First Look: Sonnet MK.I Road and MK.II Track Bikes

Hi everyone, Sonnet here.

Nice to see your comments flowing. As the founder and creative director of the brand, I thought I’d jump in to respond to some of your comments above. Of course, we welcome all your feedback (good and bad), as it helps us fine tune what we’re doing so we can deliver the best quality product.

The Sonnet Mk II is a Track bike that has been built for practical road riding. This means comfort in the saddle. To achieve this, our default set-up features subtle low-pro geometry, compact road bars (Nitto M106 NAS), brakes front and rear (TRP/Campagnolo) and a flip-flop hub (Miche Primato). All builds feature handbuilt wheels by Harry Rowland.

The flip-flop hub you’re looking at comes with an Andel fixed cog and White Industries Eno freewheel. This gives the rider the option to switch to a freewheel, should their legs get tired – which as you know, happens on long rides. We went for the Eno because it’s one of the best freewheels on the market and absolutely rock solid.

Regarding non-custom lugs, yes, we choose to work with a minimal set of standard lugs, which we then file down in our own way to work with Sonnet frames. If we were to make our own lugs form scratch, then suddenly the frame and the bike moves into a different price bracket. If the rider wants bottle bosses, we can of course add dead-end, stainless bottle bosses, no problem. It’s just about having a conversation.

The Sonnet Mk II frame features the following:

• Columbus SL Niobium/Spirit steel in traditional diameters
• Conical downtube for increased stiffness in the bottom bracket
• Polished (not chrome) stainless steel lugs + fork crown
• Custom-made stainless steel dropouts
• Internal cable routing (rear brake, optional)
• Sonnet headbadge and unique numbered frame plate, both handcast in .925 sterling silver, which provide proof of authenticity of our product
• Frame weight: 2.47kgs

The Sonnet Mk II (off-the-peg) Track frame retails at £1499. For an extra £150, we will build you a full custom version. All you need to do is hit us with your fit details (ideally c/o Retul), feedback about your current frame/bike and any other requirements that you have.

We also have no waiting lists. For UK frame builders, the waiting list varies between 3 months to 3 years. We can deliver your ride in 6 weeks (+shipping), as we operate a unique monthly batch order process. This means we don’t have to pay for warehouses, distributors, shops, the individual shipping of parts etc and we can pass these savings directly onto you.

In short, we only work with the best designer makers/master craftsmen in UK, Europe and USA, to deliver the best value lugged steel frames and bikes that we can... and all in all, I think this makes us very competitive.

If you have any queries or would like to know more, please visit our website, www.sonnet.cc You can also email me via the site and I will do my best to assist you with your queries.

Standard off the peg lugset into an off the peg tubeset. They're not even very nice lugs, except for the fleur de lys on the blue frame. At that price I'd expect reinforced bottle bosses and internal cable runs.

The prices need to be compared to Bob Jackson's off the peg frames rather than boutique frame builders like Saffron.

Hardly a fixie, despite the name. Speccing a White Industries freewheel is a good sign, quality-wise and it is obviously a different league to your average Genesis Flyer or similar. It would be interesting to know the complete bike weight.

Beautiful looking but beyond most people's wallets for a fixie.