Home > Event Coverage > NAHBS

NAHBS 2014: Cielo Adds Road Racer Bike, Plus New Stems & Colors

14 Comments
Support us! Bikerumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More

Cielo-Road-Racer-steel-road-bike

They hinted at it in our pre-show interview but were careful not to give up too much. Now, we’ve got eyes on the new Cielo Road Racer, built with custom drawn ovalized steel tubing. And built for speed.

They use the now common 44mm head tube to fit a tapered fork, a PressFit BB30 bottom bracket for bigger surface area to maximize stiffness and a fairly light frame. The bike shown here came in at a claimed 15.9 pounds. For a steel bike with deep rims.

The frame can be made for mechanical or electronic groups, the latter specifically designed for hidden seatpost batteries. More detail pics below, followed by all their other new goodies…

Cielo-Road-Racer-steel-road-bike

The frameset is $2,495 and includes a Chris King headset and ENVE carbon fork painted to match.

Cielo-Road-Racer-steel-road-bike

Cielo-Road-Racer-steel-road-bike

Cielo-Classic-road-bike-champagne-turquoise-candy-red-colors

The Sportif Classic is now available in a Turquiois Limited Edition model. The frame is Cognac and gets Turquoise Chris King components.

Cielo-Classic-road-bike-champagne-turquoise-candy-red-colors

There’s also a Ruby Red (their first red frame).

Cielo-Classic-road-bike-champagne-turquoise-candy-red-colors

Cielo-new-2014-colors

These six new colors are available only on the Racer versions, which includes Road, Sportif and Cyclocross models. (Update: Road Racer and Cyclocross Racer only for the new hues.)

Cielo-new-2014-colors

The Cross Racer shows the new tartan color way, also available on all Racer bikes. It’ll match pretty much any of Chris King’s ano colors.

Cielo-Cyclocross-Racer-steel-cross-bike

Cielo-new-2014-handmade-bicycle-stems-01

The Cielo Racer stem (left) and Classic stems are brand new. They’re welded, brazed and painted in house, and the face plates can be ordered with any of nine standard anodized colors to match their headsets, hubs, etc. The limited edition colors will only be available when that particular color is on offer, so, no, you can’t order a purple one now to match the limited release from recent past.

Both are available in 80, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115, 120, 130 lengths. The Racer stem can be had in either 0º or +/- 6º, and the Classic comes in 0º or -6º only.

Cielo.ChrisKing.com

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

14 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Jack
Jack
10 years ago

Love these. All of them.

Kustomer Service
Kustomer Service
10 years ago

Would like to start off with a rant on custom builders but not specific to any one builder (including the lovely Cielo frames/parts).

Seeing a lot of posts of course on the NAHBS. Gorgeous bikes and parts all over this show. My issue with “most” custom builders is they are too difficult to work with. You have to chase them down all the time just to get the ball rolling, then get them to agree on a spec and price… more not getting called back, then have them hit the “promised” date they said they would hit… which have never happened yet on the builders I’ve worked with. Some builders are great and communicated excellent I’m sure… have yet to deal with one though. Lots of talk but little follow through. Has anyone else had similar stories? Again I will not name any builder and this is addressed to the custom industry. I think it’s a big problem with this industry and they need to address it. Please study how to be better businessmen/women and improve your customer service to your industry.

mudrock
mudrock
10 years ago

That guy knows how to dress up a bike. Beautiful.

bikermark
bikermark
10 years ago

@Kustomer. I’m happy with my Carl Strong. I met him at the Richmond show after he’d built my frame. He was one of the few builders who I enjoyed chatting with. He has a good business sense, he seems to be fully capitalized, and he’s been helpful to new frame builders.

I know of two happy Firefly customers.

I have a friend who had a bad experience with a mid Atlantic frame builder. The quality of the work was ok, but not award winning. The real problem was the person’s habit of over promising and under delivering. He wouldn’t return emails for weeks. Maybe bedside manner should be a module at the UBI frame building school.

PDXFixed
PDXFixed
10 years ago

It’s a shame the CK pressfit BB’s and ZS 44mm stuff looks so out of place on thin steel tubes. The BB on that blue road racer looks gnarly with the overhanging flange.

Dino
Dino
10 years ago

WOW that blue bike looks hot.

MB
MB
10 years ago

@Kustomer – I have (4) Kish bikes in the family (my newest was the red one at the show) and 1 other custom bike. Clearly my money talks in regards to who is the better business person. All bikes are great, ride well, etc but like you implied, not all artists are business people. Find a good one and it’s GREAT but a bad one is pretty bad.

Devin
10 years ago

@Kustomer- stories like that make me sad, and mad. Truly, it takes so little to send an email with current progress and an update. And it makes all the difference between a happy client and an angry client! This is doubly important when something isn’t going right and dates aren’t being hit- being forthright and up-front about issues is the hallmark of good service, it builds trust and ensures the customer (who is sending you their hard-earned money!) feels like they’re a valued part of the transaction.

Anybody who can’t reply to an email within a day (ESPECIALLY to an existing client who is expecting a product) is simply lazy and evasive. Being evasive has never, and will never, be an effective tactic to customer satisfaction. If you’re doing custom bikes that require a fair amount of interaction with the client, you damn well better be prepared for that- if are a socially awkward fabrication savant, hire someone to do it for you. How you treat your clients is equally important to the product you build for them.

Brushing off a client whose money you’ve already taken only sours them (and all the people who read their rants on the internet) on custom builders and makes it hard for people like me to do my job.

PS- Bike Rumor, thanks for all the coverage of NAHBS, and keep up the good work.

Carl
Carl
10 years ago

First things first…. I AM NOT defending the poor business practices of SOME custom builders…. but it wouldn’t hurt to remember that many of these people are one-man-shows and there are only so many hours in the day. I guess you could say that knowing that, they are guilty of over promising…. but great, handmade things take time, something they are often in short supply of. – C

Matt
Matt
10 years ago

@carl, nicely said. I can only wish to engage a custom builder at some point in my life, but I hope that they are able to satisfy my desires in a properly built bicycle (road, mtn,cx or otherwise). In that regard I agree with Devin, the whole experience of purchasing a custom bike should be very intensive. That is built into the price of such a bicycle, otherwise there are a multitude of fantastic bike brands to chose from. If you aren’t going to differentiate yourself with exceptional quality, artistry and service then there is no reason to be solvent in my opinion. Pick all three, not two. It’ll make small builders that much more competitive in the long run.

Condor
Condor
10 years ago

@Kustomer Service
You just summarized my ongoing woes!

I have a stock geo/custom paint frame that was estimated to be done at the end of October. Have received word that it is recently finished, but not going to believe it until I’m actually in possession.

Love the custom bikes, but my experience with custom frames makes me swear off ever going that route again. I’m not a weird size that requires a custom bike, but am drawn to the uniqueness. I’ve had friends and friends of friends who also have had similar or worse customer service horror stories.

If Cielo can scale to actually deliver within a 6-week window, then they’re going to be hugely successful.

K11
K11
10 years ago

when is this PF bb thing going to stop? these things can be problematic and as a frame ages, will only increase the potential for problems. why not at least offer a traditional threaded bb on all your frames? i am sure i am not the only one. (looks like only their “classic” models and mtb frame has threaded, but road and cx just pf30)

Catflap
Catflap
10 years ago

What steel are the racer frames made from? If stainless, the price is very good considering the finish, headset and fork, if not stainless then it’s hard to tell whether the asking price is good value. I think it says on the website the (300 dollar) stem is chromoly, if the rest of the tubes are, then this isn’t a great buy. Can anyone confirm?

Glenn
Glenn
9 years ago

@Kustomer, I agree wholeheartedly. And I will name names; Cielo Chris King. All sorts of things wrong with the quality of the build, mixed parts, wrong custom made parts, unable to deliver type of stem ordered and bike not as published on their website. To name only some of my complaints. The largest one being that they don’t care about either of them. They wanted me to show them pictures, but only for their edification; not as a step towards answering my complaints… Buyer beware.
Their brackets and moveable parts are all good; their frames and customer service not. Which is a pity… Because they do look good in the photo’s.

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.