Urban commuter bikes are soooo in this season so it’s not surprising to see that Saracen have bikes to suit. As well as being the most in-your-face paintjob we’ve seen for a while the Clevermike is also one of the most instantly desirable. At a penny shy of £800 it’s got an 8 speed Alfine rear hub, Shimano discs and skinny tyres. It should be able to leave fixie-hipsters for dead on the green light.
Not keen on the Clevermike’s paintjob? Don’t want 8 gears? Not got £800? No fear the Saracen Rush is £450 and has a Nexus 3 speed hub and a lovely blue paintjob.
The Kili has been in the works for a while now. Initially it was going to be built in the UK but time and quantity restraints mean that it is now being built in Taiwan. The frames will still be fillet brazed Tange Prestige tubes and hand painted. We are very eager to get our hands on one.
Fillet brazed not posh enough for ya? How about titanium? Same angles as the steel offering just more, er, titaniumy.
Lance McDermott rides for Saracen and this is his custom Amplitude. It was almost small enough to hide under our coats…
…thankfully we’ve already got an Amplitude CR1 in for test so the need to become kleptomaniacs was kept under control.
The Myst is Saracen’s DH bike and they’re not messing about. They were talking about a World Cup DH team next season, or earlier if possible. As well as being available as a full bike (with a price tag of about £2000), they are going to be producing a frameset too.
It’s still not finished yet with a few minor tweaks needed before it’s ready for general consumption.
The bike that most people were tyre kicking was the Ariel. 140mm front and rear and designed for, well, just riding. The Ariel has a tapered headtube and some clever dropouts that mean it can run a 135mm QR rear, 135mm 12mm bolt thru and the new 142mm rear spacing. You get to customise the Ariel with a supplied sticker pack. There will be three models stretching from the £2600 Ariel 3 to the £1600 Ariel 1. Saracen have been quite clever with the speccing on the bikes. All the money is invested in the things you want to last the lifetime of the bike and that will make the biggest difference to the ride. This means you get Fox forks and shocks on all models. It’s a sensible way of making a bike that won’t be terminally hamstrung from the beginning.
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those commuters look sexy
makes me wonder if it would be a crime to get some disc mounts welded on my lava dome
Ariel looks more, er, commencaly
£2K for a full DH bike? Jeepers.
The Ariels always get a great reception.
IGMC.
That first bike reminds me of the ’91 Alpinestars range….
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h207/Arranandnat/Almega.jpg
AlexSimon, I was thinking more of MS Racing, the precursor to Alpinestars!
Good to see the urban bikes have sensible dropouts – forward facing slotted drops mean its dead easy to get the wheel out, especially if using full-length mudguards, compared to track-end dropouts.
And because no-one else has said it yet:
ur bik iz….
Ti Frame looks nice, looks like its got crud Catcher bosses aswell, and all the cable runs, run the right way for our conditions, any idea on price?
Loving the Aerial. Could be perfect if its got the tyre clearance and if it goes small enough
Ariel will be 15 / 17 / 19 inch frames.
Fillet brazed Tange Prestige. Mmmmmm.
Proper urban bikes have mudguards, it’s in the rules. It’s hard to tell if either of those frames even have eyelets?
Lovely looking bikes though.