I fitted a set of Velo Orange Crazy Bars to the Solaris for the French Divide. VO admit they were inspired by the Jones H-bars, 45deg backsweep but rather than a loop up front a la Jones they have a pair of bull horns/tri-bars but set at 400mm width rather than the narrow road style setup. I used a 100mm stem to get the rearmost part of the bars a bit further forward.
They give a good good few hand positions, the joint at the base of the horns is roughly equivalent to riding on the hoods on a set of drops. Only thing missing for me was a set of pads to rest my forearms on when using the front most hand position.
Not mentioned so far in the thread is that the off-road oriented drop bars are quite flexy compared to their road brethren. Also Woodchippers and the like don't have as much drop so even when on the drops you are still quite upright.
My SP-M003 frame got to Blighty in 14 days.
Parcelforce require £18.45 Import VAT and £11.25 clearance fee. So they're looking at approx £230 to your front door.
Should have it tomorrow.
did your frame show up milfordvet.
was just having another look at them , strikes me that they have only stuck one set of bottle bosses on the frame ? is that the case in what showed up ?
liking the bridgeless design ala the cutthroat but i think they missed a trick making the chainstay so fat out of the BB - be interesting to hear how you get on with clearance there.
My mates just finished the TransCont6 and had tri-bars on his Bokeh.
Yep it arrived.
Foam wrapped in the box. Paint work is perfect. The Celeste colour is indeed "Bianchi" Celeste - that green/ blue hue that I personally like. I don't have any Bianchi's and I'm not wanting to ape a Bianchi, but I do like that colour.
Internal cables, with pre inserted tubes that I guess I attach stuff to and pull through. Inside the head tube and wherever else it's smooth finish. It looks the biz. Tubing is very sculpted. The top tube is very laterally oval - for compliance I guess like Cotic and others do with steel. The seat tube has a slight bend down towards the bottom. Big downtube going from squovial to a more oval towards the big BB. BSA bottom bracket. Disc brake mount on the chain stay. Rear seat stays are very laterally flat oval, again I assume for compliance. All threads clean no overspray.
Comes with rear bolt through, 142 pre installed. There's a headset in a box with sealed type bearings and a seat collar.Frame weighs 1.2kg. I was wondering on the bottle mounts - it does have two, one on the seat and down tube normal position. Look like two sets stainless bottle cage bolts. Extra set of hangers and 142/135 swap out drop outs came airmail after I ordered it.
So it certainly looks a million dollars. And I'm very pleased with it. I shall take it home tonight and put a wheel in it to see what the clearance is, though I only run a Raceking 2.2. Chainstays are 44 roughly.
The geometry though isn't quite as shown in that picture, but it's close enough. Head tube is 120, Seat tube from center to top is 450mm. The actual top tube center to center is 58 so ETT will probably be 59 or so. not a deal breaker. My Roubaix is a 58 with a 110 stem, so I'll run a 100 instead. I'll have to look at my Woodchippers bar reach compared to the Spesh.
So pleased with it. Looks superb. Slighly dissapointed its not quite the exact geom advertised.. but its near enough - a short 29er for running drop bars, and it will build up super light for throwing over gates and lifting onto my car roof Thule rack for this oldie.
The forks that came are black painted as ordered. Kind of triangular in leg seaction - wider at the rear. 700g. Brake hose holder. I'm assuming as they make the frame, fork and supplied the headset it will all play nice. Forks were 70 pound. About 485 crown to axle center. 30cm on the fork steerer. Seem nicely made.
My Jagwire brake cables have arrived to make the most of the Spyres, which together with the Sram shifters (1x11) I'm waiting on to build it up. Would like hydraulics (my Roubaix has them) but was going to work out a bit dear, and I wanted to keep this one cheap and hopefully very chearfull and trying buying from China, from the guys that make stuff. I only brake offroad for the odd gate anyhow. If it gets down the SDW without puffing into carbon dust I shall have one over those American hipsters...
Interested to hear how you get on with it for sure. Good to know it has dual bottle mounts as well
@milfordvet glad to hear it arrived safe and sound. I'll keep an eye on updates on the build.
