2011 Frame Preview

This is what our new headtube will look like. Beautifully CNC machined smooth inside and out, with a curved contour. Really stoked on how these have come out.

It’s not out yet, but here’s what we’ve been working on – a bunch of new things are arriving later this Summer including the new Tech II frame for 2011 – which, being the bike industry, means we should have these out sometime this summer… so what will be the differences between the new frame, and the 2010 frame that we have out right now? More details after the jump…

Thankfully, we will keep the best features of the 2010 frame: the balanced, stable, and all round dialed geometry of the Deluxe Frame remains true to form because we saw no reason to change it. It rides awesome, and we’re all stoked on it. So what have we changed?

Well, we have tweaked the tubeset on the Tech II pretty substantially – we are using a new double-butted toptube with thicker-walled tubing, and we are also using a unique asymmetrically quadruple-butted downtube. That means the tube walls are not only thicker at the ends like a butted tube, but the lower half of the tube ends are thicker-walled again, where you need a little more strength and durability. It works like an internal gusset. It might weigh a few ounces more, but we definitely gain in durability and that’s something I was really keen to do – making the frames stronger again, without being that much heavier. The new headtube also means we can weld the toptube and downtube further apart for more strength again (it’s simple structural geometry). The extra details and machining add a few dollars to the price, but it’ll be well worth it.

So what else stays the same? These for a start:

Along with the proven riding geometry and construction, we didn’t change the dropouts either. Our laser-cut small-profile 4mm thick heat-treated dropouts work a dream and they complement our dome-ended chain and seatstays perfectly (and if you want chain tensioners, you can fit these). Actually, our dome-ended stays, which we designed back in late 2007, are starting to crop up now on other brands’ frames… so they must be good! Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all… ha

We also kept the heat-treated CNC-machined Spanish bottom bracket as well, since we’ve had no problems with BB bearings, and it just looks tidier with our slimmer frame tubeset. Brakes remain on the chainstays, which are lowered to allow chain clearance.

And here are the new colours: we’re keeping Cleancoat because it looks amazing with our quality welding, we’re adding Matte Black and Matt Tan, and painting the limited edition TechII V-brake frames in Metallic Silver...

Watch this space for future updates…