Alchemy custom carbon frames arrive in London

London’s Mosquito Cycles, purveyors of brands like Independent Fabrication, Pegoretti, Moots and Zullo, have just announced the addition of Alchemy Bicycle Company to their range of bikes.

Denver-based Alchemy Bicycle Company specialise in custom built carbon fibre frames. They also do titanium and steel, but Mosquito are focusing on their custom carbon frames as that is what Alchemy are famous for.

The company originally started life in Austin, Texas about five years ago but they soon moved to Denver, Colorado where they make all their frames in-house. The tubesets are supplied by Enve Composites. They have a good relationship with the carbon supplier, so they can get fussy about the exact details of the tubes and their lay-up. There’s plenty of expertise in the company, with many of the staff having served stints with other well known bike manufacturers, including Pedros, Cannondale, Fat City and Serotta.

They’ve been around for about 10 years, and last year they picked up the ‘Best Carbon Fibre Frame’ award at the North American Handbuilt Bike Show, beating some serious competition. We took a good look at it, how could we miss it, at the show last year. Here’s a reminder of how impressed we were.

Mosquito will be taking delivery of the Arion, their carbon aero bike, and the regular tubed Xanthus, sometime in March. We’ll bring you a first look when they do arrive, and if you get yourself along to Bespoked Bristol on 12-14 April you’ll be able to see them in the flesh. The chaps from Alchemy will be making the trip over to the show as well so you’ll be able to chat to the designers behind the frames.

While they offer a full custom frame geometry, which fits in nicely with Mosquito’s bike fitting service, they can also do stock geometry if you don’t need/want to get measured up for a personalised frame. Their good relationship with Enve means they can customise the layup of a frame to suit a rider's particular requirements, so weight, riding style, comfort etc.

The Arion is their most distinctive bike. It’s been designed to be as fast as possible with aero shaped tube profiles using the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) airfoil principles for the downtube, seat tube and seat post.

There’s a tapered head tube - 1-1/8” to 1-1/4” - up front and the cables are routed internally - as you'd expect on a bike like this, sliding out of view just behind the head tube junction. They offer standard or compact geometry and a choice of threaded or press-fit bottom bracket.

Their aero seatpost uses Enve’s saddle clamp, a one-bolt design. The stock sizes for this frame extend to five sizes, from 52 to 60cm. It costs  £3850 with custom geometry and  £3495 stock.

If aero isn't your thing, then may we offer you the very nice looking Xanthus. It's the other bike Mosquito will be taking delivery of soon. It’s made from round Enve tubes with a tapered or straight head tube and a choice of compact or standard geometry.

Like the Arion a custom build means every detail can be tuned for your particular requirements following a full fit and assessment. It costs £3295 custom or £2995 stock.

You can see the full range on the Mosquito Cycles website and worth checking out www.alchemybicycles.com too

So not cheap then, but these are custom handbuilt frames made in the US and clearly built to a very high standard with a streak of innovation plainly running through the company. And they look impossibly sexy. We can’t wait to see them for real.