Christian’s road bike

Christian is relatively local – he worked with a fitter close to him to confirm his fit numbers, but then once his bike was finished, he was able to visit to collect it; always fun for me to join in on first ride!

The goal was for a year-round road bike, so we selected a Whisky fork because it included fender mounts – the bike as shown has 30mm tires with Portland Design Works fenders, but will comfortably clear 32mm tires for mixed terrain summer riding.

Kind of nice to do a build with mechanical shifting! The groupset is Shimano 105 12spd (with an upgraded Ultegra crankset), but the cable stops at the headtube, BB and chainstay are removable, and the frame has Di2 ports in case of a future change to electric shifting.

Enve Foundation rims are laced to Chris King hubs, who also supplied the T47 BB which gives space for the rear hydraulic hose to run internally through the frame.

The striking paint is by Colorworks, and the weight as shown is 20.2lbs.

This bike continues to be a great source of pleasure. I was looking forward to the durability and well-fit side of things while anticipating it might be comfortable to ride, but was not expecting it to be quite as plush an experience as it is proving out to be. Last week I was out in the Sandy river gorge to the East of Portland on some of my favorite and very familiar roads: beautiful, but lots of crappy old chip seal surfaces. Between your tuning of the frame itself, the long seat post and the lower pressure 30mm tires I experienced a gentle buzz, rather than a constant, jarring vibratory attack on my hands, feet and seat. It holds a lovely line on the descents and the Schwalbes grip beautifully, helping me feel safer and more relaxed. And even with all this stability and comfort I don’t find it to be in the least sluggish or unresponsive to steering input, or power through the pedals. I don’t have the feeling of having to “wait” for the acceleration to occur, or have any difficulty flicking around glass on the road. Bravo, maestro!

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