienced welder, and Morgan has been his chiropractor.

Mooro only started building in 2016, but the brand is already creating its own head tubes and bending its own seatstays. Hidden inside the bottom bracket shell is a secondary sleeve that keeps the internally routed brake hose shielded from the crank spindle. On display were bikes number seven and number eight, but they have built others since. The paint seen here is by local Aboriginal artist Rohin Kickett. The Enve carbon fork is painted, but the logos on the frame are anodised; there are no decals here.

Mooro is an indigenous name for the Perth region where the workshop resides. Indigenous artwork is a common theme on many of their bikes, with this bike, belonging to owner Chris Morgan, telling a story of the brand’s journey to date. The logo represents the meeting and journey of riding.

Paragon Machine Works dropouts feature out back, as is the case with many titanium frames. The welder, Stuart Dash, has a long history working with titanium in other industries.

Mooro were also displaying a customer’s cyclocross bike. This one really shows off the impressive frame anodising and paint work. This bike is called the Wagyl (rainbow serpent), with paint done by artist Bradley Kickett, the brother of Robin Kickett, who painted the bike above. Photo: Chris Morgan, Mooro Cycles.

At just age 20, Hayden Francis of HTech shows an amazing amount of skill and dedication to his craft of wooden bicycle frames. Pictured is the Aeriform frame made out of mahogany; jarrah is the usual wood choice. The hollow wood structure is given its initial shape with a CNC machine, before Hayden does the finer details by hand.

SCR stands for “Selective Carbon Reinforcement.” Carbon fibre is used to reinforce the wooden structure in key places, such as the seat tube. Bonded with the wood, the bikes are claimed to be stiff and strong, but with the ride quality benefits of wood. The frame pictured here is claimed to weigh 1,900g.

The HTech road frames are available with stock geometry and feature internal cable routing.

The pictured frame is made up of 38 different parts, all interlocked with Isoloc joints. A series of different industrial expoxies are used depending on the frame area. Hayden had created a variety of bikes, including a Bosch-equipped e-bike, and is currently working on a hardtail mountain bike for another customer.

Press-fit bottom bracket, aero tube profiles, internal cable routing, asymmetric chainstays, and carbon fibre reinforcement. These are not terms you expect to see with a wooden frame.

“His year 12 woodworking teacher said it wasn’t possible to make a bike out of wood,” said Hayden Francis’s father. “So when he left school, that’s exactly what he did.”

Sean Doyle of Devlin Custom Cycles is a newcomer to the frame building world, but showed off three bikes in prime position at the show – a significant number given there’s only eight in the wild. Doyle was a design draftsman (mostly power stations) and a long time passionate cyclist, having raced all sorts of bikes since the 80s. “I’ve got a background in design process, being able to start with a concept and work my way through it. I’ve always made things, so mid-2005, I went and had a chat with Darrell McCulloch [of Llewellyn Custom Bicycles]. He’d probably seen a thousand guys who also wanted to build frames like I did, and I don’t think he took me seriously. I went away, read as much as I could on the matter. I bugged McCulloch with questions wherever possible, and slowly started building things.”

This bike belongs to Doyle’s painter, Ben Wallace. Doyle says that most of the lugs are from Llewellyn, but the tapered one at the head tube was made from scratch, taking three full days. “I’m keen to push lugs in a new direction, and really push what you can do with them. To me, lugs do lend to the way a lugged bike rides versus a TIG-welded bike.”

“I work in the same factory unit as Peter Spencer from Gold Coast Bike Fit,” said Doyle. “He’s one of the best fitters in the country. He’s quite progressive and forward thinking, and I’m able to learn a lot from him in terms of fitting.”

The paint on this bike is impressive, and depending on the light, shines green or purple.

The rear brake cable runs through the top tube and exits out the back of the seat tube.

Doyle built this bike with segmented seatstays.

Much of Doyle’s design influence comes from growing up racing in the 80s. “I had guys like Hillbrick, Perkins, and Hopkins in my area [when growing up]. So the idea of a custom steel frame was always normal for me.”

More lugs from Llewellyn feature on this classicly-styled disc road bike from Delvin.

TOR bikes is currently creating custom steel hardtail mountain bikes out of a workshop in Beechworth, Victoria. On display is TOR’s sixth and latest build, a 27.5” Plus trail hardtail bike that’s ready to race by swapping in a shorter-travel fork and 29er wheels.

The frame features mostly external cable routing, but still accommodates internally routed dropper seatposts.

This TOR frame features a 67-degree head angle and 440mm-long chainstays that were picked for high-speed handling. “I’ve been down to about 425mm for the chainstays, but I felt it got too twitchy at high speed. I personally like the more stable feel. I’ve played with going very low, but I’ve come back up in bottom bracket height, too. It’s stuff I’ve learned by building previous bikes.”

Based in Canberra, Goodspeed is a collaborative effort with a number of local makers, including Luke Laffan (who also works with Fikas Bikes). The brand isn’t all that new, but its classical “Type One” street-going 4130 chromoly steel rigs may not be all that known beyond the nation’s capital. The brand is now getting into road bikes, with a number of local pros having offered feedback in the new SL road bike design pictured here.

Goodspeed’s founder, Myles Chandler, says the new SL road bike is an example of how the brand seeks to reinterpret the cantilever-type frame, which used to be seen with older Schwinn, Malvern Star Skidstar, and similar bikes. “This is our take on the idea. It’s a unique look, but there is a unique, dampened ride feel from it.”

Each frameset uses a Columbus Futura carbon fork and starts from AU$2,500. Goodspeed is busy at the moment, with lead times of approximately four months.

The SL is made of Columbus Zona tubes. It’s available in sizes from 52-60cm. Currently the bike is only available in a rim brake version, but a disc brake version is in progress.

Geoff Duke of G.Duke is a fitter and laboratory technician, and got into frame building after having raced for some 20 years and realising the classic lugged steel frames were a dying art. “It’s proved to not be entirely true”, he joked, as lugged construction is seemingly making a comeback. As a part-time hobby, he spends most of his spare time repairing vintage steel bikes. The frame at the front is Geoff’s own and uses customised Llewellyn lugs. His workshop is in East Brunswick, just outside of Melbourne.

Pictured is a recreation of an Australian stem from the 60s. The original was made by “Australian Tubing Products”, a company that had the license to make Reynolds tubing locally. With the plastic cap on the back, these were known as Raygun stems. Geoff says he often makes replica stems for the vintage bike crowd.

G.Duke makes other stems, too. Pictured is an assortment of quill and lugged stems to fit more modern threadless steerer tubes.

Based out of Blacktown, Sydney, Richard Walker is a part-time hobbyist builder who spends his weekdays designing (and making) products at a scientific test equipment company. As Walker explained, all the classic builders in Sydney had stopped making frames, and the geometry of stock bikes just didn’t suit him. He was already doing a lot of brazing at work, so he thought he’d make bikes.

All the component touch points are done in stainless steel. Manganese bronze is used for brazing the Reynolds 853 front triangle, with silver solder used elsewhere.

Walker likes to stick with standard down tube stops for the classic look. A custom frame, fork and headset sell for AU$2,500.

Built by David Murphy in Newport, Victoria, these custom wooden bikes are made of Australian timber, marine ply, and flax. Murphy, under the brand of Damu Plycycles, has been building these hollow wooden bikes since 2016.

“This frame was recently put through the relevant Australian standards tests and passed with flying colours,” Damu Plycycles state on their web site. “220kg of force was put on the frame from front axle to rear axle, deflecting it 21 mm before it sprung back into shape undamaged.”

The unconventional handlebar shape, where the brake hoods are pointed toward the ground, is said to be comparable to drop bars, but in a shape that’s more suited to being made of timber. Wood you buy one?

With some 23 years as a painter in the automotive world, Steve Gardner realised his skill set could earn him a living where his passion was: cycling. After first meeting up with the guys at Bastion, and then more recently Curve Cycling and Prova, Bikes by Steve was born. As pictured on the Prova bikes above, Steve’s skills and attention to detail are impressive.

Pictured is a Trek Speed Concept Gardner painted for a customer that wanted their bike to match the graffiti-style art of their jersey.

The post Handmade Bicycle Show Australia 2018: The newcomers appeared first on CyclingTips.

Liv’s newest model, the Langma, made its debut last July at women’s pro cycling’s biggest race, the 10-day Giro Donne in Italy. With plenty of uphill, it was the perfect launching pad for a featherweight race machine that bridges the gap between the company’s Envie aero bike and the more endurance-oriented Avail. Ella editor Anne-Marije Rook took delivery of a Langma Advanced Pro Disc, and promptly put it through its paces.

“This? This?” my 18-month-old nephew coos as he strokes the top tube of a brand new Liv Langma Advanced Pro 1 Disc.

From the moment I pulled up at his house, his eyes had been transfixed on the bike. And I can see why. The metallic red colour is an absolute head-turner, just like the rest of the colour schemes in Liv’s new Langma line.

Filling the gap between the endurance-oriented Avail and the Envie aero race bike, the Langma is Liv’s long-awaited all-rounder with an aim to give riders an edge whenever the roads turn up.

The Langma made its debut last July at women’s pro cycling’s biggest race, the 10-day Giro Donne in Italy. With plenty of uphill, it was the perfect stage for a featherweight race machine, which the women of Team Sunweb rode to a stage win.

At the time, I had the opportunity to test ride a special, top-end edition of the Langma Advanced SL, but it left me wanting a closer, more in-depth look. And so Liv sent over a retail version I hadn’t yet seen: the disc brake-equipped Langma Advanced Pro 1 Disc.

I took the bike over to Idaho, where the winter weather was a bit more forgiving than the Pacific Northwest, and also more suitable for riding up and down some hills. And what I found was that the Langma is far more than just a pretty colour.

Introducing Liv’s newest member

Named after the tallest peak on earth — Mount Everest, or “Qomolangma” in Tibetan — the Langma is clearly marketed as a climber’s bike, which is the one model that was noticeably missing from the Liv lineup.

When Giant launched its sister brand, Liv, in 2012, the Envie aero bike was the only option for women looking for a high-end, race-capable bike.

At the time, some of the best female cyclists, like Marianne Vos, Pauline Ferrand-Prevot, and Anna van der Breggen, did ride to victory aboard this Envie, but when the Rio Olympics and its demanding, hilly race course neared, riders found the aero bike to be limiting.

Ultimately, Liv-sponsored riders ended up riding a re-branded Giant TCR instead.

This simply wouldn’t do.

And so with the help of riders like Coryn Rivera and Lucinda Brand, Liv went back to the drawing board to address this missing link in the line.

Geometry and weight was at the forefront in creating the Langma, which at just 6.05kg (13.34lb) for a small, top-of-the-line Langma Advanced Pro SL model, is the lightest bike Liv or Giant has ever made.

| Related: Team Sunweb premiers featherweight new bike

And while it serves the same niche as the TCR does for Giant, the Langma is certainly not a feminised version of Giant’s flagship road bike. With a completely new geometry, it stands on its own.

The bike at a glance

It took a few years, but with the Langma, Liv is hoping to fill the gap and offer “a complete bike” – one with the agility and responsiveness to contest a sprint while still being light and comfortable enough to climb and go the distance.

Sure enough, one look at the geometry chart and you’ll see just how different the Langma frame is in comparison to its sister, the Envie.

The Envie sports an aggressive yet more stretched-out riding position, and a frame with wide, drag-reducing tubing.

In contrast, the Langma has a noticeably compact frame with remarkably small front and rear triangles and thin tubing throughout. Just look at the difference in standover height alone: the Langma frame’s standover height is a full 6cm shorter; the seat tube is 5cm shorter.

While most of the tubing seem to have undergone a slimming process, some aerodynamic and power-transfer features did carry over from previous models.

For example, the aerodynamic down tube is tapered in profile, widening as it leads into the “Powercore” bottom bracket. This massively oversized bottom bracket and chainstay area is also a key feature on the Liv Envie and Giant TCR, and aids in the frame’s stiffness and power transfer.

Likewise, the front of the bike features Giant’s OverDrive2 oversized headset bearings (1 1/4-inch top and 1 1/2-inch bottom bearings) for responsive steering.

To accommodate the disc brakes, the Langma Advanced Pro Disc does sport a slightly different design and lay-up than its rim-brake siblings, with changes made to the chainstay and fork to better balance out the braking forces.

And unlike the top-of-the-range rim-brake equipped models, the Langma Advanced Pro Disc does not feature an integrated seat post nor Giant’s signature oversized carbon fibre stem.

It’s also important to note that the bike reviewed here is a mid-range model with slightly lower-grade materials and components than the top-of the-line Langma Advanced Pro SL. Add in the disc brakes and you get a package that is significantly heavier than the featherweight range topper. But at 7.6kg (16.76lb), this consumer-friendly model is still remarkably light for a disc-brake bike.

In my opinion, the extra kilo is a fair compromise for the added stopping power, and the significant money savings.

Whereas the model reviewed here, the Langma Advanced Pro Disc, retails for US$3,315 (AU$4,699), its rim-brake version, the Langma Advanced Pro will cost you an extra US$1,200, and the top-of-the-line Langma Advanced SL retails for a tough-to-justify US$10,000 (AU$10,999).

The ride

I rode and raced the Liv Envie Advanced 0 for several years, and quickly found that comparing the Envie with the Langma, is like comparing apples to oranges. They are two completely different breeds, and I can see why Team Sunweb is opting to have both in their quiver.

A fair compromise between an endurance bike and a speed machine, the Langma was playful and reactive without the harshness that often comes with an ultra-stiff aero bike.

Whereas the Envie feels more rigid and faster than the Langma, the latter is definitely more comfortable on longer or hillier rides. As the market is increasingly trending toward more mixed-pavement and adventure riding, comfort is critical.

With clearance for at least 28mm-wide tyres and shipped with tubeless-ready wheels, the Langma Advanced Pro 1 Disc does not limit you to smooth tarmac. I probably rode the demo bike on as many hardpacked dirt roads as I did on asphalt, and I was impressed with how capable the ride was — I barely felt any chatter or bouncing.

To me, disc brakes always slightly blunt the liveliness of a bike yet the Langma was pleasantly responsive when called into action for city-limit sprints or while dancing on the pedals up a climb. While some bikes can feel as though you’re dragging it up the hill with you, the Langma feels like it’s working with you, not against you.

The flat-mount Ultegra hydraulic brakes are outstanding, and certainly inspire confidence while descending. With that said, there’s more to going downhill than the confidence in the bike’s stopping power alone, and I will say that the Envie is a more stable, surer-footed descender. Perhaps it’s the Langma’s tiny frame, or it could simply be my familiarity with Liv’s other models, but I felt myself descending with a little bit more caution than I normally do. I didn’t feel unsafe by any means, but also not my usual daredevil self.

All in all, this is exactly the bike that was missing from the Liv line-up. It’s playful, responsive, and capable of racing. Yet the Langma Advanced Disc 1 truly shines on those long days where the finish is not a white line, but a hard-earned view, and the reward comes in the form of a nice, long descent.

Plus, the bike sports one of the best paint jobs I have yet seen on a Liv bike, which never hurts. Every model in the Langma line has its own vibrant colourway and computer generated graphics. This one is called “metallic ruby red,” and ranges from an almost dark burnt orange to a glistening red depending on the light.

The Giant Gavia AC1 Tires have a little more texture than the slick Gavia SL tires.

The custom aero spacers blend nicely with the headset cover.

The aero spacers look fancy, but work the same as standard ones for easy bar height adjustments.

The Giant SLR 1 carbon wheels, 28mm-wide Giant Gavia AC 1 tubeless tires, and Shimano flat mount hydraulic brakes made for a strong combination on dirt roads.

The profiled spacers perhaps work better with Giant’s carbon fiber stem than this forged aluminum one.

The metallic ruby red finish is stunning.

The frame tubing is mildly aero-inspired, but designed more for low weight.

Giant launched its sister brand, Liv, in 2012. And while it is treated as a standalone brand, there’s no mistaking where the bikes are made.

Liv says the front triangle — consisting of the down tube, head tube, seat tube and top tube — is constructed of larger, and therefore fewer, sections of composite material than usual. The individual parts are then molded as one continuous piece.

The internal seatpost binder is neatly tucked away under a rubber cap.

A cross-over from the Giant model as well as the Liv Envie, the PowerCore press-fit bottom bracket supposedly increases stiffness and stability.

The post Liv Langma Advanced Pro Disc review: The complete all-rounder we have been waiting for appeared first on CyclingTips.

In this edition of Bikes of the Bunch, John Catalano tells us about his new Prova Razzo. He’s been cycling for almost thirty years and owned more than half a dozen bikes, but this one was a very special project, inspired by a disease that he has been struggling with, both professionally and personally.

I’m a haematologist (recently retired) and most of my work concerned clinical trials for blood malignancies, including quite a lot of work in myeloma. When I was a registrar, none of the consultants wanted to see patients with myeloma because we only had one drug that worked in about 50% of patients. Since then, there have been a zillion treatments come through that have more than doubled the average survival for patients.

I diagnosed my own case of myeloma seven years ago, had some treatment, and then a bone marrow transplant. For somebody like me, a young (late-50s at the time) and transplant-eligible patient, survival is now out to ten years, which is fantastic. I’ve often said I almost feel privileged to have a disease that can be treated.

I’m currently on my sixth line of therapy and my fourth clinical trial, and have been responding reasonably well, but my disease went pear-shaped about the middle of 2017. I was doing a trip in Norway, inspired by a CyclingTips Roadtripping article, and I was feeling really fagged by the end of it, so it wasn’t a great surprise that my disease had gone bad by the time I got back.

I had some other treatment, but I wasn’t responding to that, and things were starting to look pretty shitty, really, so that’s when I started thinking about another bike. If I wanted to get another bike, and have it for long enough to enjoy it, then I had to get it now rather than wait. I’m not at death’s edge by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m not going to be living to be an old man.

Myeloma is characterised by the uncontrolled proliferation of plasma cells in the bone marrow that then show up in the blood. For John, they were an obvious choice for decorating his new bike.

It had been seven years since my previous bike — a Parlee Z5 — and I had been humming and ha’ing about a new bike for about a year. The only material I hadn’t had was titanium so I was sort of thinking about that. A couple of my early bikes — a Merckx and a Scapin — were steel, and as I was getting closer to making a decision, I found myself remembering how much I loved those steel bikes. So I started looking at some high-end steel bikes — Cherubim, Stelbel, Vanilla, Speedvagen, and that sort of thing.

My bike mechanic is Dan from Shifter Bikes. I first met him seven years ago when he built my Parlee Z5. We had built up a great working relationship, so I asked him what he reckoned. That was when he suggested I try Prova Cycles. At that stage, I didn’t realise that Dan had already assembled one of Mark’s bikes that I’d soon be reading about on CyclingTips.

Mark’s workshop was nearby and easy to get to, so I made an appointment, and it was one of those things that sort of melded straight away. The guy was very easy to talk to, very knowledgable, and never condescending. I spent maybe two hours there, I suppose, and I pretty much made up my mind on the spot.

Mark’s fascinating to talk to. He has an engineering background — he was with Jaguar racing for a while — and it comes out when you talk to the guy about what you want and what he can do.

For me, the measure of a good bike frame is how comfortable I feel when descending. You really want to be comfortable with the thing when you’re stressing it downhill. I wanted a bike that was comfortable, a bike that I was going to spend a lot of hours on, and because I wanted to go down hills fast, I talked about a lower bottom bracket.

Mark Hester uses his own custom stainless steel dropouts when building a Razzo.

I’m a bit of a fiddler, so I’ve had a few bike fits over the years. I sent him a few copies of those, plus an existing bike, and we used that as the base. We fiddled around for a couple of hours until he was comfortable with the way I looked and I felt comfortable on the bike itself.

The wait wasn’t very long, about three months, which suited me nicely. This would have been September 2017, which meant I might have the bike ready for the Tour Down Under in January. A little bit of a wait is good because it heightens the anticipation, but if it goes on and on and on, it almost becomes counter-productive, I think.

It gave me time to settle back, and I suppose I could have changed my mind in that time-frame, but I could really start thinking about all the bits and pieces that had been swirling around in my mind for the last year or so. It was always going to be the last bike, so there were no restrictions. I was going to put everything that I wanted on it.

I knew in my mind that pearlescent white had to be the base colour for this bike. I’ve always loved the finish of the team Mapei Colnagos, so I wanted to use that as a bit of a basis, too, and I knew exactly how I wanted to use it. I wanted to replace the coloured blocks with plasma cells from my disease. It’s a very personal sort of thing: this whole myeloma crap completely dominates my existence, and I try not to bore other people with that, but I thought it was just a natural thing to go onto the bike.

The paint job is exactly as I envisaged it. I sent the painter (Steve Gardner at Bikes by Steve) some photos of what multiple myeloma looks like under the microscope, and the result is very faithful to the real thing.

Picking out the parts was a lot of fun, and there’s a story behind every one, starting with the wheels.

I’ve never had carbon wheels before, and was planning to get a set of Tune Skyline alloy wheels. At 1,250g or thereabouts, they’re about as light as you could ever get for a set of alloy wheels. So I placed an order with the local distributor and they took ages to be built, and then they were sent to the wrong place. Meanwhile, our timeline for the TDU was getting tighter and tighter, and they still hadn’t arrived.

It was the first week and January when I bumped into a guy that was trying to get rid of a set of carbon tubulars. They were Tune Skyline (!), a wheelset that I’d come close to buying a couple of years earlier, but in the end, I couldn’t justify it. This time, I was on some chemotherapy, taking industrial doses of dexamethasone, and one of the side-effects is that I go really manic on it. That very morning, my wife said to me, “Don’t do anything stupid today, whatever you do!”

So I ask the guy — just out of interest — how much he wanted for them, and they were about half-price. So I thought, “That’s such a bargain, I think better I take those!” So I ended up with a set of wheels that I really didn’t need.

When you come off the dexamethasone, you go really flat, so three days later, I’m on a low, and I really started regretted buying them. I was feeling like a real goose but I ended up showing them to Dan at Shifter Bikes, and he made me feel better about them straight away. He was convinced they would be perfect for me, so that’s how they ended up on the bike, and they’re absolutely gorgeous to ride.

I’ve pretty much always used Campagnolo parts, and always mechanical. I’ve ridden hire bikes with Di2 and it’s fantastic, particularly the front shifting, but I love the tactile and auditory feel of Campy. Maybe there’s a tiny bit of snob in me as well, but I’ve always been a Campy man.

I first came across eebrakes when I was in Italy some years ago. Then, a mate got a set and he was happy with them, so I decided to get a set for the Parlee. I really wanted to get a set of silver eebrakes so I started corresponding with Craig Edwards (the owner of eecycleworks) and he managed to find a set for me.

I saw the limited-edition El Chulo eebrakes in the middle of 2017, but at that stage I hadn’t made up my mind about a bike, so I didn’t do anything about it. A few months later, when things going a bit pear-shaped medically and I’d decided to go for the bike, I remembered the brakes, so I got in touch with Craig again. Orders had closed but Craig was pretty sure he could find a set for me. And sure enough, he did, and they were perfect for it.

Build Details

Frame: Prova Razzo custom steel, fillet-brazed
Fork: Enve road
Headset: Cane Creek
Stem: 3T ARX II
Handlebars: Enve
Shifters and derailleurs: Campagnolo Record mechanical
Cranks: THM Clavicula
Brakes: eebrakes
Wheels: Tune Skyline carbon tubulars (pictured); Tune Skyline alloy (not pictured).
Tyres: Vittoria Corsa 25c
Seatpost: Enve
Saddle: Pro Stealth with Busyman Bicycles custom finish
Pedals: Time
Bar tape: Busyman Bicycles custom tape
Weight: With alloy wheels, 7.2kg; with carbon tubulars, 6.8kg

The whole bike came together just in time for me to ride it at the Tour Down Under, but it was touch and go. There was a bike show on the Sunday before the TDU started that Mark wanted to show the bike at, so it had to be ready to go with him on the Saturday. Dan was super busy that week, too, but managed to set aside some time on the Friday to get the bike built. However, the saddle wasn’t ready.

Busyman Bicycles was giving it a custom leather cover, and even though it was brand new, he had a lot of trouble getting the old cover off. So the bike left without it, but Mick promised to have it ready on the Monday. I was having chemotherapy for most of that day, but once I was finished with it, I caught a tram and walked to Mick’s place to pick up the saddle just as he was finishing it. Then I went home, collected my bag, and hopped on my flight to Adelaide.

I took my first ride on the bike on the Wednesday at the TDU. Up the first hill, I felt that it was riding pretty nice, but then we went across the top and down to the bottom, and that was when the engineering that I wanted for descending delivered unbelievably. I could lean it over, swap from side-to-side, and it would track perfectly.

I’ve been lucky and privileged to ride some pretty nice bikes over the years, but this one rides even better. Everybody says the same thing about their custom bikes — it rides like a dream et cetera — but the whole thing, it was just like a glove. It’s just fantastic to ride. There’s no flexing in it at all but it’s still comfy. It ticks all the boxes.

The bike has always been really important to me. When I was riding to work, I could plan my day, and at the end of it, riding home is just a great way to de-stress. Now, as I go through various stages of coping and not coping, psychologically and physically, the bike is still really important for helping me go through this journey.

The post Bikes of the Bunch: Prova Cycles Razzo custom steel road bike appeared first on CyclingTips.

Carbon wheelsets may be more popular than ever, but alloy clinchers still dominate the market, if only because they are much cheaper to buy. Better yet, time has proven that alloy wheels are incredibly robust and reliable, and with the rise of factory-built wheelsets, they are also very easy to obtain at short notice.

Fulcrum has enjoyed enormous success based on its ability to service this sector of the market. It is one of just a handful of major manufacturers that maintains a deep catalogue of alloy wheelsets that caters to a wide range of price points. As a result, it’s inevitable that buyers looking for a new set of alloy wheels will spend time considering what the brand has to offer.

In this review, Australian tech editor Matt Wikstrom tests three of Fulcrum’s alloy wheelsets — the Racing Zero, Racing 3, and Racing 5 LG — to see what each has to offer. While his results are clear — you get what you pay for — the distinction between each is not as great as the difference in price.

It has been almost 15 years since Campagnolo launched Fulcrum, a brand that was created to sell the company’s factory-built wheelsets. At the time, the popularity of factory-built wheelsets was on the rise and Campagnolo understood that it needed a separate identity to maximise the appeal of its wheels.

It was a canny decision because Fulcrum quickly grew to become a recognised wheel manufacturer that could compete with brands like Mavic and Shimano for both OEM and aftermarket sales. And, as hoped, buyers were prepared to pair Fulcrum’s wheels with any brand of groupset by taking advantage of the choice of Shimano/SRAM- or Campagnolo-compatible freehub bodies.

Fulcrum’s wheels are not simply re-badged Campagnolo products (or vice versa) even though the two brands share much of the same technology. For example, Campagnolo’s distinctive G3 lacing pattern for the rear wheel does not appear anywhere in Fulcrum’s catalogue, and its wheels are purely road- and track-oriented. By contrast, Fulcrum’s wheel range is much more diverse, including lower-priced offerings and wheels for MTB and cyclocross/gravel.

There are over twenty wheelsets in Fulcrum’s current road catalogue with a choice of aluminium alloy, carbon/alloy, and carbon rims. Rim profiles range from 25-55mm with options to suit clinchers, tubeless, and tubular tyres as well as rim- and disc-brakes. And all but the carbon/alloy hybrid rims now have external widths between 22.5-24mm, along with 17mm beds that are better suited to 25c tyres.

All of Fulcrum’s alloy wheelsets wear the “Racing” prefix along with a model number; as a rule, the higher the number, the cheaper the wheelset (although the Racing Quattro Carbon is an obvious exception). The wheels also get heavier with fewer technical features as the model number increases.

The Racing Zero, 3, and 5 models have all been in Fulcrum’s catalogue for over a decade, and together, they essentially define the spectrum of options that the company has to offer for its alloy wheelsets. As such, I decided to bring all of them together for this review — courtesy of Fulcrum’s Australian distributor, FRF Sports — to learn more about what each has to offer, and to decide just how much difference there is in performance of each.

Racing 5 LG: a modest upgrade at a reasonable price

The Racing 5 LG is an unassuming wheelset with a relatively low asking price, however it does have a few features — like wide rims, a low spoke count, bladed stainless steel spokes, and alloy nipples — that make for a modest upgrade from an entry-level wheelset.

It has been some years since the first wide-profile road rims began appearing on the market, and after some initial hesitation, Fulcrum has been slowly overhauling its Racing wheelsets with wider rims. Where once the Racing 5 featured rims with a 15mm bed, it has grown to 17mm for the Racing 5 LG (LG stands for large) with an external width of 23mm. On paper, the difference may seem minor, but it’s enough to alter the contact patch of the tyre to provide more grip and comfort.

The front rim of the Racing 5 LG is 24.5mm-tall compared to 27.5mm for the rear. This differential in rim height promises a little extra lateral stiffness for the rear wheel while saving some weight for the front wheel. And in another nod to the unique demands on each rim, the rear rim has an asymmetrical profile that offsets the spoke nipples to the left so as to help even out the spoke tension between the driveside and non-driveside of the wheel.

Spoke tension is always much higher on the driveside of any wheel fitted with multiple sprockets, and the imbalance accelerates spoke fatigue. Over the years, a number of strategies have been developed to ameliorate this imbalance, and it is generally accepted that even a minor increase in spoke tension on the non-driveside of the wheel is beneficial.

In the case of the Racing 5 LG, offsetting the spoke nipples towards the non-driveside of the wheel reduces the length of spokes required, which in turn, produces a small increase in spoke tension. In addition, the driveside flange on the rear hub is considerably larger than the non-driveside one, and Fulcrum also uses a differential spoke lacing pattern: two-cross on the driveside, and radial on the non-driveside. Taken together, the design ensures a sturdy wheel where the tension on the non-drive-side spokes is no less than half that of the drive-side spokes. For the Racing 5 LG sample sent for review, driveside tension measured ~110kgf compared to ~55kgf for the non-driveside.

The front wheel is laced with 18 spokes while the rear wheel has 20. That’s a low spoke count, even by contemporary standards, and while Fulcrum insists on a weight limit for the rider, it’s pretty generous at 109kg. With that said, for those riders that are close to this limit and/or desire an exceptionally stiff rear wheel, I’d recommend a higher spoke count, taller rims, or both.

The straight-pull and bladed stainless steel spokes add a modern touch to the wheels, but a broken spoke may be difficult to replace at short notice. At least Fulcrum has not resorted to a proprietary spoke design, so any 14-gauge (2.0mm) straight-pull spoke (round or bladed) in a matching length should suffice.

 

 

 

 

 

The asymmetric rear rim is a subtle feature that improves spoke tension on the non-drive-side of the rear wheel.

A set of skewers with external cams is supplied with the Racing 5 LG.

 

The Racing 5 LG is served by a fairly simple alloy hubset with hollow alloy axles and cartridge bearings. Each hub is easy to pull down for servicing with just a few common tools (17mm spanner, 5mm hex key, and a 2.5mm hex key), however specialised tools will be required to replace the cartridge bearings. A locking threaded collar allows the amount of play in the axle to be adjusted, although some care should be taken to prevent overloading the cartridge bearings.

All of Fulcrum’s rear hubs utilise the same design for the freehub body. The drive mechanism comprises three pawls that are secured by a light spring and a 30-tooth ratchet-ring in the hub body. It’s a simple design that is hard-wearing and easy to service. With that said, the internal cartridge bearings that support the freehub body on the axle of the wheel are prone to wear, and while the outer bearing is relatively easy and inexpensive to replace, the inner bearing (at the base of the freehub body) can be difficult to remove.

The Racing 5 LG is made in Romania and Taiwan, and is finished with machined brake tracks and alloy nipples (red, no less). Total weight for the wheelset is a modest 1,732g (front, 764g; rear, 968g), including rim strips, but without skewers.

The Racing 5 LG has a recommended retail price of AU$360/US$390/€288 and includes a pair of rim strips, skewers, and a choice of an 11-speed Shimano/SRAM- or Campagnolo-compatible freehub body.

The front hub of the Racing 5 LG is relatively easy to dismantle.

The end cap unplugs from the axle and then a 2.5mm hex key is required to unlock the threaded bearing collar, which then unwinds from the axle.

There is a bearing shield under the collar that simply slips off the axle.

There’s no need to service the cartridge bearings; just replace them whenever any play develops. A smear of grease can be added on top of the bearing for extra water resistance.

The front axle assembly comprises just a few simple components.

The rear hub of the Racing 5 LG is also quite simple to dismantle, starting with undoing the axle cap with a 17mm spanner after a 5mm hex key is used to secure the axle from the opposite side.

A 2.5mm hex key is required to unlock the bearing collar…

… which then unwinds from the axle.

Like the front hub, there is a shield on the bearing that simply slips off the axle.

The axle is then free to slide out of the hub, leaving behind a cartridge bearing on each side.

The driveside axle bearing sits below the drive ring, but there’s no need to remove it when replacing the bearing.

Rear axle assembly with the freehub body.

The freehub body of the Racing 5 LG (and all Fulcrum road wheelsets) can be serviced without removing the rear axle. A 5mm hex key is used to hold the axle while a 17mm spanner is used to unwind the lock nut, which loosens in a clockwise direction.

A spacer sits below the locknut that slides off the axle…

… and then the freehub body is ready to be removed.

The rear axle remains in place after the freehub body has been removed.

There are two cartridge bearings within the freehub body that can be replaced if they develop any play.

Racing 3: a mid-level wheelset that blends features with economies

The Racing 3 is positioned two tiers above the Racing 5 LG, and as such, it is a more sophisticated wheelset that weighs less and costs more. Nevertheless, the two wheelsets still share a few features, such as moderately wide rims, low spoke counts, stainless steel spokes, alloy hubs and nipples, and differential rim profiles.

The Racing 3 rims have the same 17mm bed as the Racing 5 LG, however the external width is a little narrower (22.5mm) and the rims are constructed from a higher-strength alloy (6082-T6). And like the Racing 5 LG, the rear rim of the Racing 3 is a little taller than the front, 29.5mm versus 26.5mm, but there is no asymmetrical profile. Instead, the front and rear rims are machined in between the spoke holes, not only to save weight, but also to balance the rim without compromising durability.

Another key difference is one that normally goes unseen: the rim bed of the Racing 3 is not drilled with entry holes for spoke nipples like the Racing 5 LG. This has nothing to do with tubeless tyres, because the Racing 3 is not tubeless-compatible; rather, it makes for a stronger and more robust rim. In addition, there is no need for rim tape, but it makes it much trickier to assemble the wheels. At the factory, each nipple is fitted with a steel inset so that a magnet can be used to thread each nipple through the rim cavity.

The Racing 3 is built with the same kind of bladed straight-pull stainless steel spokes and alloy nipples as the Racing 5 LG, however the front wheel has 16 spokes while the rear wheel has 21. The same rider weight limit of 109kg applies to the Racing 3.

At face value, the lacing pattern used for the Racing 3 is identical to the Racing 5 LG, and while that is true for the front wheel, the arrangement of the spokes in the rear wheel is quite different. Instead of arranging the spokes evenly on each side of the wheel like the Racing 5 LG, the Racing 3 has twice as many driveside spokes.

Fulcrum refers to this arrangement as its 2:1 spoke ratio, but it is no difference from a triplet lacing pattern that has long been used by wheelbuilders. And for good reason, because it is a proven strategy for reducing the imbalance in spoke tension for the rear wheel.

With fewer spokes on the non-driveside, more tension is required on each spoke to centre the rim over the hub, and while this strategy doesn’t achieve a perfect balance, non-driveside spoke tension is typically greater than 50% of the drive-side spokes. For the Racing 3 sample sent for review, tension on the non-drive-side spokes was measured at ~70kgf compared to ~110kgf for the driveside spokes, which is a marked improvement over the Racing 5 LG.

 

The exterior of Racing 3 rims are machined in between the spoke holes to remove some weight from the rims.

 

 

 

Compared to the rim bed of the Racing 5 LG (right), the Racing 3 has just one hole for the valve stem.

 

The Racing 3 is supplied with a set of internal-cam skewers.

 

The hubs that are found in the Racing 3 are made from aluminium alloy, and have oversized hollow axles that are supported by traditional cup-and-cone bearings. Pulling down the hubs for service is similar to the Racing 5 LG, however the bearings can be cleaned and re-greased with ease. No special tools are required, and the bearings are easy to adjust with a threaded sleeve that locks on to the axle with a small bolt.

The freehub body of the Racing 3 has the same design as the Racing 5 LG, but rather than steel, it is made from aluminium. It is supported on the axle by the same two cartridge bearings, and uses the same driver design, with three pawls that engage with a 30-tooth ratchet ring in the hub.

The Racing 3 wheelset sent for review weighed 1,590g (front, 690g; rear, 900g), making for a weight saving of 142g over the Racing 5 LG, but it comes at a significant cost: the recommended retail price for the Racing 3 is AU$750/US$791/€599.

Like the Racing 5 LG, the Racing 3 is made in Romania and Taiwan, and is supplied with skewers plus a choice of an 11-speed Shimano/SRAM- or Campagnolo-compatible freehub body.

The end cap of the axle unwinds with a 5mm hex key, but a second 5mm hex key is required to secure the axle from the opposite side.

A 2.5mm hex is required to unlock the bearing collar, which then winds off the axle.

The bearing cone is not threaded; instead, a compression ring locks it into place (like the upper assembly of a threadless headset).

A light tap on the axle is normally enough to free the compression ring and cone, which then slide freely off the axle.

The bearings are held in place by a shield, which can be pried off with a small screwdriver. There’s no need to worry about loose balls falling to the ground because they are held in a retainer.

Compared to the Racing 5 LG, there are a lot more parts in the front hub, but it’s much easier to service the bearings.

The rear hub of the Racing 3 is pulled down in exactly the same manner as the front hub.

The end cap is removed with a 5mm hex key, then the collar is unlocked with a 2.5mm hex key.

Once the collar has been removed, a tap on the axle will release the compression ring and cone…

… which will slide off the axle as it is removed from the hub.

A shield keeps the bearings in the hub.

A small screwdriver is all that is needed to lift the shield off each bearing.

Rear axle assembly including the freehub body.

The freehub body can be removed from the rear wheel in the same way as shown for the Racing 5 LG (see above).

Racing Zero: staking out the upper-end of the alloy wheelset market

The Racing Zero is Fulcrum’s most expensive alloy wheelset, and the only alloy wheelset that the company produces in Italy. These wheels have a variety of high-end features that save some weight and improve the performance of the wheels, however the design and assembly remains unchanged from the Racing 3.

Racing Zero rims are made from the same 6082-T6 aluminium alloy, and prior to milling, they share the same basic form as Racing 3 rims. Extra milling is used to carve away more material between the spoke holes to further reduce the weight of the rim, though the final dimensions of the rims remain much the same. Thus, the front and rear rims are 27mm and 30mm-tall, respectively, with an external width of 22.5mm and a 17mm-wide tyre bed.

The machining process is also used to balance the rim, such that extra material is left behind to offset the weight of the valve stem. While the final result is subject to the length of the valve stem, it promises to smooth out the rotation of the wheels.

The front wheel of the Racing Zero has 18 spokes, laced radially, and 21 spokes for the rear, arranged according to Fulcrum’s 2:1 lacing pattern, just like the Racing 3. But while the Racing 3 is built with stainless steel spokes, the Racing Zero makes use of proprietary straight-pull aluminium alloy spokes with oversized alloy nipples. According to Fulcrum, they offer a weight saving of almost 2g/spoke, but they are expensive to replace and difficult to source at short notice.

The front hub of the Racing Zero has a carbon fibre shell in between the alloy flanges while the rear hub is all alloy. The internals are essentially identical to Racing 3 hubs with hollow alloy axles and cup-and-cone bearings, however the standard steel balls have been replaced by Fulcrum’s USB ceramic balls. A few common tools (17mm spanner, a pair of 5mm hex keys, and a 2.5mm hex key) are all that is required to dismantle and service the hubs.

 

Like the Racing 3, the rims of the Racing Zero are machined between the spoke holes, but the treatment is much more obvious.

 

 

 

Oversized alloy spokes require oversized alloy nipples.

 

The Racing Zero is supplied with the same internal-cam skewers as the Racing 3.

 

The Shimano/SRAM-compatible freehub body that is fitted to the Racing Zero is made from alloy, however it is treated with “plasma”, hence the white finish. According to Fulcrum, this treatment renders the freehub body more resistant to the bite of sprockets.

All of these refinements produces a wheelset that weighs 1,482g (front, 634g; rear, 848g) without skewers, making for a saving of 108g over the Racing 3. As for the asking price, expect to pay around AU$1,200/US$1,244/€916, though some buyers may be tempted by a couple of extra upgrades that are offered for the Racing Zero.

The first is the Racing Zero Nite, which is essentially a stealth version of the wheelset that sells for AU$1,400/US$1,546/€1,190. The rims are treated with a plasma electrolytic oxidation coating that yields an all-black finish along with an extra-durable brake track that requires specialised pads. Alternatively, there is the Racing Zero Competizione, which sells for AU$1,500/US$1,645/€1,247, and feature tubeless-ready rims along with hubs that have been upgraded with carbon shells and Fulcrum’s premium CULT ceramic bearings, which are built with crygenically treated steel bearing races.

The assembly of the Racing Zero front hub is identical to the Racing 3.

The same set of tools is required to remove the axle and bearings.

The axle won’t fall out of the hub until the compression ring and cone are dislodged.

Once the axle has been removed, the bearing shield can be lifted out of the hub with a small screwdriver…

… so that the bearings can be removed for cleaning and re-greasing.

The rear hub of the Racing Zero is also dismantled in the same way as the Racing 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rear axle assembly of the Racing Zero.

The freehub body can be removed from the rear hub and axle in the same way as the Racing 5 LG.

A light spring holds all three pawls in place, and sits within a slot that circles the freehub body.

This spring can be lifted off the pawls for servicing, but some care is required to avoid bending it.

A comparison of the Shimano/SRAM free hub bodies: Racing 5 LG (steel, left), Racing 3 (alloy, centre), and Racing Zero (plasma-treated alloy, right). Plasma treatment of the Racing Zero freehub body creates a harder surface finish that is more resistant to sprocket-bite.

Summary of features, weights and prices

From the discussion above, it’s clear that the Racing 5 LG, Racing 3, and Racing Zero all have some common features, and as the price of the wheelset increases, so too does the number of refinements. All of these features, including weights and prices, are summarised in the table below:

It’s worth noting that the difference in the asking price for the Racing 3 and Racing Zero over the Racing 5 LG is far greater than the weight savings they offer. The Racing 3 costs more than twice as much as the Racing 5 LG yet weighs just 8% less; the Racing Zero, by contrast, costs three times more than the Racing 5 LG and offers a 14% weight saving.

Of course, the Racing 3 and Racing Zero have more to offer than just weight savings. Of these, it’s the improvement in the balance of spoke tension for the rear wheel and the cup-and-cone bearings that stand out for me. That’s because the former promises to extend the life of the wheels, while the latter is not only easier to service and maintain, but also more durable than conventional radial cartridge bearings.

On the flip side, the use of proprietary alloy spokes utilised by the Racing Zero is something of a turn-off compared to the more conventional stainless steel spokes of the Racing 3. For most riders, this is unlikely to be an issue, especially during the first year or two of ownership, but spoke fatigue is unavoidable as the wheels age.

As a result, I see the Racing 3 as the strongest proposition on paper. These wheels have almost all of the same features as the Racing Zero, and while they weigh a little more, they cost a lot less. The Racing 3 is still quite pricey, though, so it won’t appeal to bargain hunters, but it sits well against similarly priced wheelsets from other brands, such as Mavic’s Ksyrium Elite and Shimano’s RS700.

After the ride

A systematic approach was adopted for assessing the on-road performance of the Racing 5 LG, Racing 3, and Racing Zero. Each wheelset was fitted with a pair of 25c Michelin Power Competition tyres that were inflated to 70psi. The same bike (Baum Corretto) was used for every ride. The wheels were tested on a range of paved surfaces and a mixture of climbs and descents.

Overall, each wheelset behaved exactly as expected for a good set of low-profile alloy clinchers: easy to ride, untroubled by the wind, sturdy with no obvious lateral flex, with excellent braking. And in general terms, they performed equally well to the point where I found it difficult to discern one from the other.The Racing 5 LG, Racing 3, and Racing Zero could all be ridden on a wide variety of terrain with satisfaction, be it under power on flat roads, grinding up hills, or bombing tricky descents.

It was only when I started looking closely at how well I could accelerate that I noticed a difference between the wheelsets. The Racing 5 LG suffered the most from some obvious inertia, which isn’t surprising given that they weighed over 1,700g. By comparison, the Racing 3 was a livelier wheelset because it was a little easier to accelerate from a standing start or on a slope.

Fulcrum’s Racing 5 LG is finished with black components for a contemporary look.

The red spoke nipples won’t suit all bikes, though.

 

The Racing 3 has a very subtle and stealth-like finish.

The hubs have a logo on them but it is black and easy to miss.

 

From a distance, the Racing Zero wheelset appears very similar to the Racing 5 LG and Racing 3.

Up close, though, the hubs are quite distinct, as are the oversized alloy spokes.

 

The Racing Zero was the most impressive wheelset under these conditions. Agile and responsive, it will probably impress most riders, especially those looking for a tangible upgrade from an entry- or mid-level wheelset. However, the distinction is a mild one at best, a nuance perhaps, and my sense of it was often fleeting.

Nevertheless, I quickly developed a preference for the Racing Zero. The extra agility and responsiveness of the wheels was probably the biggest part of that attraction, but my overall impression was that the wheels were simply a little nicer, and more enjoyable, to ride.

Having spent time on Fulcrum’s earlier wheelsets with narrow rims, the new 17mm bed is a welcome addition. Most tyres will sit a little wider on these rims (the 25c Michelin tyres measured 26mm at 70psi), and therefore, provide a little extra grip to improve the handling of the wheels. Lower tyre pressures can also be used for extra comfort. However, there is even more grip and comfort on offer with wider rims (such as Zipp’s 30 Course wheelset and Easton’s R90 SL rims), which is something that I’ve come to prize.

There was no discernible distinction in the ride quality of each wheelset. The Racing 5 LG, Racing 3, and Racing Zero all seemed adequately stiff without any overt rigidity or harshness. In the past, I had been convinced that the alloy spokes in the Racing Zero made for a more rigid wheel, but on this occasion, back-to-back testing did not reveal any difference between the wheelsets. In contrast, altering the tyre pressure had an obvious impact on the amount of feedback coming from the wheels, regardless of the model, so this is what buyers should pay attention to when putting the wheels to use.

As a road tubeless convert, it’s disappointing to see that Fulcrum’s “2-Way Fit” has largely disappeared from its alloy clinchers. Tubeless compatibility remains an option for the Racing Zero, as mentioned above, but for buyers looking at cheaper wheels, it doesn’t exist. According to Fulcrum, there was very little demand for tubeless-ready wheels at the lower pricepoints, so it has been discontinued for the time being.

The Racing 5 LG, Racing 3, and Racing Zero were all trouble-free during my time on the wheels, however the review period was much too short to judge the reliability of the wheels. With that said, having inspected and serviced a multitude of Fulcrum wheelsets over the last decade, I’ve seen only one recurring problem, namely the cartridge bearings in the freehub body that can be quick to fail.

For those wondering about how much freewheeling buzz there is, the freehubs were quiet (but not silent) for all three wheelsets. I found the Michelin tyres and a set of Vittoria tyres were a pretty tight fit on these wheels, however both brands of tyres were quick to seat once inflated. The internal-cam skewers that are supplied with the Racing 3 and Zero were a pleasure to use; by contrast, the external-cam skewers that come with the Racing 5 LG are an obvious economy that are much less satisfying to use and will suffer once exposed to wet weather.

Summary and final thoughts

When factory-built wheelsets started to take hold of the market at the turn of the century, buyers were wooed by a heady combination of technical features and convenience. There was no longer a need to wait for a busy workshop to build a set of wheels; buyers could buy their wheels off-the-rack and start riding them the same day. As for the features, manufacturers were able to develop wheel systems with components that had been optimised to produce a robust and reliable wheelset.

This is what Fulcrum has been doing with its alloy clinchers for most of this century. At the heart of its alloy wheel collection is a reasonably lightweight wheel design with a versatile rim profile and a low spoke count to which a growing number of refinements are added to save weight and improve the performance of the wheels. As a result, the Racing Zero is more sophisticated and lighter than the Racing 3 and Racing 5 LG, and it proved to be livelier and more responsive, too.

However, in practical terms, the distinction between the Racing 5 LG, Racing 3, and Racing Zero was relatively minor — a matter of nuance — that might be lost on some riders. In my hands, the Racing Zero shined the brightest, but if I was spending the money, I’m not sure I could justify it.

With an asking price of AU$1,200/US$1,244/€916, and no prospect of readily re-building the wheels once the brake tracks have been scrubbed away (or a rim is damaged by a pothole), it’s a lot to pay for a consumable product. This has always been the Achilles’ heel of factory-built wheelsets, but judging from the way the market has grown over the last 20 years, it doesn’t seem to be something that troubles many shoppers.

From a pragmatic standpoint, the Racing 3 is more attractive on paper, and while it doesn’t quite match the performance of the Racing Zero on the road, it gets close. The cup-and-cone bearings and the 2:1 lacing pattern for the rear wheel are attractive upgrades over the Racing 5 LG (and the Racing Quattro LG, for that matter) that easily justify the extra expense of this wheelset. If the buyer has no intention of using tubeless tyres, then the Racing 3 should serve as an enduring upgrade and/or a robust set of training wheels.

The post Fulcrum Racing Zero vs. Racing 3 vs. Racing 5 LG wheelset review appeared first on CyclingTips.

Performance-minded riders are often hyper-mindful of weight: the weight of their bikes, the weight of their own bodies, and even the weight of what they wear, such as shoes and helmets. But have you ever put much thought into the repair items you put in your jersey pockets or saddle bag, or the tools you stuff into your travel case? Whether it’s an epic bike packing adventure, your next flight with a bike, or even just a long ride with lots of climbing, it’s rare in cycling that more mass is a good thing.

Wolf Tooth Components have done just this with the new Pack Tool range, which includes ultralight master link pliers, an aluminum wrench with interchangeable inserts, and an aluminum chain whip. CyclingTips’ in-house tool geek Dave Rome weighs in.

Pack Pliers

There is space for two sets of master links inside the Pack Pliers.

The newest piece of the collection — and most likely the one generating the most attention — is the Pack Pliers. CNC machined of aluminium in the USA, these function as chain master link pliers, a valve core tool, valve nut pliers, and a tyre lever, while also including storage for two magnetically captured quick links, all in a 8mm-thick tool that weighs just 39g.

As a bonus, the anodised aluminium bolt that forms the pivot for the two halves of the Pack Pliers is actually a chainring bolt that can be used on your crankset in a pinch. The bolt also provides a splash of colour to the black anodised tool, with various options available to match a number of other Wolf Tooth products. Retail price for the standard black version is US$30; the red version costs an additional US$3.

The Pack Pliers absolutely work as advertised, easily removing any common 10, 11 or 12-speed master link on the market. Likewise, the magnetic storage within the tool is effective and ensures you’re never left with half a master link when you need it most.

The rest of the features do the trick, too. The Presta valve core tool in the handle is convenient if you need to add sealant on the road or trail, and the valve nut pliers make quick work of valve nuts that have corroded over time. Likewise, I was able to undo a stuck Presta valve with the pliers, too.

The Pack Pliers are certainly slim. Note the tyre lever machined into the end.

Positioned at the end of the tool, the thin aluminium tyre lever has a smoothly rounded back and thin tip that do a decent job of prying off stubborn tyres. The bare metal construction is best restricted to metal rims, though, and even then, it’s important to be mindful of anodised surfaces to prevent marring.

The Pack Pliers’ thin form factor makes them compact and light, but they’re not particularly comfortable to hold in your hand, nor is there a lot of leverage available. This is most noticeable when removing a new non-reusable master link, and using the tool to install a master link is wasted energy (instead, use the crank and a locked rear wheel to pull the link closed). The high-quality construction is built to last, but the awkward shape still means the Pack Pliers are best reserved as an emergency or travel option. I’m sure a number of home mechanics will find success in using this tool on occasion, but given the choice, I’d rather have a dedicated tool in the workshop.

The Pack Pliers next to the Clever Standard master link pliers. Clever Standard (left) was the first to offer travel-friendly master link pliers, but the Wolf Tooth has them beaten for size, strength, and function.

By comparison, the only other portable master link plier on the market, from Clever Standard, is heavier at 61g, offers fewer features, and is more cumbersome to use. It offers more leverage for undoing master links, though, along with a more comfortable grip. Likewise, its plastic construction means it’s safe to use on carbon rims. Still, the Wolf Tooth gets my pick as something to carry on an epic ride, in a compact tool kit or when traveling.

Pack Wrench and Inserts

During my recent review of the Ritchey Outback Break-Away, I found myself searching for lightweight accessories to reduce the packed case weight. This not only proved handy for avoiding airline charges, but also allowed me to stuff more things in with the bike. Compact multi-tools, like the Silca T-ratchet, can often suffice when packing and rebuilding a travel bike, but there are times when only full-sized tools will do the job.

Wolf Tooth Components’ handy Pack Wrench means you can bring a cassette tool and full-sized 8mm pedal wrench with you, but without the usual weight and bulk.

In this scenario, the Wolf Tooth Pack Wrench is a unique beast. At one end is a 16-notch socket that works on many Shimano Hollowtech bottom bracket cups and oversized splined disc rotor lockrings. At the other is a 1″ magnetic pocket designed to work with Wolf Tooth’s tool inserts, of which there are currently five to choose from: one for Shimano/SRAM cassette lockrings, an 8mm hex, a 16mm hex (for use with Easton and RaceFace Cinch cranks), a 20mm socket for adjusting the sliding dropouts on frames from Wolf Tooth’s sister company, Otso Cycles, and one more for most Shimano and ISIS splined bottom brackets. The handle is cut from 4mm-thick 7075-T6 aluminium plate, and the tool bits are nickel-plated 4140 chromoly steel.

The wrench itself costs US$33; inserts are US$19 each. Additionally, Wolf Tooth offer the Pack Wrench bundled with the four most popular inserts for US$90.

Wolf Tooth currently offer five different tool inserts, with more on the way. I’d like to see a 6mm hex added to the list.

The 8mm hex and cassette locking inserts were the ones I used most. These two sockets and the handle combined weigh just 177g; the Pack Wrench alone is a paltry 85g. This is an impressive figure and is easily half the weight of most other options. For example, the already svelte Feedback Sports combination cassette and bottom bracket tool is 294g alone, and you still need to add an 8mm hex wrench for pedals (about 100g for one with similar leverage).

I absolutely love this tool and its customizable bits for lightweight travel use. It’s the perfect item to leave in your car, and then pull double duty when it’s time to fly with a bike. However, much like the Pack Pliers, the thin handle isn’t comfortable to use, especially on stubbornly tight cassettes or bottom brackets. Wrapping the handle in a rag helps, but I still preferred dedicated shop tools back home.

The Wolf Tooth and Feedback Sports tools are very similar in function and leverage, but one is much lighter, and the other is more comfortable to use.

The steel tool inserts work exactly as intended, offering a snug fit and seeming very well-made. However, there is just enough play between the steel insert and the aluminium Pack Wrench handle’s opening to cause concern for long-term durability if used in a workshop environment. For casual or travel-only use, these should last a lifetime, but more regular users may have to consider a replacement handle down the road.

Speaking of durability, I had an early issue with one of the three magnets coming out of the handle with one of the steel tool bits. Thankfully, a dab of superglue appears to be a permanent remedy.

There’s an Ultralight Chain Whip

The Pack Wrench and Ultralight Chain Whip make a great combo for the travelling mechanic. However, Abbey’s Crombie Wrench is still more comfortable for repeated use.

Complementing the Pack Wrench and its cassette lockring capabilities is the Ultralight Chain Whip, made of a similar anodized aluminium to the Pack Wrench, but instead featuring a wider and more robust shape that’s far easier on the hands. At 167g, it’s impressively light and offers compatibility with just about any multi-speed cassette (including 12-speed). The chain is held in with small rivets, and these can be replaced with standard chain pins if required.

Suffice to say, it works as advertised with no issues noted. Retail price is US$45.

Conclusion

Wolf Tooth aren’t the founders of the lightweight tool space. The closest competitor is Abbey Bike Tools, but even that company’s wares hold a slightly different place in the market.

By comparison, Abbey tools are also made to be travel-friendly, but are built with higher precision and greater durability without sacrificing all-day comfort; they were originally designed for professional race mechanics who need to travel with their tools, after all. On the other hand, the Wolf Tooth stuff places a higher priority on portability and accessible price points, but there are obvious compromises in everyday usability.

Despite the loss of comfort and the potential trade-off in durability compared to all-steel tools, I do like what Wolf Tooth offer. The Pack Pliers are brilliant, as both a tool to carry with you on a ride, and one to keep in a travel case. And the rest of the range is what I’d consider the benchmark for travel-friendly, lightweight tools where minimal wrenching is required. That’s certainly a niche, but there are plenty of people that travel regularly with bikes, or who want a compact kit for the car, who will find undeniable appeal here.

For more tool reviews and features, check out our tool talk section.

The Park Tool master link pliers (right) aren’t much bigger than the ones from Wolf Tooth Components (center) or Clever Standard (left). But they’re heavier, and only serve a single function.

The Wolf Tooth Pack Pliers will work on a wide range of chain widths, and can be used for both installation and removal of master links.

Countersunk holes on the back of the Wolf Tooth Pack Pliers let you easily push out the stored spare master links. But unfortunately, they’re also sometimes too easy to dislodge slightly, which can then jam up the tool.

The Wolf Tooth’s cassette lockring insert borrows its hollow design from Abbey Bike Tools’ Crombie Wrench.

The 8mm tool insert is long enough to clear most crank arms, and still provides a secure fit into pedals.

The Wolf Tooth Pack Wrench is generously long for great leverage. Here it is against a Park Tool 8mm pedal tool.

The Pack Wrench is designed to work with common 16-notch external bottom bracket and oversized brake rotor lockrings (such as those used with 15 and 20mm thru-axle front hubs).

The inserts are made of hardened steel.

The simple design makes for an impressive travel option.

The post Wolf Tooth Components Pack Tools review: Ultralight tools for home and the road appeared first on CyclingTips.

The Canyon Aeroad CF SLX is widely regarded as one of the top aero road bikes on the market, and the company recently expanded the model’s capabilities by adding disc-brake versions last year. In another truly long-term test, CyclingTips US technical editor James Huang has spent more than a year on a mid-range 8.0 Di2 model to see if the new configuration has tempered the bike’s appeal — and if any issues have appeared over time.

In short, the Aeroad CF SLX Disc loses a bit of the magic of the standard rim-brake version, but it’s still a superb aero road bike, and an incredible value, too.

The Aeroad’s short evolution from primitive to premium

Canyon debuted the first-generation Aeroad CF in May 2010, and I remember the launch event well. It was held in Italy at Il Borghetto di Andrea Tafi, a tiny cluster of vacation-getaway apartments tucked in the picturesque Tuscan landscape, and run by the famed Italian cyclist. The setting was beautiful, and the riding was fantastic.

I also remember being somewhat underwhelmed by what Canyon had presented.

Despite this taking place nearly eight years ago, the aero road bike category was already becoming fiercely competitive. Scott was arguably leading the way with its groundbreaking Foil, one of the first to use the then-revolutionary Kamm-tail truncated-airfoil tube shapes that would become so prolific in later years.

The Canyon Aeroad is one of my favorite aero road bikes, and the new disc version does nothing to temper that sentiment.

Canyon took a more conventional and intuitive approach with the original Aeroad CF, focusing on reducing frontal area and minimizing abrupt shape transitions on the molded carbon fiber frame (similar to the Felt AR and Cervélo SLC-SL of the era).

The company hadn’t done any wind tunnel testing at the time, and the only drag tests performed were all simulated using computational fluid dynamics software. Even so, no specific aerodynamic data was offered at the time.

Although the bike was comfortable and handled well, the skinny tubes left it feeling soft and vague under power. And without any hard data to support Canyon’s murky claims, it was unclear if the Aeroad CF was particularly aero at all.

Canyon clearly learned the mistakes of its half-baked first attempt, as demonstrated by the introduction of the second-generation Aeroad CF SLX in July 2014. While the original Aeroad CF felt like a middling attempt to keep the big boys within sight, the new machine instantly thrust Canyon to the forefront.

The frame shape is visually striking, but also effective in terms of reducing aerodynamic drag, based on independent third-party testing.

This new model was not only truly aero — and one of the best in that arena, according to independent third-party testing by Tour Magazin — but its modern Kamm-tail tube shapes also greatly improved the overall frame stiffness thanks to their dramatically wider cross-sections. It was noticeably more solid up front when sprinting or climbing out of the saddle, and the newly bolstered down tube, bottom bracket area, and chainstays yielded far-snappier reflexes when you put down the power.

Even better, Canyon managed to do all of that while still maintaining a decent chunk of the original version’s excellent ride quality. Add in the remarkably attainable pricing of Canyon’s direct-to-consumer business model, and it’s easy to see why the current Aeroad CF SLX has been so successful (you can see our review of that version here).

Canyon updated the Aeroad CF SLX yet again last year, this time with disc-brake versions for riders that desired better stopping performance (myself included). And so it was that I took delivery of an Aeroad CF SLX Disc 8.0 Di2 long-term test sample, equipped with Shimano’s Ultegra Di2 groupset, Reynolds Strike deep-section carbon clincher wheels, Canyon’s usual H11 Aerocockpit CF integrated carbon fiber aero handlebar-and-stem combo, and a Fizik Arione saddle.

Actual weight, without pedals, was 7.70kg (16.98lb) for a larger-than-it-sounds size XS.

Just as speedy, but now better at slowing down, too

I’ve spent a lot of time on the rim-brake Aeroad CF SLX in the past, and am quite fond of that bike’s performance characteristics. Much to my relief, nearly everything I enjoyed about the rim-brake version of the Aeroad CF SLX carries through to the disc-brake edition.

No review of an aero road bike would be complete without discussing its aerodynamic performance, of course, and while aerodynamic efficiency is always difficult to ascertain from the saddle, especially at more moderate speeds, there is nevertheless a tangible difference between the Aeroad and a modern round-tubed bike as the speedometer needle rotates further clockwise.

The flat-back profile of the seatpost not only helps with aerodynamic efficiency, but also with rider comfort.

Simply put, the Aeroad CF SLX Disc is a joy to ride at higher speeds, and it’s quantitatively easier to maintain a brisk pace — as is always the case with aerodynamics, the faster you go, the more advantage you get.

Part of the credit surely goes to the sleek design of the bike itself, but the way it aggressively positions its rider obviously plays a major role as well. The stack is low and the reach is long, just as it should be for a bike like this, although only more flexible riders will be able to fully take advantage of what the Aeroad CF SLX Disc has to offer.

Either way, high-speed cruising is definitely the Aeroad CF SLX’s strong suit, not a lightning-quick jump off the line. Like the rim-brake Aeroad CF SLX, the disc-brake version is substantially stiffer and feels more efficient than the original Aeroad CF, but overall rigidity still isn’t on par with Canyon’s Ultimate CF SLX, or any other top competitor that focuses on stiffness over aerodynamics.

The Aeroad CF SLX hardly feels soft, but blistering acceleration isn’t one the traits that I would associate with it. And before anyone casts aspersions with tales of Canyon-sponsored riders Luca Paolini or Alexander Kristoff successfully sprinting for the line aboard an Aeroad, keep in mind that structural efficiency matters, but at the speeds those guys travel, low drag matters more.

The Aeroad CF SLX Disc is a natural climber regardless, especially with the versatile 52/36T chainrings and 11-28T cassette that Canyon provides stock with each one. The relatively low weight helps in this regard, as does the very good chassis stiffness.

Also helping with out-of-saddle climbing (and sprinting) in particular is the one-piece integrated carbon fiber cockpit, which is stunningly rigid; combined with the straight 1 1/4″-diameter steerer tube, it provides a very direct connection with the front wheel when you’re pivoting back and forth, even as the rest of the bike occasionally wags a bit behind it.

Visually, the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX is arguably one of the best-looking aero road bike options out there.

It’s once you crest the top of the climb and start rocketing down the other side that this new disc-equipped version can really spread its wings. The direct-mount version of Shimano’s Dura-Ace rim-brake calipers are about as good as it gets, with very good power, excellent lever feel, and great control. But it still can’t compare with what even Shimano’s Ultegra-level hydraulic disc brakes offer on the road, especially in wet conditions and when using carbon rims. There’s a weight penalty for sure, and were I still living in the flatter Midwestern area of the United States, I likely wouldn’t feel compelled to go this route. But I live in Colorado, where descents can last 20 minutes, and I’ll happily lug a couple hundred extra grams uphill if it makes for a faster and more controlled flight back into town.

Handling is expectedly quick, with the sub-meter wheelbase and tidy 415mm-long chainstays making the Aeroad eager to change direction. Some might even dub it twitchy, but it’s certainly appropriate for the segment. Don’t forget Canyon uses its most aggressive fit geometry here, so it’s clear what the Aeroad was designed to do. This is a bike that looks fast because it was meant to actually go fast; it doesn’t just play the part on the showroom floor, and then let its rider sit upright like a sail in the wind.

The geometry of bike handling

Comfort-wise, the disc edition of the Aeroad CF SLX is a bit of a mixed bag. I was always impressed by how composed the rim-brake Aeroad CF SLX rode. It wasn’t exactly cushy, but it was far more planted and smooth than appearances would suggest, even with the skinny 23mm-wide Mavic tires (and 13mm internal-width rims) that came stock.

Canyon has since gone more progressive, using 17mm-wide Reynolds Strike carbon clinchers here and a staggered 23/25mm front/rear Continental Grand Prix 4000s II setup here. But even with the increased air volume, something was amiss.

The rear end of the Aeroad CF SLX Disc felt pleasantly familiar, soaking up road buzz and doing a decent job of attenuating bigger impacts thanks to the D-shaped seatpost, the matching D-shaped seat tube, and the lowered seat stays, all of which have been shown to improve rider comfort by allowing for more flex than similarly sized round tubes and a conventionally configured seat cluster. Whatever reinforcing Canyon may have done to the Aeroad CF SLX Disc’s rear triangle doesn’t seem to have made any impact on how the frame feels on the road.

But it’s a different story up front.

The fork crown blends in nicely with the frame.

This new disc-brake fork is necessarily beefed up relative to the rim-brake Aeroad CF SLX version, and the ride comfort seems to suffer as a result. Compounding the issue is the integrated cockpit; it’s a gem when muscling the front end around, but combined with the rougher-riding fork, it transmits every bit of road texture to your hands, for better or worse. It also doesn’t help that the bars are only partially wrapped up top. The shape may be comfy, but there’s still no replacement for a layer of cushy foam, and the stepped surface of the H11 Aerocockpit CF that clearly demarcates where the tape should end isn’t entirely conducive to wrapping further inward.

Componentry-wise, there’s not much point in here discussing the ins and outs of the Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset my test sample arrived with, seeing as how it’s now been replaced with the newer Ultegra Di2 generation in the time this long-term test has been conducted. But Canyon has carried on with the Reynolds Strike carbon clinchers, and like the Aeroad CF SLX Disc’s ride quality, my opinion on those is a little mixed.

The Reynolds Strike carbon clinchers certainly feel fast, but despite claims to the contrary, I also found them to be more susceptible to crosswinds than I would prefer.

The blunt, 62mm-deep profile feels fast in a straight line, but even with Reynolds’ fancy “Swirl Lip Generator” ridges straddling the spoke holes, it still feels more susceptible to crosswinds than I’d prefer. Canyon is clearly open to progressive thinking when it comes to spec, as evidenced by the staggered tire sizes, but there are merits to doing the same with rim depth.

Reynolds already supplements the the 62mm-deep Strike with the 41mm-deep Assault, and it seems like this would make for a versatile combination that would still be fast, but also more manageable in a wider range of conditions. Much of the appeal with buying a Canyon is the comparatively low pricing, after all, so it seems logical that a Canyon buyer may not be all that interested in buying a fleet of aero wheels to suit the day at hand.

This is subjective, of course, but I also don’t feel the hubs befit the sleek look of the rims. They’ve held up fine over the past year, and the rear hub has a reasonably quick 10-degree engagement speed on the conventional pawl-type ratchet mechanism, but visually, they’re disappointingly bulky and lumpy.

One key advantage of the disc version of Canyon’s aero road machine is the increased tire clearance, and there’s heaps of it on tap. The narrowest pinch point, in between the chainstays, measures nearly 40mm across — more than enough room. Given that, I quickly decided to swap the stock wheel-and-tire setup in favor of Enve’s superb AR Disc 4.5 and 28mm-wide Specialized S-Works Tubeless clinchers (which puff up to nearly 31mm on those ultra-wide rims). The effect on ride quality was unquestionably positive, and if Enve’s aero data is to be believed, they’re just as speedy. Even better, I dropped roughly 200g of weight in the process.

The deep-drop, classic-style bend fosters a long-and-low position.

Needless to say, once the Enves went on, they didn’t come off.

Unfortunately, the Reynolds wheels’ 25mm-wide external width precludes going with anything wider than a 25mm-wide tire to match (lest you mess up the aerodynamics). Canyon has stuck with the Strikes and the 23/25mm staggered tire setup for the current model year, but unless your roads are absolutely pristine, I’d advise at least switching the front tire to save your hands.

JRA with the Angry Asian: Does frame compliance still matter?

Long-term issues

It’s often the details that don’t garner attention until you’ve really had a chance to spend time with a bike, and Canyon deserves plenty of accolades for what it’s done with the Aeroad CF SLX Disc.

There’s been no creaking from the wedge-type internal seatpost binder, nor a peep from the PF86 press-fit bottom bracket shell, despite plenty of washings. But I’d still like to see Canyon include some sort of rubber cover to help prevent water from sneaking into the frame around the post. There’s a decent-sized hole at the bottom of the frame to let that water escape, but I’d prefer it didn’t get in there in the first place.

The internally routed rear brake hose never rattled inside the down tube, either. That’s because Canyon stealthily equips the down tube of Aeroad CF SLX Disc frame with a small zip-tie anchor that securely holds the hose up against the inside of the down tube. It’s a bit tricky to replace, but only if you’re not familiar with the prescribed process, and truth be told, the electronic transmission and hydraulic brake lines mean you’ll likely never have to dig around inside the frame tubes, anyway. The plug is basically invisible when a bottle cage is mounted, too. It’s an ingeniously simple — and effective — solution.

Routing rear disc-brake hoses through the down tube makes for a clean appearance, but it can also result in annoying rattling. Canyon does away with that by cleverly incorporating a zip-tie that tightly pulls the hose up against the inside of the tube. It’s a smidgeon of practical genius.

Also residing inside the down tube, down near the bottom bracket, is the Shimano Di2 battery, which is held in place with a snug-fitting plastic bracket. It’d be a pain to replace the battery if it’s ever required, but Shimano’s enviable track record with battery reliability and longevity means it’s unlikely you’d ever have to.

A small pocket on the underside of the integrated cockpit tucks the Di2 junction box up and out of the way, eliminating any unsightly zip-ties, but leaving the LED indicator and function button readily accessible. The plastic tab that holds the box in place is flexible enough that you can pop the box out to access the charge port, too (although users should still exercise caution to prevent cracking the plastic).

That integrated cockpit creates complications when attaching accessories, too. Canyon does offer (as an optional accessory) a tidy custom bolt-on mount for Garmin and SRM computers, but other brands aren’t officially supported, nor is there any good way of attaching a forward-facing LED blinker if you’re so inclined.

Canyon offers the H11 integrated carbon fiber cockpit in multiple sizes, but buyers unfortunately can’t select a specific size when ordering the bike.

Those issues pale in comparison with the fact that Canyon doesn’t allow Aeroad buyers to select cockpit size when ordering — a potentially major complication given the non-standard setup. I generally run a stem that’s longer than usual for my preferred frame size, for example, and while Canyon was able to supply me with a longer Aerocockpit than what is normally supplied with an extra-small Aeroad, regular buyers wouldn’t enjoy the same luxury.

Length-and-width options are limited, too. In my ideal world, I would have run a 120mm-long stem and 410mm-wide Aerocockpit, but Canyon only offers that length with a 430mm-wide bar.

It’s apparently possible to swap size after the fact, but doing so is hardly convenient, nor can you wander into your local Canyon dealer to facilitate the process (although the pain is lessened somewhat by the exposed cabling up front). Then again, for this price, I suppose some buyers might be willing to make some concessions.

www.canyon.com

Canyon’s first-generation Aeroad was a half-baked attempt at the category. The current Aeroad CF SLX is anything but.

The minimal branding is much appreciated.

Canyon utilizes Kamm-tail tube shaping on the current-generation Aeroad CF SLX, and highlights the cross-sections’ flat backs with contrasting paint.

The flared intersection between the seat tube and seatstays seems to divert air around the upper section of the rear wheel.

Without a rim-brake caliper in place here, the seatstay area looks particularly clean.

The Kamm-tail theme even runs through to the headset spacers and top cap.

The PF86 press-fit bottom bracket will undoubtedly put some people off, but as far as non-threaded formats go, this is one of the better ones. Notably, it remained creak-free throughout a year of testing.

The head tube and fork crown combine for an elegant frontal profile.

The integrated wedge-type seatpost binder holds tight, and also stayed silent throughout testing. That said, it’d be nice if Canyon included some sort of cover here to prevent water intrusion.

The partially external cable routing doesn’t look as neat as fully-internal setups like on the Trek Madone, Giant Propel, and Specialized Venge ViAS. But whatever negative impact it has on aerodynamic performance will likely be more than offset for most riders by the ease of service.

Canyon provides two sets of water bottle mounting holes on the down tube depending on your particular needs. For single-bottle users, the lower position supposedly makes for better aerodynamics.

The ends of the thru-axle dropouts are capped for a finished appearance.

The rear dropout is capped as well.

While I wouldn’t characterize the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX frame as a couch, it’s surprisingly comfortable for what it is.

Proprietary seatposts are becoming more common on aero frames. The lack of choices is a little disappointing, but the stock version thankfully works well enough that most riders won’t have any reason to complain.

The slim top tube doesn’t make for earth-shattering torsional stiffness, but it’ll suffice for most riders.

The elegant shaping masks the oversized dimensions of the chainstays.

Tire clearance is generous all around. The stock 23mm-wide tires are shown here, but 28mm-wide tires fit just fine.

There’s heaps of daylight between the 25mm-wide rear tire and the seatstays.

Even down here, there’s quite a lot of room. Actual width between the chainstays is nearly 40mm.

Every Aeroad CF SLX is equipped with Canyon’s H11 Aerocockpit CF integrated bar-and-stem. Unlike some other aero handlebars, this one is actually fairly comfortable to hold up top.

The included headset spacers are profiled to match. A separate locking collar secures the headset adjustment so that subsequent bar height changes don’t affect bearing preload.

The stepped outer skin of the H11 Aerocockpit CF makes it clear that Canyon only intends for riders to partially tape the tops. That’s a bit of a bummer, though. The shape of the tops is surprisingly comfortable, but the grip is certainly more secure with a full tape job.

Flat-mount disc-brake calipers are used at both ends.

Interestingly, Canyon equips the Aeroad CF SLX with 160mm-diameter rotors front and rear, instead of a staggered 160/140mm setup, which arguably makes more sense.

The mounting bolts for the rear brake caliper are recessed up into the chainstay for a cleaner appearance.

Hidden inside the base of the down tube is a holder for the Shimano Di2 battery.

The Canyon H11 Aerocockpit CF includes a small pocket on the underside for a Shimano Di2 junction box. The placement leaves the button easily accessible, but you still have to remove the center cover and pull the junction box out to plug in a charger. Canyon uses the same two holes for an optional computer mount, with versions available to fit Garmin and SRM computers; no other computer brands are officially supported.

The press-fit bottom bracket will undoubtedly turn some riders off, but the fact of the matter is that it provides more room than a conventional threaded shell. Canyon makes good use of that additional real estate, too, equipping the Aeroad CF SLX Disc frame with chainstays that are ultra-fat, but yet still provide impressive tire clearance.

The DT Swiss thru-axles have removable levers that easily snap into place. As a result…

… just one lever can be used to undo both wheels, or you can opt to leave it at home entirely for a cleaner look (provided you make sure you have a multi-tool on hand in case of a flat).

The cradle hardware on the proprietary seatpost can be reversed for less offset if needed.

These hose connectors, supplied by Shimano, greatly speed up bike assembly since the two halves of the system can be individually pre-bled, and then screwed together for an airtight fit. However, they’re also unfortunately ugly.

Canyon choose the stock tires for the Aeroad CF SLX Disc more for speed than versatility, with a narrow 23mm one up front…

…and a slightly wider 25mm one out back. It’s a smart combo if speed is your primary concern, but it also limits the Aeroad CF SLX Disc’s utility to paved roads in good condition. I ended up swapping to wider tires early on in the test process, along with wider wheels to match, since the Strike’s 25mm outer width precludes the use of higher-volume tires without adversely affecting aerodynamic performance.

I also wasn’t a fan of the bulky-looking hub shells, which, to me, don’t seem fitting with the aero theme.

Unlike higher-end Reynolds wheels that use Industry Nine hub internals, the Strikes use more generic units produced overseas.

Reynolds says the Swirl Lip Generator — the small ridge that runs on either side of the spokes — reduces drag and improves stability in crosswinds. Does it work? It’s hard to say.

Current Canyon Aeroad CF SLX Disc 8.0 Di2 models now come with Shimano’s updated Ultegra groupset, not the previous-generation stuff shown on this long-term test sample. Either way, though, the frame is fitted with a metal plate on the side of the chainstay to protect against chain suck.

The suede-like bar tape is grippy and relatively cushy. The ends are secured with nifty caps that expand outward as they’re pushed into the bar for an extra-tight hold.

The post Canyon Aeroad CF SLX Disc 8.0 Di2 long-term review appeared first on CyclingTips.

Josh Crane spends his Wednesdays exploring the nuances of time and temperature in an industrial coffee roaster he sold his car to pay for. On Thursdays, he delivers that coffee by bike around the city of Boulder, Colorado, silently dropping off his goodies at businesses and residential doorsteps like a caffeinated version of the Tooth Fairy.

The Coffee Ride has been in business now for four and a half years, and while it can be said that Crane is one of the lucky few who has figured out a way to get paid to ride his bike, not many cyclists would find a lot of appeal in how he’s doing it. The bike he uses isn’t some fancy motor-assisted cargo bike, but a rickety old 10-speed. The coffee gets towed behind in a beat-up old Burley child trailer. Filling the main triangle of the bike is a plywood board emblazoned with The Coffee Ride logo, secured with a bunch of plastic zip-ties.

Looking back at earlier in the year when boulder got 14 inches of snow… and freshly roasted coffee at your front door.

A post shared by The Coffee Ride (@thecoffeeride) on Dec 27, 2017 at 7:51am PST

On really busy days, the whole rig weighs nearly 200kg. And Boulder isn’t exactly known for being pan-flat. But the way Crane tells it, he’s living the dream. And when you listen to him describe his routing in person, it’s hard to argue.

“I haven’t missed a Thursday in four and half years. I delivered in three feet of snow once, and I got passed by a cross-country skier in the middle of the road. A lot of people think that that would be the worst thing to go out and ride in that. But to me, it makes me feel human. I start dying if I’m sitting inside or sitting at the computer and not being fulfilled. It’s like those are the days that you know you feel alive.”

“I really wanted to build some real ‘cross bikes,” said builder Peter Olivetti. “Everything now is a do-it-all design where you lose some of that authenticity to any given bike’s real purpose.”

If nothing else, he sure is riding a lot. Crane says he’s covered nearly 15,000km since starting up his coffee roasting and delivery service, and that only includes the distance he puts in on that one day of the week. Other days are spent on mixed-surface group rides with friends, dealing with endless piles of emails, and various marketing and demo events around the area to help drum up business.

But it wasn’t always this way for him. And in fact, cycling wasn’t even his first love; it was soccer and long-distance trail running. But two big injuries instantly took both of those away from him. The first was a snowboarding incident that left him with a shattered hip. Six months later — and while seemingly well on the mend — he got “taken out really hard” and landed on that same hip during a soccer game, and woke up the next morning with a right calf muscle that refused to work. To this day, it remains eerily detached from the rest of his nervous system.

Crane had always enjoyed riding bikes, though — he even took a mountain biking class when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin — and it wasn’t long after his injury he realized that while he could no longer run, he could still pedal, lopsided musculature and all. This time around, the bike bug dug in hard and wouldn’t let go.

Olivetti’s head tube is an homage to the iconic Flatiron rock formations in his home base of Boulder, Colorado.

Eventually, it was all he wanted to do. He gave up his aspirations of going to medical school, quit his job working in a laboratory at the local hospital, and took a position as a photographer and ride organizer at Pros Closet, a local bike reseller. However, as so many other avid cyclists have discovered, working in the bike industry didn’t exactly equate to riding his bike all day, every day.

Worse yet, the coffee sucked. But as it turns out, it’s a good thing that it did.

“It was kind of the perfect storm of events,” Crane recalled. “I wanted to ride my bike more, so I started trying to work in the bike industry because it wasn’t happening enough while I was working at the hospital. But then it turned out that I rode my bike less. But a cool turning point was that we had really bad coffee over there, and it made everybody really grumpy.

“The best part of my day was riding my 15-minute commute into work, and bringing coffee in for everybody. I would make a Chemex for everybody, and I saw how stoked they were; it just made their day. So then I decided that I wanted to do this forever, for everybody.”

And that was his a-ha moment. He had already been roasting coffee as a hobby for a couple of years, but it dawned on him that bringing that sort of experience to more people could not only possibly be a viable business, but a way to get paid to ride his bike. And so he quit that job, too, sold his beloved Subaru WRX wagon, used the money to buy an industrial roaster, and The Coffee Ride was born.

Repair essentials are tucked away inside a compostable coffee bean bag and attached with a toe strap.

On the surface, Crane’s business solely revolves around delivering freshly roasted coffee beans by bike. But Crane actually likens coffee more as a time machine of sorts. It’s not the flavor of the coffee itself per se, but rather the experiences that people associate with it that he’s after.

“Our senses of taste and smell are also some of the easiest ways for your brain to reflect back on memories. That’s how it is with coffee. To me, the Coffee Ride is fun, adventure, stopping four or five times on a six-hour ride for coffee with friends, laughing, just having a childhood experience on a bike. But it could be a bike ride, going camping with your kids when you woke up in the morning and made coffee over a camp stove or a fire, or you had a rad time climbing the Flatirons here in Boulder, and then came back into town and had a cup of coffee, and said, ‘Man, I wish I could live here, but whatever.’ But you can get that feeling. It’s pretty cool.

“If I could recall their favorite group ride with a cup of coffee, that’s my goal. It’s to get somebody stoked and give them a 30-second break from their computer, or from whatever gnarly thing they have going on in their life. I feel like I have the potential to give that to somebody.”

After several stressful years of just trying to make ends meet, Crane’s business is finally in the black, he’s expanded to mail-order subscriptions, and he’s even renting his own space (he was previously sharing). And naturally, what better way to reward himself for the effort than a new bike?

“I sold my Subaru to buy a coffee roaster, and now my coffee roaster bought me a new bike. It’s pretty rad.”

The coffee beans start out green up on the front of the bike, transition to tan in the middle, and end up brown at the back, just as real coffee beans do during the roasting and drying process.

Crane doesn’t remember exactly the first time he met local frame builder Peter Olivetti, but he knows it was on a group ride. And he didn’t really like him at first.

“He’s almost annoying because he’s so excited about bikes. The first time we rode, he wouldn’t shut up. I half-wheeled him just to make him breathe hard so he’d stop talking. But it’s cool. After I got to know him, he just wants people psyched on what they’re getting and what he’s doing. I appreciate our friendship so much just because he is this genuine dude who wants only good things for everybody. We get along because that’s all I want to do with coffee.

“So we started riding bikes, and he always had these sweet bikes,” Crane continued. “But he didn’t even tell me what he did for a really long time, until maybe a year later when I asked him about his bike, that was the first time that he’d told me he built it himself.”

As it turned out, Olivetti was searching for a couple of brand ambassadors for his own fledgling business, and Crane was in the market for a new singlespeed ‘cross racer. Another perfect storm.

“Josh’s [seat tube collar] has kind of a swirly thing on it. Josh is a good dude that is pretty go-with-the-flow, so that design was kind of emblematic, I suppose.”

“I was looking for two folks to ride bikes for me in the fall,” said Olivetti. “I really wanted people that were generally good people and personalities; I didn’t really care if they were uber-racer folks, more like ambassadors than anything else. Per the bike itself as a frame, I really wanted to build some legit Euro-style cross bikes. Sure, you could ride it as a gravel bike or whatever, but really it’s meant to handle tight turns, high barriers, and other technical features.

“The tubing is primarily all Columbus Zona, but I bought out the last of the True Temper heat-treated 35mm down tubes that have a 0.7/0.6/0.7mm butt profile. I really like that tube for these bikes because, while not the lightest, it’s way durable and a bit stiffer than a 0.7/0.4/0.7. People abuse their bikes regardless of whether they even realize it or not, and in a ‘cross-style bike that is probably exponential, so I figured that was a good way to address one of the more battered tubes in the mix.”

Crane openly admits that while he’s happy with how The Coffee Ride is progressing, he’s still not exactly rolling in cash, so just paying for the frame itself was a stretch financially. Instead of having a specialty painter do the finish work, he and Olivetti decided to use the novel Spray.Bike range of aerosol dry matte acrylic powder coat paints. Little coffee-bean masks were cut by Aaron Barcheck of Mosaic Cycles and Spectrum Powder Works, and with the help of a few friends, the duo rattle-canned their way to a custom finish.

“The Bean Bike paint would have cost like $800 or something ridiculous to do if we went for it,” Olivetti said. “Instead, it was $50 worth of bean masks and $50 worth of rattle cans. And probably too much of our own time.”

A trademark feature for all Olivetti frames are brazed-on coins.

From a distance, the finish looks superb, what with its clever green-to-tan-to-brown fade, meant to represent the coffee roasting process. But look even a little bit closer, and there are plenty of imperfections. The underside of the down tube has a wealth of rock chips, the edges aren’t exactly super clean, and there’s a big rub mark on the right side of the down tube from Crane’s knee during one particularly slushy and muddy mixed-surface race called Old Man Winter.

Some might look at all of those things as imperfections, but to Crane, it’s character. And just as he hopes to achieve with his coffee, what’s more important to him than the bike itself, or how it looks, are the experiences it can provide him. For Crane, each little ding, scratch, and rub represents some big ride, or a special day in the saddle, or something else he’d rather remember vividly than polish away. In fact, he even plans to clear-coat the entire frame soon to seal everything in as-is.

“How many beautiful sunny-day rides do you go on with your friends that you hardly remember?” he said. “It’s always the days when the wind is blowing at 70mph and you’re just grinding, or you got hailed on, or you’re trying so hard that your eyes are sideways and your legs are knocking the paint off your bike because you’re going so hard. Those are the things that stick.”

The post Bikes of the Bunch: Olivetti Bicycles More Cowbell appeared first on CyclingTips.

Your bicycle’s chain is like a mechanical log of your riding adventures: road grit from that last wet ride, red mud from adventuring in the desert, clumps of pollen from the springtime blooms. But if your chain is left dirty, that grit will form an impressively effective grinding paste, causing expensive wear, poor shifting, rough pedaling, and wasted efficiency.

If you’re looking to get more performance out of your bike, but without spending a lot of money, keeping your drivetrain clean should be a priority. As the saying goes, a clean bike is a fast bike.

How often you clean your drivetrain, and to what extent, will vary depending on your lube selection, riding conditions, and mileage. And of course, the better you are with your preventative maintenance, the less frequently you’ll need to do a full clean. But if your drivetrain is leaving you with a calf tattoo after every ride, is sounding gritty, or you’ve got an upcoming event, it’s probably due.

There are many different ways to clean a drivetrain. I’ve broken it down into four levels of detail, with each level requiring a little more mechanical aptitude, but each providing better end results.

Easy Drivetrain Cleaning

Limited on time and space? An easy clean can be done just about anywhere, and all you need is a rag and your choice of chain lube.

Don’t have time for a full clean? Just backpedal your chain through a clean, lint-free rag. This is good to do anytime, especially before you re-apply lube.

In this quickest of methods, simply wrap the chain with a clean, lint-free cloth, and then backpedal the drivetrain through it to wipe off the exterior muck. Repeat the process until the rag stays mostly clean. You can use the rag to scrape crud off of the derailleur pulley wheels and chainrings. Alternatively, baby wipes work pretty well, too.

Once the chain is reasonably clean, you can re-apply lube as needed. Oil-based lubricants also help float contaminants to the surface of the chain, so you can also repeat the wiping process a few more times until the outside of the chain looks clean.

Depending on your lube choice, it might be a good idea to clean your chain like this after every ride. As already mentioned, regular light cleanings like this will make more thorough cleanings a rare task. But if your drivetrain is already extremely filthy, one of the more in-depth methods to follow would make more sense.

Note that I haven’t recommended using a rag soaked in degreaser. While that may yield better visible results, it also mixes degreaser with your dirty lube, instead of removing it. Ultimately, you’ll just end up with diluted chain lube that won’t perform as it was designed.

Apartment tip: If doing this indoors, use a drop-cloth or tarp to collect any mess.

Moderate Drivetrain Cleaning

If you watch professional race mechanics at a road or cyclocross event, you’d be impressed to see how quickly they get a chain sparkling clean, without removing it from the bike. A huge part of this is preventative – especially in the pro ranks, the drivetrain they’re cleaning was probably cleaned one ride ago – but the method used by pro mechanics is still well-proven.

Jason Quade of Abbey Bike Tools is a seasoned race mechanic himself, and a strong proponent of cleaning chains on the bike. “With few exceptions, I don’t remove a chain from a bike unless it’s going into the trash. I’ve seen enough failed quick links to drive this opinion.”

As long as your chain isn’t terribly dirty to begin with, washing it on the bike can yield excellent results. Requiring both degreaser and water, this is best done outdoors.

Tools required:

• Citrus-based or similar degreaser
• A stiff-bristled brush, such as a chain brush or paint brush
• A larger brush for cleaning cogs
• A container to hold degreaser (the pro method is a sawed-off bidon held in your seat tube’s bidon cage)
• A chain keeper
• A garden hose, spray nozzle, and running water (a pump-style weed spray bottle or bidon will work if a hose isn’t available)
• An open space you don’t mind getting a little dirty and/or wet
• Gloves
• A chain cleaning tool (optional)
• An air compressor (optional)

The process:

Remove the rear wheel.

A bicycle-friendly degreaser can be held in an old bottle on the seat tube.

Use a chain keeper to keep excess degreaser out of your hub bearings and away from your braking surfaces. We recently reviewed nine of the best chain keepers; you can find a link to this at the bottom of this article.

Brush degreaser on the chainrings.

Brush degreaser on the derailleur pulley wheels.

Brush degreaser on the chain. Backpedal chain through brush for several crank revolutions.

Brush degreaser on the cassette. This is easier with the wheel removed from the bike.

Rinse with water.

1. Take off the rear wheel and install a chain keeper in its place. This will allow more thorough cassette cleaning, while also limiting how much degreaser gets into your hub bearings and on braking surfaces.
2. Use a brush and degreaser to remove the gunk from the chainrings and derailleur pulley wheels.
3. Brush degreaser onto the chain, backpedaling the chain through the brush at various angles.
4. Brush degreaser onto the cassette sprockets; a larger brush will speed up the process.
5. Rinse off the cassette, chain, chainrings, and derailleur pulleys with a low-pressure stream of water. Avoid squirting water directly into any bearings.
6. Dry everything with a clean rag, and then set the bike aside to air dry further. Alternatively, use compressed air to speed up the process.
7. Remove chain keeper, reinstall rear wheel, and apply your lube of choice.

Apartment Tip: Use a self-service car wash if your bike is really grubby. It’s a washer on demand, with fluids collected and recycled.

Alternative: Use a chain cleaning device instead of brushing degreaser on the chain. These use a number of rotating brushes that automatically scrub the chain’s inner links, outer links, and rollers. You can also use these to better contain the mess of washing, or as a final rinse by replacing the degreaser with water.

A product we’ve reviewed on CyclingTips, the Park Tool CM-25, is an extremely good chain cleaner, but the CM-5.2 does the same job for a fraction of the price.

In my experience, the chain cleaning tools from Park Tool are great (such as the CM-25 or CM-5.2), and do an even better job of getting the nastiest muck off of chains as compared to the traditional brush method. CyclingTips US tech editor James Huang uses the Pedro’s Chain Pig himself, but as Adam Kerin of Zero Friction Cycling warns, none of these tools do a great job of getting the finer particles out from inside the rollers. For that, we have the next cleaning level.

Detailed drivetrain clean

The on-bike method described above will be the way to go for most, but sometimes a more thorough clean is warranted. The method we’re about to go through here is not only more meticulous, but also better contained, which may be useful for those with limited access to an outdoor cleaning space. I’ll do this level of detailed clean when I install a new chain and want the whole drivetrain to look new. Likewise, a number of professional workshops will offer this level of detail above and beyond the usual cleaning services.

Washing parts off the bike has its advantages, but it does require a little more mechanical know-how.

The detailed clean involves removing the chain, cassette, and chainrings (or crankset) from the bike. It also serves as the perfect periodic maintenance opportunity to inspect and service other bits such as bottom bracket bearings and freehubs.

Tools required:

• Tools to remove cassette (lockring tool and chainwhip) and chainrings or cranks (e.g: hex keys, bearing preload tool for Shimano, etc).
• Citrus-based or similar degreaser
• A stiff-bristled brush, such as a cog brush or paint brush
• A container to use as a degreasing bath (a plastic storage bucket or large ice cream container work well), or a dedicated parts washer
• Water to rinse
• Gloves
• An air compressor (optional)

The process:

1. Assess whether the chain is worn and needs replacement. Remove and discard it in that case, but otherwise determine if the chain can easily be removed (such as with a reusable quick link). Remove if so, but if not, perform a moderate chain clean as above.
2. Remove rear wheel and remove cassette.
3. Remove chainrings from crank (or remove right-side pedal, and then whole crank).
4. Clean the derailleur pulleys and cage with a rag or strip of cloth. Compressed air is handy for removing grit from pulley holes and other cutouts. Otherwise, the pulleys can be disassembled for a more thorough cleaning.
5. Manually clean the cassette, chainrings (or the whole driveside crank), and chain in a degreaser bath. A thin cog brush, such as the Park Tool GearClean or Pedro’s ToothBrush can help with the task.
6. Alternatively, place the dirty chain in a jar filled with degreaser, and shake vigorously.
7. Once clean, rinse thoroughly with water.
8. Dry all of the components and reinstall. Compressed air is a big time saver here; otherwise, a hair dryer may help to speed the process.

Apartment tip: Use a stainless steel laundry sink as your parts washing basin. Only use environmentally-friendly degreasers if you do this.

Alternative:

Ultrasonic cleaners are fast becoming popular for a hands-off approach to the degreasing bath. You’ll get mixed results with really stubborn grit, but it’ll do an impressive job at getting in all the nooks and crannies. Pay close attention to the heat and solvent used in order not to cause plastic or anodisation damage.

Ultrasonic cleaners can be picked up online for reasonable money. Some people swear by them. I like mine, but it’s certainly not a must-have item.

Win Allen, owner of Wins Wheels in Westlake Village, California, and two-time consecutive winner of the Mechanics Challenge at Interbike, uses an ultrasonic cleaner filled with diluted Dawn dish soap after running the components through a separate parts washer. This ensures the solvent is thoroughly flushed out, and that any further hidden dirt is removed.

Obessive chain clean

Are you more of the OCD (Obsessive, Chain, Degrease) type? Did you read the “Holy Grail of chain lube” articles and are now keen to get the most life and best performance from your chain? This section is for you.

“Many drip lubes (and obviously a must for wax submersion) will work their best if they have access to the chain metal,” Kerin explained. “So cleaning a chain should always be viewed as a two-part process. Part one is getting the chain clean, and the second part is ensuring there is no film left on chain from what was used to clean it.”

Adam Kerin’s ultra-thorough cleaning process comes from the knowledge that some lubricants, especially wax-based ones, will only work if they can adhere to the bare metal of the chain. That means all traces of oil and solvent must be removed.

According to Kerin, petrol, diesel, and many popular degreasers leave a heavy film behind, making it difficult for drip lube, and impossible for wax, to properly adhere to the metal surface as the lube manufacturer intended. Getting a chain visually clean, and then actually clean inside of the rollers, are two very different things, and for that, Kerin suggests that the previous methods mentioned above just don’t cut it.

In particular, Kerin warns that cleaning fluids will quickly get contaminated in ultrasonic cleaners, so it won’t be possible to get a sterile finish.

“It is like trying to get clean glassware out of filthy sink water,” he said. “I use mineral turpentine for the first cleaning part; it does a great cleaning job and is cheap to buy. Once the chain is coming out clean in the turps, I’ll do a couple of agitated rinses with methylated spirits (denatured alcohol).”

Kerin reserves an ultrasonic cleaner only for the final cleaning stage, and then follows it with a rinse in methylated spirits. Other methods and chemicals will work, he says, but it’s hard to beat this once you price it up. Whatever chemical you use, be sure to dispose of it responsibly. (The methods vary depending on where you live, but many councils commonly offer quarterly chemical collections. If in doubt, call your local council.)

Brand new chains can be ridden straight from the packaging, but there are reasons why some people first clean the stock grease off.

Got a brand new chain? Both Kerin and Jason Smith (formerly of Friction Facts, now with CeramicSpeed) believe new chains should be stripped of the packaging grease prior to using your preferred lube. The packaging grease is certainly fine to use, and is often reasonably durable, but it isn’t great from an efficiency point of view. Likewise, many of the better chain lubes won’t mix or adhere well with the factory grease.

So whether you want to get an old chain prepped for a submersive wax treatment (the gold standard, according to the recent Holy Grail chain lube article), just want it feeling like-new, or want the packaging grease stripped from a new chain, the method described below is the way to go:

Tools required:

• A jar or similar bottle
• A strong degreaser for initial cleaning
• Denatured alcohol (methylated spirits) for final prep
• An air compressor and/or hair dryer (optional)
• An ultrasonic cleaner (optional)

The process:

1. Clean chain with a preferred method as detailed above. Alternatively, drop the chain into a jar of fresh degreaser and shake thoroughly.
2. Repeat the shaking process with fresh degreaser until the fluid stays clean. You may need to allow the chain to soak for some time, especially if it’s brand new.
3. Replace the degreaser with denatured alcohol and repeat steps 1-3 until the fluid remains clean.
4. Hang the chain to dry, or speed up the process with a hair dryer or compressed air.
5. Apply your lubricant of choice.

Preventative chain care

Chain maintenance all starts with proper chain lube selection and use. If you prevent the chain from getting overly gritty and greasy in the first place, you’ll rarely need to give it a thorough clean. Using a lube that attracts little grit, and then keeping it clean, can help you get as much as 15,000km from a chain before it needs to be replaced, not the more common 3,000km most people see. And as a bonus, this increased lifespan also comes with reduced friction and greater operating efficiency.

Some chain lubes are far better at keeping a chain clean than others. Traditional “dry” oils offer little lubrication and still collect grit, while thicker “wet” lubes offer decent lubricant but quickly get gritty. The general advice is to use a little of a wet lube (such as the Silca NFS) and consistently wipe away the grit, or get a wax-based lube that doesn’t collect the elements. Examples of the latter include Squirt and Smoove.

“Cleaning really starts with the application of the lube of choice,” says Quade. “I’ve long said the more anal you are about putting the lube on, the lazier you can be in taking it off.”

Whichever chain lube you use, ensure you use enough to penetrate inside the rollers. Applying lube to the rollers on the lower span of the chain while backpedaling will carry the lube into the links. If it’s an oil-based lube, wipe off any excess with a rag once it’s had time to settle in. Be sure to always read the application instructions, and if a lube calls to be left on the chain overnight before riding, definitely do so.

If the chain is dirty, and you’re in a rush, consider lubing it anyway (and following the easy clean process).

“I’ve not seen any negative efficiency effects of at least re-lubing between rides,” said Smith, “even if re-lubing over a dirty chain, if a user does not have time to clean their chain.”

Replacing parts when necessary

Staying on top of chain wear and replacing before it becomes worn is the best way to prolong the life of other components, since a “stretched” chain will wear the matching cassette and chainrings more rapidly than a fresh one. Our article on chain wear explains the concept and how to check it easily.

Generally speaking, if you’ve worn your chain past 0.8mm wear, you’ll likely need to replace your cassette. And if it’s more worn than this, then you may need new chainrings. If you’re keen to push it to the limit, install a new chain and take it for a careful test ride. If the chain is skipping at the back under power, you’ll need a new cassette. If it’s grabbing unusually on the chainring, making weird noises or shifting poorly on the front, new chainrings are likely needed, too.

A chain wear indicator, such as the Park Tool CC-3.2, allows you to easily check the condition of your chain so you can replace it before it causes excessive wear.

Much of what’s been described here may sound onerous, but it doesn’t have to be a time-draining exercise, especially if you have good habits to start with. Whether you want to do the bare minimum, or have a chainring you can eat off of, there’s an approach for you.

In the end, the general advice is to keep your drivetrain clean with a smart selection of chain lube, and a consistent routine to ensure gunk doesn’t build up. If you do this, you’ll only rarely need to use degreaser, and when you do, you’ve got plenty of options.

Wondering what degreaser is best, or simply safest, to use? Hold tight: we’ve got an article on that, coming soon!

The post Chain cleaning: A complete guide from lazy to obsessive appeared first on CyclingTips.

Following just a couple of weeks after the inaugural Handmade Bicycle Show Australia, a small group of frame builders hosted their own show in Sydney, named The Makers Show. Situated behind an inner-city candle store in Newtown, maker Sean Killen opened his workshop to the public, sliding up the garage door, moving all his equipment out, and occupying the street corner on a rainy Saturday.

Where the Melbourne-based Handmade Bicycle Show was a commercially run event in a rented space, the Makers show was noticeably more casual. Most of the invited builders knew each other through a private builders forum, where they collaborate and share knowledge, experience, and even materials. These makers had met casually the previous year, and for 2018, decided to make it a public affair. With a mix of bikes displayed and with free beers in an esky (cooler box) sitting in the street for any interested parties, this small group of young builders came together from across Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide.

Below is an introduction to a number of new names, along with a look at a couple that you may know already. With handbuilt wares from Rogers Bespoke, Killen Bike, Tempest Bicycles, Vale Bikes, Chimera Frameworks, Egress Bikes, The Lost Workshop, and Skunkworks (wheels), these are the bikes of the 2018 Makers Show.

Missed out on the action from the 2018 Handmade Bicycle Show Australia? See our first gallery covering the bigger and more established builders, and also check out our second gallery featuring the newcomers and part-timers of the scene.

The host of the party (show), Sean Killen of Killen Bike had just a couple of bikes on display. Pictured is a bikepacking rig built for one of the mechanics at the local Omafiets bike store. “It has quite a short trail to make the bike handle more quickly. I like my bikes to just change direction in a corner, and actually be fun,” said Killen with a sly grin. “With a bar bag on, and a load on the front, too many bikes go like a slug. The head angle is a steep 73-degrees, with a 55mm fork rake. This will take up to a 650B x 2.5in tyre, with a conventional width bottom bracket.”

The cut-out head tube is a signature of Killen’s bikes. “I’ve been building for three years. I was a licensed builder and cabinet maker prior to that. I was doing a lot of bicycle maintenance with an angle grinder because I was past that point of just fiddling around with what you’re supposed to do, and I thought I really want to start joining stuff to my frames. I went to the States, I did the fillet-brazed course at UBI (United Bicycle Institute), and loved it so much I came back and thought, you know what, there’s probably a market in Sydney. A lot of the guys that were doing it have moved on and retired, and I thought, I’d have a crack.”

Another hand cut detail is seen at the seat tube, and the Killen logo is starting to better recognized. “Business is growing,” Killen said. “I’ve been full-time for the past twelve months. I’m still offering repairs, but custom builds are starting to come in. I’ve got one bike on the East Coast of the US being toured at the moment, and I’ve got another bike being ridden between the UK and Switzerland at the moment. There’s probably five bikes out on the roads, three on the wall, and two in the wait list.”

“A frame like this would cost about AU$3,800, including the full segmented fork,” said Killen. “All the lines are internally routed; even the brake hydro line is internal.”

Plenty of custom mounts were added to this bikepacking rig.

While the pictured bike is painted, Killen explains that he’s since found a good powder coater, and that’s the path he’s now taking with his frames that are typically going to see some rough and demanding usage.

“Within Australia there’s six of us, and we’ve got a closed forum that we help one another out with technical issues,” explained Killen about the online forum that ultimately brought many of the displaying makers together in his workshop. “Dumb questions are encouraged. It’s to lift all of us up with our technical skills and what we’re doing. The forum is private, but if you’re trying to build or are building frames, contact us and we’ll invite you in.”

Based in Adelaide, South Australia, Rogers Bespoke is arguably the more established brand in this collective. Builder James Alderson (aka, Jr.) explained that there are thirty Rogers Bespoke bikes in the wild, and that’s with a less-than-productive last year with moving workshop.

“I met Rob (Benson) at the Melbourne custom bike show in 2015, and we were the young guys there,” Alderson said. “[The Makers Show] is creating a community amongst the local frame builders.”

“I moved into a new workshop last year, and I’ve got a spray booth going in at the moment,” said Alderson. “It’s just myself, but I’m bringing in a guy who’ll be doing the painting. I’m working more on getting handmade parts, rather than importing it from the (United) States. Obviously, the tubing we’re never going to manufacture here, but for example, all my head tubes are machined locally, seat collars as well. I want to do a lot more of that. I’m working on some dropout designs at the moment.”

The bike pictured belongs to a Sydney-based customer of Alderson’s, and is a SRAM eTap version of his Ronin signature series. “The Ronin came about because I needed a new road bike, and it was built as the bike that I wanted to ride,” Alderson said. “Essentially, I wanted a fast, quick-handling road bike that I could fit up to 30c tyres in. It’s a performance bike with a little extra cushion.”

The Ronin officially fits 28c tyres, but a 30c will squeeze in there, too.

Having been in the game for a few years now, Alderson is becoming a master of the brazing torch.

A Rogers Bespoke Ronin frame will cost you approximately AU$3,300. Showing his demand, Alderson is dealing with an approximate eight-month lead time.

Rob Benson learned his craft in Canada, but moved to the wine region of Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, with the goal of starting his own bike company. It took a few years to get Tempest Bicycles going, but things have worked out.

The bike pictured is a super-commuter Benson built for customer Tom Wood, who now owns two Tempests. The fit on both bikes was done by Dan Lovegrove of Newcastle-based Cycle Fit Physiotherapy, who was also at the show.

Benson is an avid bike collector himself, with a bewildering collection that he brought across from Canada. Such a collection gives him a broad amount of inspiration for frame design. Yes, I have plans to take a closer look at (part of) the collection myself, and yes, I’ll share it when I do.

Benson is a fan of clean aesthetics, preferring to use internal cable routing on many of his bikes. Speaking of clean, this bike uses a Shimano Alfine Di2 internally geared rear hub and hides a bunch of trickery in the stem, which allows it to recharge from the front dynamo hub.

This commuter features a custom brass top cap made by Bentley Components in Yorshire, England.

This fork is made with a biplane crown, Reynolds blades, and reshaped dropouts. There’s also internal cable routing for the front dynamo hub wire. While he’ll build just about anything, this type of bike is not the usual for Benson; most orders are road or cyclocross bikes.

Based on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Tristan Tucker spends his days repairing carbon bikes under his “Carbon Bike Doctor” business. A former builder of racing yachts and designer at the now defunct Teschner Bikes, Tucker has been slowly setting up his own custom carbon bike brand, Vale Bikes. “Repairing all of these production frames, you see the issues, and then you start to think, I wouldn’t mind building my own.”

Tucker works with famed bike fitter Steve Hogg for geometry and fit guidance. Frame designs seek to keep everything in proportion, with tube sizes and complete geometry adjusted between every bike. “Being a tall guy myself, I needed custom geometry, and so tube-to-tube construction allows for that,” Tucker said. “We’ve got a builders account with Enve, they make the tubes for us.”

“We are based in Mona Vale, but the name didn’t come from that,” Tucker explained of the Vale brand name. “Vale means Valley. In Latin it means farewell, farewell to production cookie-cutter frames. And it also means be well, be strong. It’s kind of why you ride.”

Having done carbon bike repairs for a number of years, Tucker is his own painter. We plan to take a closer look at this bike, and Tucker’s workshop, in a Bikes of the Bunch feature in the near future.

Tucker showed off an unfinished frame at the Makers Show, joking that as a carbon frame builder, it’s like walking around with your pants down.

Another look at the raw carbon of an unfinished Vale. “They are for sale. We’ve got all the stock ready to go, but at the moment, they’re very labour-intensive for me to build. Frameset cost is AU$10,000, including an Enve fork, stem, handlebar, and seatpost. There aren’t too many people doing custom carbon, and we hope to be that Aussie brand.”

The show doubled as an informal launch for a new Australian frame brand, Chimera. These Australian-made off-the-peg steel bikes are a collaboration between Sean Killen of Killen Bike and Rob Benson of Tempest Bicycles. Pictured is the first prototype, a road racing crit bike. It’s a bike we may soon get our hands on to test.

So what is the plan for Chimera? According to Benson, “Sean and I are going to be building off-the-peg road bikes, cyclocross bikes, and bikepacking rigs. They’ll come in at a lower cost to a full-custom frame build and have standard sizes in 2cm increments. They’re still fillet-brazed and built to a really high standard. Finer details are to be worked out, but I’ll likely build the road bikes, while Sean will build the bikepacking rigs. Some will be made in Newtown, some in the Hunter Valley. I have a local painter near me, and we’ll have stock paint, with an option for custom paint.”

“Rob has more experience with the road and track side, although he lives where you should be bikepacking, and I live in the city,” said Killen, who is more of a bikepacking specialist himself. “This collaboration really meshes quite well, with our interests in what we’re building.”

This crit racer prototype uses Columbus MiniMax tubing. “It’s stiff and light,” said Benson.

“It has the new T47 Chris King bottom bracket standard,” said Benson. “It’s good because it allows you to run the cables internal.”

Columbus Max oversized tubing is used to keep the rear end stiff, while slim wishbone seatstays are said to keep it compliant.

A 44mm-diameter head tube is chosen to allow plenty of fork options, including a tapered steerer (pictured).

This prototype is set up with interchangeable cable ports to allow for either mechanical or electronic drivetrains.

The frame features clean cable routing, which is said to be guided for easy assembly.

While unconfirmed, tyre clearance appears to allow for modern, wider, standards.

Originally from Sweden, Jimmy Röstlund of Egress Bikes is fresh on the scene. “I’m not quite ready for commercial building yet; just building for myself currently. I’ve been designing BMX parts and frames for a number of years, and figured I want to get into working with my hands. I got my own jig built and a very basic setup in my garage. I’m doing everything by hand, cutting by hand, and filing by hand. In addition to this gravel bike, I’ve also done a 29er rigid single speed, and I’ve built two BMX street frames.”

“The future is to get set up to take some orders from people, and build a handful of frames every year,” said Röstlund, who is based in Point Cook, Melbourne. “[I’d like to] do it as a part-time job.”

The frame is kept fully raw, even down to the lack of a head tube badge. Röstlund explained that this frame was only just finished, and he plans to clear coat it once he’s done with the detailing.

This chainstay bridge is Röstlund’s own take on asymmetrical design. His theory (for which he admits he hasn’t got any data on) is that doing this should add a minute amount of stiffness to the driveside stay without hindering tyre clearance. At the very least, it looks cool.

Röstlund explained that he prefers fillet brazing as it gives him more freedom than lugs.

Based out of his garage in Doncaster, East Melbourne, Ian Michelson runs The Lost Workshop. Pictured is his second track build ever, made for a friend who runs Cycle Fixation. The fillet-brazed steel racer should have seen its first race yesterday with Brunswick’s Tuesday night racing now back on.

Like all the builders using steel in this group, Michelson builds his frames with fillet brazing. “The cost of entry is easiest to get started with. The first road bike I did was lugged, but the clean lines you get with fillet brazed is so nice. A lot of people look at that and question whether it’s actually steel because of the transitions between the tubes. Also, it keeps it a lot lower temperature than TIG-welding.”

Michelson had his own laser-cut 4130 dropouts produced for the build, stating that commercially available track dropouts can really hamper frame design with forcing certain seat and chainstay angles.

The paint is done by Bikes by Steve, who also paints bikes for Bastion and Prova. Michelson suggested that his brand, The Lost Workshop, may be changed in the near future, although it’s not yet known what it’ll be changed to.

Zak Smiley of Skunkworks in Bondi, Sydney is a notorious connoisseur of weight weenie parts. In addition to making his own Di2 junction ports and SRAM eTap remote shifters, Smiley is well known for his wheel builds. According to Smiley, his favourite lightweight clincher at present is built using Curve’s 35mm carbon rims and Extralite’s Cyber hubs, with the 2:1 lacing design on the rear. “I’m a big fan of the Extralite 2:1 hub; it’s actually something I helped Extralite develop. This hub was always let down by the low non-driveside tension. This change means the tension ratios on the non-driveside go from 45% to 75% (of the driveside tension), which also means you don’t need to push the drive side (tensions) as hard. You now end up with a nice, well-balanced, and stable wheel, and no chance of having zero spoke tension (on the non-drive side, during riding).”

Built by Skunkworks, a set of clincher wheels built with the Curve (G4) 35 rims and Extralite hubs should weigh approximately 1,250g and cost about AU$3,300.

The post The Makers Show 2018: A collective of seven Aussie builders appeared first on CyclingTips.

Trek recently updated its lightweight racing chassis, the Émonda, with a variety of refinements for 2018, including the addition of a disc-brake version. We had a look at the Émonda SLR Disc when it was launched last year, so for this review, we follow that up with a closer look at the more affordable mid-range Émonda SL 6 Disc.

It has been almost four years since Trek launched the Émonda, the company’s lightest road chassis that not only yielded, at 4.65kg, the lightest production bike in the world, but according to Trek, the lightest range of road bikes as well. After devoting two-and-a-half years to development, Trek was never going to talk down what it had managed to achieve with the Émonda, which included some bold adjectives for the performance of the new bike.

The introduction of road disc brakes seems to have provided the main incentive for revisiting the design of the Émonda, but it also gave Trek’s engineers a good opportunity to build upon the experience gained from creating the first-generation Émonda (which supposedly included 300 physical prototypes). Computer modelling and finite element analysis was used to explore hundreds of refinements to identify only those that could provide a tangible improvement for the weight, stiffness, and compliance of the new frame. After that, physical prototypes were used to validate those predictions.

According to Trek’s figures, the company has managed to achieve all of these goals, however the magnitude of said improvements are modest, at best. The first-generation Émonda SLR frame and fork (56cm, H1 fit) weighed 690g and 280g, respectively, according to Trek, compared to 640g and 313g for the second-generation frame and fork. Overall frame stiffness has been increased by 11% with a head tube that is 1.7% stiffer and a bottom bracket that is 7.6% stouter, while vertical compliance has been improved by 1.9%.

The disc-brake version of the Émonda SLR mirrors the rim-brake version in many regards, however it is 62g heavier (frame, 665g; fork, 350g) and overall frame stiffness is down a little, offering a 9% improvement over the first-generation chassis. Clearly, Trek is working within the realm of marginal gains, but our roving reporter, Dave Everett, was able to notice a difference when he attended the launch of the bike last year, and concluded that the new bike was a tangible improvement.

What about the Émonda SL?

While all attention was focussed on the new Émonda SLR Disc frameset at the launch last year, the more affordable SL version also received an overhaul, including the addition of a disc-brake version. Once again, Trek promised an increase in both frame stiffness and compliance coupled with a marginal weight saving: the first-generation SL frame weighed 1,050g with a 358g fork; the new SL frame weighs 1,091g with a 313g fork.

Unsurprisingly, the disc-brake version of the new Émonda SL is heavier than the rim-brake version with a claimed weight of 1,149g for the frame and 350g for the fork. Be that as it may, the Émonda SL in either guise is not going to woo weight-weenies, but it will have broader appeal since it is a lot cheaper than the SLR version.

A difference in carbon fibre accounts for much of the extra weight (and expense) of the Émonda SL frame — which is constructed from Trek’s 500 series fibre compared to the 700 series that serves the SLR — however there is also a difference in the moulds that are used, and hence, the final shape of the two frames.

Nevertheless, the SLR and SL frames share the same specifications that have been carried over from the first-generation Émonda, such as Trek’s proprietary BB90 bottom bracket, E2 tapered head tube, internal cable routing, and a semi-integrated seatpost. For the disc-brake version, there are flat mounts for the disc callipers and 12mm-diameter thru-axles for the wheels.

The geometry of the frame remains unchanged, too. Thus, the Émonda SL continues with Trek’s forgiving H2 fit that provides a taller head tube, however it is not as generous as the geometry for the Domane.

Frame sizes 50-54cm are partnered with a fork with 45mm of rake, while the larger sizes get a fork with 40mm of rake. Bottom bracket drop is 72-68mm, decreasing with frame size; chainstay length is 410-411mm, increasing with frame size.

It’s worth noting that the geometry of the Émonda SL is identical to the Émonda SLR and does not vary between the rim or disc-brake versions. In addition, it is almost identical to the current Madone, however the latter offers an extra 5mm of stack for each frame size.

The semi-integrated seatpost places a limitation on the maximum and minimum saddle height for any given frame size, which is detailed in Trek’s geometry charts for the Émonda SL. However, the maximum saddle height is based on a 175mm seat mast cap rather than the stock 135mm cap that ships with the bike, so buyers with long legs should pay attention to this when ordering and/or collecting the bike. Buyers that require less saddle setback can also opt for a cap with 5mm of offset rather than 20mm to help with their fit.

Trek has put together two builds for the new Émonda SL Disc frameset: the SL 7 and SL 6. However, the former (which features a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset and a Bontrager Aeolus Pro 3 carbon wheelset) is not available in all markets, such as Australia. By contrast, there are several builds for the rim-brake version of the Émonda SL on offer, providing buyers with a much wider range of options and pricepoints.

The Émonda SL 6 Disc features Shimano’s new Ultegra R8000 mechanical groupset (50/34T crankset, 11-28T cassette) with hydraulic disc brakes and 160mm rotors. The rest of the components come from Bontrager’s catalogue: Paradigm tubeless-ready alloy wheels with R2 Hard-Case Lite tyres (25C), Elite VR-C alloy bars, Pro alloy stem, and a Montrose Comp saddle with chromoly rails.

I’ve long been impressed by the quality of the presentation of Trek’s bikes, and the Émonda SL 6 Disc is another good example of this. The matte metallic gunmetal finish may strike some as conservative, but it’s not dull, and it sits well against the black components.

The 54cm sample sent for review weighed 7.94kg/17.5lb without pedals or bottle cages, which doesn’t do much to support the notion that the Émonda is a lightweight race bike. For those hoping for a lighter bike, they can opt for the SLR 6 Disc that promises a weight saving of 700-800g (depending on frame size), but it costs almost twice as much as the SL 6 Disc. Alternatively, the SL 6 with rim brakes provides almost the same kind of weight saving (600-700g) and actually costs less than the disc-brake version.

The asking price for the Émonda SL 6 Disc is AU$3,999/US$2,999/£2,650, which is fair given the quality of the build, but it won’t woo bargain hunters. For those looking for better value, the rim-brake version of the SL 6 sells for AU$3,499/US$2,699/£2,250. In both instances, Trek provides a lifetime warranty for the Émonda frame and a two-year warranty for the fork and all Bontrager components.

For more information on the Émonda SL 6 Disc and the rest of the Émonda range, visit Trek.

After the ride

The Émonda has always fitted very nicely into Trek’s road catalogue, confidently staking out the middle ground between the aerodynamically-refined Madone and the rut-gobbling Domane. And while Trek went to extraordinary lengths to highlight the weight savings that the first-generation bike had to offer, they were limited to the high-end SLR frameset, so that everyday buyers opting for the SL version were missing out on the best that Trek had to offer.

With that said, a back-to-back comparison of the first-generation Émonda SLR 6 with the SL 6 (both of which featured rim brakes) demonstrated that the distinctions between the two versions of the frame were surprisingly modest. In fact, I found it difficult to appreciate any of the performance gains that the lighter SLR frameset might have provided simply because there was very little feedback from the bike.

The second-generation Émonda has reversed this to some degree, presumably due to the increase in the stiffness of the frame, and as a result, I found that the bike was more exciting to ride. An increase in feedback from the road adds life to the bike and gives it a race-oriented feel.

The bike was at its best on smooth bitumen. Rising out of the saddle, the stiffness about the bottom bracket was obvious, and I could enjoy some sense of responsiveness whenever I pressed on the pedals to accelerate. However, the overall weight of the bike held it back, so it won’t impress buyers looking for a svelte climbing rig.

It’s better to think of the SL 6 Disc as a bike for undulating courses. On this kind of terrain, the extra weight of the bike was less noticeable and I could enjoy the stiffness of the bike when attacking each short rise. Moreover, I was often struck by how sturdy and robust the bike felt, and sudden changes in speed really had no effect on its demeanour.

The second-generation Émonda SL 6 Disc may provide more feedback from the road, but that doesn’t mean that Trek has done away with the highly refined ride quality that defined the original Émonda. It’s still there, and at times, I was impressed with how well it worked to insulate me from unnecessary chatter. This was most obvious on groomed unpaved tracks where the Émonda SL 6 Disc provided a smooth, almost gentle ride, without robbing me of a sense of how the tyres were behaving on the dusty surface.

While the Émonda SL 6 Disc did an admirable job of soaking up vibration and chatter, it wasn’t nearly as adept at contending with shock, especially at the front end of the bike. Any kind of sharp hit from a bump, crack or hole was quite harsh, which was something that Dave Everett noticed at the launch of the Émonda SLR Disc last year. By contrast, the rear end of the bike was noticeably more compliant, so my backside never suffered the same kind of shock as my hands.

I was able to fit tyres up to 30mm wide on the Émonda SL 6 Disc without any risk of frame or fork rub. The larger tyres were able to reduce the shock of sudden impacts, however the front end of the bike was still too rigid for long stretches of unpaved terrain. Compared to a bike like Cannondale’s new Synapse or Canyon’s Endurace, the Emonda SL Disc Disc isn’t nearly as versatile, but then, riders interested in extra versatility are probably going to be looking at Trek’s Domane or the new do-it-all Checkpoint instead.

Thus, it’s best to consider the Émonda SL Disc as a pure road-going machine where tyre size and pressure can be used to satisfy the owner’s preferences for ride quality. I found myself vacillating between the stock 25c clinchers at 70psi and more supple 28c tyres at 60psi, but by the end of the review period, the narrower tyres seemed a slightly better match for the bike.

The stable and predictable handling that characterised the first-generation Émonda was still very much in evidence, which isn’t surprising given that no changes were made to the geometry of the second-generation frame. As such, the Émonda remains an inviting and well-mannered bike to ride. The steering tends towards slow, so the bike requires a little more effort when negotiating tight turns and technical descents, but I can’t see many riders struggling with this aspect of the Émonda’s handling.

Shimano’s new Ultegra R8000 groupset continues to shine, regardless of whether it is partnered with rim or disc brakes. The latter adds significantly to the weight of the bike, but that has more to do with the associated hardware (e.g. rotors and wheels) than the brakes. This is a handicap that continues to afflict road disc bikes in general, but for those looking for more braking confidence, it’s a necessary compromise.

Bontrager’s one-bolt saddle clamp promises to be easy to use, however the wedges that sink into the cap provide too much bite, so it is difficult make minor changes to the angle of the saddle. At the front end of the bike, Bontrager’s Elite VR-C handlebars offer more reach (85mm) than other compact shapes, which, when coupled with the generous length of the hoods of Shimano’s hydraulic brake levers, adds significantly to the overall reach of the cockpit. Swapping to a stem that was 10mm shorter was enough to address this issue for me.

Summary and final thoughts

It has been over 25 years since Trek introduced its first carbon fibre road bike frame and the amount of evolution that has taken place in that time is quite remarkable. One frame has slowly grown into three specialised offerings and the number of builds has blossomed to give shoppers an impressive range of bikes to choose from.

The Émonda may appear to be quite removed from Trek’s original OCLV road frame, but it still possesses the same kind of aura as a lightweight and exotic racing bike. This is certainly true for the Émonda SLR and some of the aspirational builds on offer, but the SL version is well within reach of many mid-level shoppers. It’s not going to dazzle buyers with a low weight like the SLR, but it is a confident road-going bike that promises to provide a tangible upgrade from an entry-level bike.

For those contemplating such an upgrade, the choice of brakes may create some consternation, however much of the controversy surrounding disc brakes has died down. Quite simply, discs have become a legitimate option for road bikes and are now future-proof to some degree, so buyers can decide the matter on the basis of appeal. In this regard, the Émonda may be a little late to the party, but the second-generation frameset gives shoppers both options to consider.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tyre clearance is pretty generous with plenty of room for 28C tyres (25C tyres are shown).

 

The stock 25C tyre fits easily within the fork.

 

 

 

According to Trek, external routing reduces the weight of the fork.

The RT800 rotors build on Shimano’s Ice Tech concept by extending the alloy core to form cooling fins.

 

The rear brake hose and derailleur cables are all routed through the down tube of the frame.

Trek has dubbed its new internal cable routing system “Control Freak”.

 

The second generation Émonda provides a port for Trek’s DuoTrap speed and cadence sensor.

The new Ultegra front derailleur provides a plastic clip for keeping the end of the inner wire out of the way.

 

 

Bontrager’s Paradigm alloy wheelset is 23mm wide and tubeless ready.

 

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