New updated Kaffenback just launched (pre-order anyway) at Planet X

https://www.planetx.co.uk/c/q/bikes/road-bikes/planet-x-kaffenback

40mm tyre clearance, 11kg claimed weight for a medium, flat mount disc fitting.

Currently only listed with the Apex groupset and mechanical discs at £799, the small print on the e mail stated that a Rival version was in the pipeline at £899, though I imagine at that price it won’t be with hydraulic disc brakes.

Not singlespeedable, I’d got my hopes up after the Huntsman that whatever the road bike they were teasing was might be a viable replacement for my Plug. 😞

Took me a moment to get the name, good work!

Looks good, nice to see the old style dekerf inspired seatstays. Can’t help thinking the fork needs to be a steel one with a few mounts for all round practicality…

Took me a moment to get the name, good work!

I’d never realised it stood for anything!

I’d never realised it stood for anything!

It’s a bike for riding to the cafe and back. Kaffenback. 😉🤣

If it had a flat bar version I would be on it.

Watching the video and the first part was shot where I used to work. Very brave leaving it unlocked to get a coffee!

Looking at the size charts large is only 520mm, XL is 540?

Designed more for standover?
How did the original size up?

Not singlespeedable

I expect there will be a Pompino/Pompetamine Mk2 along soon if they’re working through the back-catalogue.

Looking at the size charts large is only 520mm, XL is 540?

Looks like C-C measurements with a sloping top tube.

395 and 407mm look like fairly typical reach numbers for a 56 and ~60+cm frame.

Road bike frames get a bit complicated as generally the typical sizing goes up squarely, so a 56cm seatube and top tube, when scaled upto 58, 60, etc the reach doesn’t grow all that much as the headtube also gains 2cm each time (so it adds lots more stack). Compared to mountainbikes with 50mm jumps in frame size and typically 10mm jumps in headtubes.

e.g. 407mm is more reach than a 62cm CAAD13 race bike. But only has the stack of a 58cm CAAD13. But all that would be solved with a tall headset cap so you could probably average it out somewhere around a 59?

the size chart is rather misleading.

B Head tube, on the drawing is labelled D
E Seat tube on the drawing is labelled A
G BB drop on the drawing is H

etc.

I expect there will be a Pompino/Pompetamine Mk2 along soon if they’re working through the back-catalogue.

I’ve been waiting 10+ years for the Pompetamine Mk2!

The sizing was more a thing I noted rather than an issue as such.

Funnily enough though my size M/L Road bike is 560mm, and my size L gravel bike (a Planet X actually) is 560mm, I wouldn’t typically expect a “Large” Road/Gravel/touring bike to be quite so low slung.

(IMO) 520mm sounds more like ‘appropriate’ sizing for an early 00’s ‘L’ sized XC MTB (~20.5″), but this is a Road/Touring/Gravel bike.

The reach seems about right for the stated sizing but they’ve clearly gone for a low Top tube/seat tube, either because they’re expecting Gravelists to fit a dropper perhaps (but it’s only 27.2mm ID) and/or stand over is an issue for some people when they take drop-barred bikes off-road, both are fair enough reasons.

Another benefit would be that longer extension on a fixed seat post should at least smooth out the ride a little when trundling off-road.

I reckon they’re more likely to shift these as framesets than complete builds, to people with rose tinted memories of the older versions.

I think this demonstrates how far ahead of their time the Pompino/Pompetamine/Kaffenback were.

Were they all Brant designs? Pretty visionary IMO, esp. the Pomp and Pompetamine.

Trivia re. the Kaffenback pun: the original brown colour was called “builder’s tea” or something.

Nice looking frame with external cable routing, that’s a win for me, forks need rack mounts..

I had an original blue Kaffenback cost me £99 for frame + forks and when you called P-X, Dave Loughran answered the telephone and Brant was probably making the tea 😉 Was a great frame apart from the rubbish tyre clearances. Got a factory in China to make me a similar frame in titanium but with decent tyre clearances and for discs – had mounts for bottles, racks and guards – my original ‘gravel’ frame circa 2002 but wasn’t called that because ‘gravel’ hadn’t been ‘invented’ 🤪

I’d never realised it stood for anything!

And

Were they all Brant designs? Pretty visionary IMO, esp. the Pomp and Pompetamine.

I didnt know what pompino meant for years. Italian inspired build. I didn’t believe my friend when he explained it to me.

Don’t Google it at work! Any other brand and I would have thought it was a coincidence 🤣

Really like that, great price too.

Wil this be made of scaffolding pipes like the original?
I love(d) mine, almost perfect commuter bike, but by gosh it is heavy.

‘DN6’ tubing aka their postcode in Rotherham 😀

I’m taking from the launch video that it’s rubbish enough to be left outside the newsagents without a lock and no-one will steal it

Were they all Brant designs? Pretty visionary IMO, esp. the Pomp and Pompetamine.

Wasn’t it originally derived from the Inbred?

(IMO) 520mm sounds more like ‘appropriate’ sizing for an early 00’s ‘L’ sized XC MTB (~20.5″), but this is a Road/Touring/Gravel bike.

Giant pioneered it, e.g. the Defy is 515 and 535 C-T in ML and L sizes.

IIRC at the time Giant claimed stiffness as a benefit, but the real reasoning was it makes sizing more flexible as they were one of the first to mass produce carbon frames so it let them move away from the ‘traditional’ road bike sizing model of 2cm increments of seatubes to more like 2cm changes in reach which means far fewer sizes to manufacture.

Custom drawn, triple butted 4130 apparently. So broadly speaking the equivalent of Reynolds 525, with the custom drawn triple butted aspect supposedly meaning lighter tubes. I say supposedly because without the sticker from Reynolds (or Columbus etc) you’ve no way of knowing if what is claimed actually is. Anyway, that spec of frame would mean a heavy lightweight frame, if that makes any sense.

Looks good though and the price is right. Will they have sorted the qc issues that afflicted some of their more recent road bikes though (London Road iirc)?

Hm, interesing. It certainly fits a gap that I dodn’t know I had in my bike linup.
By this I mean it will work as a pub bike and also sit on the smart trainer – replacing two bikes that are barely suited to either job.

It needs to be either blue or coffee coloured 🙂

Mrs.S still rides her Kaffenback regularly. Sold my original Pompino when my knees called time. Great bikes.

I’m all for affordable versatile bikes

I get aluminium frame carbon fork

Cheap way of getting it light

I get all steel. Tough material every where do you don’t worry about things rubbing either luggage or during transport

Steel frame carbon fork I’m, particularly at this end of the market. That frame isn’t flexing more than aluminium it’s just heavier

I’m taking from the launch video that it’s rubbish enough to be left outside the newsagents without a lock and no-one will steal it

First thing I thought when I saw that is it wouldn’t be there when he came out!

finbar
Free Member
‘DN6’ tubing aka their postcode in Rotherham

Rotherham has an S postcode, Doncaster is DN, Doncaster is where their warehouse was at the time.

Bah, oops! I got confused with their store out by Meadowhall – which I used to ride to to save on postage costs til it closed 🙁

Thoughts please…
I’m a mtber really but with costs of a young family at the moment we’re going to be down to one car. I’m thinking about a Kaffenback for my commuter but also to use for longer rides from home that would be road based but also some gravel byways and the odd off-road path in the woods. Wondering how the Kaffenback would fare with some fast rolling CX tyres for a bit of gravel or is it likely to be a bit steep and twitchy??

I used to have a mk2 Kafenback and with Schwalbe land cruisers it was surprisingly capable off road. It did have flat bars and bar ends though