That is good to hear.
I have tried and raced the Velobuild TT-023, but felt the bike to be a little on the heavy side and sluggish.
So light and fast sounds promising!
Will be interesting to see if they can hit that low price target (at least for the US market) given everything our brilliant president is doing to trade and the economy.
With the caveat that it’s only UCI legal for XS-M.
L and XL are too long.
Aside from that, Jeroens project is going to be an example of what happens when people who understand the purpose of the product do the designing - which is quite rare.
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I can’t speak for Jeroen but I’d think a sensible strategy for his first year or two would be to focus on his home market (Europe) anyway. Just wait for things to change in the USA.
I visited the factory in March. They are making for primarily 2 big established brands , other than their own in house stuff. This frame has been under development together since last October. The hardware I’m developing for this bike is the same as I will offer on my carbon stem aerobar. Chinese factories only test to EN standard of 1 time force applied at the bar end for assemblies. All the suppliers I spoke to basebar test is comprehensive, but few do extension and assembly testing. I just got the lighter material samples and set them up for fatigue testing . Should get results next week. The reach is beyond what’s on the market so if it fails we may need to retest with shorter reach. Also the 22.2 has 3 widths and testing in the widest. Brands like wattshop, profile design, etc go the extra expensive mile to test aerobar safety. It’s a long expensive process but we hope Jeroens sales and my new product sales justify the cost and time investment.
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You are right, of course ;-). The choices I made were the balance between having it uci legal for at least their home market and the chances that they need uci legal sizes taller as the 54/medium for the Asian market are small as I’m using that size at 185 cm tall.
The balance for me was creating it such a way that with the reach built in the cockpit and having seen how we can get so much people more comfortable, more powerful and more aero on the bikes than before we needed that wheelbase/front center.
If they somehow choose to ban bikes, they meaning IM, WT, T100, Challenge, etc over this it would also mean Speedmax XL riders are no longer allowed if i say this correct from my memory, or Scott Plasma 6 in XL and older Cervelo P2/P3 in size 61.
So, yeah, I took a chance to put how the bike stability and handling would be over being uci legal on that specific point in the geo.
The Large being just barely non uci legal by 3 mm :-).
Jeroen
Looks great. Will you be offering frameset only options with or without the upgraded hardware?
Whilst full bike pricing sounds competitive, I think the benefits of this frame would be lost on a large part of the buying public who are more likely to reach for something like a Canyon without any pre fit.
There would likely be a strong market for frameset only for people to move their existing components across.
Yes, there will be a frame only option with the Culprit cockpit hardware available.
When we are done with the final testing next week we can work on the final prices. If all tests are passed ;-).
Jeroen
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What would be really cool is if the fit chart could be broken out by arm, torso, and leg length.
A Large Speedmax looked great on paper, but I’m at the very, very top end of adjustability even with an aftermarket stem, due to long arms and torso, but shorter than average legs for my height. An XL would’ve been better.
Breaking it out like that might be harder, but could be a way to grab some of the customers you mention going off just a size chart.
Is there an option with the risers for stock angle? Eg adjustable angled riser etc
The design is 0 to +30 degrees
What kinds of failures would you expect/have you seen in this kind of testing?
Make sure that the 0-30 degree is not stock on the Avenger bike, the cockpit as we are going to launch it will we different from the Hong Fu model. What we designed with Culprit is completely different from the default cockpit. And I would even say that these cockpit parts make the bike so good in the fit range. Without the frame geo is still good, but much more limited in fit range and options
Jeroen
Who will you launch through @TRIPRO
We will launch it under our own brand name. We already have a bike now, but this will be our first own design :-).
I will report back after the testing of some specific parts tomorrow. These parts will make the bike complete and create the whole fit range.
Jeroen
Okay, not the news we wanted but the base bar didn’t passes the testing of today. To be transparent and fair, we did test beyond the limits of how the factory designed the bar.
Hong Fu allows a max of total of 75 mm spacers incl. the rest of the hardware to mount the bar. No reach option.
We tested at a total of 120 mm with reach and that reach extended to a very max and that didn’t passed the test, unfortunately. And unfortunately it was way off. It needs to hold 100k cycles of force and it is not like it got to 90k……
So we are going to test again now at factory specs, see how that holds because we just might overdone ourselves in testing to on extreme levels that likely nobody ever needs.
And if that passes the test we will continue in a way to add reach and test that, if it passes add 10 mm extra spacers, etc.
Or we will design a completely new base bar.
What we learned, again, is that buying untested stuff like reach extenders from companies that do no real fatigue testing on your base bar is dangerous. You can buy a lot of different reach extenders these days, various brands, but if your base bar isn’t designed for it it is just dangerous for you and others around you.
There are great companies like Profile Design that tested their reach extender on their bars where it fits on and that is safe to use.
Again, not saying at this point the base bar is the issue, it might be that we just overpushed it in stack and reach. We will know after the next few tests.
Jeroen
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