Ken’s stainless road disc

Ken came to me with some very specific requests for his build – challenging me to figure out some firsts for me, namely a stainless steel disc brake frame, and a stainless integrated seatmast. He was able to give me a good sense of how he wanted the bike to handle, which along with his fit numbers enabled me to meet those design requirements whilst also eliminating toe overlap.

As we were working on the design and specification, SRAM announced the new AXS eTap group, so we made a late switch to that.

A custom stainless stem was requested, but Ken wanted to run an aero road handlebar, which would normally require a four bolt removable faceplate, but he much preferred the aesthetic of my minimal two bolt bar clamp (which normally requires a round handlebar to be fed through for installation). So I created a low profile faceplate that interlocks at the top and has the two bolts underneath, to meet these objectives, resulting in a 152g stem weight.

The frame tubing is a mixture of Reynolds 953 and Columbus XCR, with custom 316 seatstays and seatmast cap. The ISP is internally reinforced at the toptube junction. Stainless Syntace X12 dropouts allow a thru-axle to secure the rear wheel, with custom machined flat mount bosses for the brake caliper. The headtube is a custom piece of 953 to take the special English headset cups that allow using an 1-1/4″ tapered fork without needing a large diameter headtube.

Ken requested a brushed finish, so that was done by hand to the whole frame, with the laser engraving of the logos done before the tubes were joined.

The final weight as shown is 16.1lbs.

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