Ben’s adventure bike

It is getting hard to categorize bicycles now – there are so many niche varieties that have spun off from road and mountain bikes: gravel, all-road, cyclocross, randonneur, adventure – but whatever you want to call it, Ben wanted a fun dropbar bike with clearance for 1.9″ tires. He also wanted to keep the stays short, avoid toe overlap and include frame space for a framebag plus two bottles.

The toptube was curved to give more framebag space, and then I curved the seatstays too – to match the toptube, but also to give plenty of clearance for a post-mount caliper on the chainstay. There are bosses under the toptube to allow for bolting the bag in place, plus accommodating cable routing for a dropper post. For best sealing and ease of maintenance, the 1x derailleur and rear brake cables run externally.

King Cage titanium bottle cages are mounted as low in the frame as possible to maximise framebag space above them. The front fork is an Enve cross model, with an FSA stem also painted to match by Colorworks.

Ever since I built Dave’s TT bike some years ago, I have been asked about a clearcoat finish quite a lot. Unfortunately Dave’s bike had considerable issues with corrosion under the clear, so I have not been able to offer it. But I have continued to explore options. There is a new wet paint clear solution that shows promise, and also clear powder – Ben agreed to test out the latter option. I scuffed the whole frame with Scotchbrite, and then handed it over to Custom Powderworks to have the graphics sandblasted prior to coating the whole bike. Hopefully it will hold up well!

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