Robot Bike Company R160 – Like nothing you’ve ever seen

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Robot Bikes has just announced itself with a splash, launching its new R160 bike frame.

The bike is a collaboration between several bike-riding scientists, the former Tech Ed Ed Haythornthwaite of Dirt Magazine and Dave Weagle too. The bike features carbon fibre tubes and 3D printed titanium lugs. Each frame will set you back a cool £4,400, but Ed from Robot Bike Co reckons that’s good value as it must be the most expensive bike in the world to make.

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Robot Bike Co is using partner companies Renishaws, HiAETA and Altair (who all have bases in Bristol or its environs) to optimise and refine the 3D printing and design processes.

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This slightly unsettling pic is one of titanium lugs, fresh from the – er – additive manufacturing (apparently that’s what they’re called) machine. We’ll stick to 3D printers instead, ta.

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Robot Bike Co is hoping to offer something unique – a bespoke, carbon and titanium full-suspension bike. Says RBC’s Ed Haythornthwaite, “If you are trying to produce the very best frame it makes no sense to then only offer it in a small number of sizes when the people you are selling it to come in all shapes and sizes. Think of Robot Bike Co. as the Savile Row of the bike world.”

So there you have it. It might be a tad pricey, but a fully bespoke Savile Row suit is never cheap. You can get more details here.

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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