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news
Pashley launch £6K steel super-bike… and bring back GB components
Pashley are making a splash at this year's Eurobike with the prototype of their new super-high end all steel Sprinter race bike, the Stratford on Avon company is also reviving the GB component brand and the new sprinter features GB bars, stem and seatpost.
Made from Columbus XCR tubing built up using hand made lugs with classic road bike geometry - parallel 74° the frame weighs a claimed 1.7Kg, in all its polished glory. Oh yeah, and it's got a solid silver headbadge.
Noises from Pashley are that Sprinter will be available as a complete bike built up with Campagnolo Super Record and it's likely to cost around £6,000. That sounds a lot but then talking to Paul Vincent, ex-Cycling Plus tech ed and the co-designer of the Sprinter it becomes clear that an awful lot of development time and man hours, have gone in to both the bike and the components it's built up with.
The GB bars (GB stands for Gerry Burgess) are made from aluminium but the stem is milled from a solid billet of ultra-hard bespoke Reynolds stainless steel tubing as are the frame lugs. That Reynolds tubing is so hard that it is very difficult to polish.
There will be more GB products on the way including track nuts, toe clips and a seatpost made in the same way as that stem.
Pashley are marketing GB componenets as a joint venture with Jeremy Burgess son of the late Gerry Burgess and they will be making the components available to other manufacturers… but only if they manufacture in the UK.
The Sprinter is not the only head-turning bike on the way from Pashley… they will be unveiling a fixed bike with a 'fifth stay' in a couple of weeks at the US Interbike show. Fifth stay? Well it's a brace betwen the right hand seat stay, the seat tube and the down tube – basically in the days before over-size tubing a fifth stay was one way of stiffening up a frame. Paul reckons it looks pretty cool too… we'll find out in a couple of weeks.
road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.
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19 comments
pashley have not much reputatioin for road bikes so it seems unlikely they will be getting orders from people who want to show off about their pashley sprinter unlike cinelli
By that logic then the Chinese and Taiwanese made Columbus frames are Italian and anyone riding a Reynolds framed bike built in the 10 years from 1996 to 2006 is actually riding an American bike.
As for £6K being a rip-off, well surely it's only a rip-off if you buy one and aren't satisfied with what you got for your money… buying one is not compulsory.
The prototype on show at Eurobike certainly attracted a fair amount of positive attention from a knowledgeable crowd - the world's bike shop owners, the word I heard was that Pashley were having no problem attracting orders - nor were Cinelli for their €7K Laser frameset.
Ciaran, you've misread somewhere, the bike is built from Columbus XCR tubing, it doesn't have an XTR gruppo. The point being made is that Columbus are based in Italy, so it's hardly a 'British Steel' frame.
I spoke to the Reynolds tubing guys at the show and they 'fessed up to not providing the new 931 tubing in time for Pashley to build the prototype for the show.
Sorry but who mentioned Shimano XTR?
Unless I've read it wrong they are offering a finished build with Super Record for £6k; so most of that £6k will be for Campagnola bits rather than the Pashley steel. A more accurate price pitch for the frame might tell us more - for a super record build you are probaly talking in the region of £1200 for F&F? Which for handbuilt steel is probably competitive (I wouldn't know to be honest but I can dream!)
The whole bike/project is very reminiscent of the book/programme about the guy who builds his 'ultimate' bike - it's on the bookshelf somewhere but I can't find it and I've forgotten the title and author.
British built - why XTR. I'm not a fan of shimano anyway but surely you be a bit imaginative in the groupset. Although I like the brooks bits but not for £7000
Shame really as I quite like Pashley and the retro look they stand for. Steel is the way to go but at this price. oooh no way!
Well its got us talking. May they will bring out a much lower priced version and we will saying that's better. Either good marketing or a howler.
There's no competition for this - because there's no market for it. The concept wrong for the high end market. Enigma, Cherubim and numerous bespoke builders are already doing a better job for potential customers.
Steel should always be painted. Why go for unpainted steel and not nude titanium? And no matter how big the letters of the word PROTOTYPE are written, an 'unfinished' example such as this should never be allowed to leave the workshop. It's not not a six-thousand pound bike we're being shown here. Pashley's reputation is, if you'll pardon the pun, slightly tarnished.
Chaps...
I wonder, did any of you see the word 'prototype' that's mentioned at the top of the article?
I agree about the price though, unless it's under 7.5kg and comes with a free unicorn, nobody's going to pay that.
£6,000 for brazing that shoddy....
what a rip off.
..........and which pro team will take them? Because no Joe Public will fork out for one.
Another case of the Emperor's new clothes methinks!
They have got no hope of selling these at £6k unless they can improve the brazing. Round the stem looks really untidy.
Why build a 'British' bike ... in XCR, when Reynolds 953 is available?
People seem to forget that stainless doesn't mean rustproof.
For comparison:
http://argonautcycles.com/blog/2011/03/21/integrated-di2-is-ready-to-ride/
On that frame, the joints (lugged) are all painted. I don't know if there's another way: maybe a white solder? Even then, polishing is going to be difficult, I reckon.
Silver solder perhaps then?
Not sure that brazed joints and no paint is the best way to go, really.