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Obsydian Invictus welds a bulletproof bike for the big boys

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Obsydian Invictus Alloy Road Frameset Mid Ride

British bike manufacturer Obsydian is new to the industry as of 2013 but came to market unlike the gram counting, carbon obsessed pretty-boys who are so in vogue today. Obsydian wanted to go about things differently, offering a lifetime guaranteed road chassis capable of taking whatever abuse and pounding even the heaviest of riders could throw at it. The Invictus frameset is Obsydian’s first offering for the hammerhead-clydesdales amongst us. It’s for those who ride hard and put it away dirty. If you cringe at the sight of advertisements heralding 7.3% decreases in frame weights for a price tag rivaling the average family sedan, read on…

Obsydian Invictus Alloy Road Frameset Brick Wall Full View

The Invictus frameset is simple and straight forward. Aluminum frame, carbon fork, ceramic headset. But don’t let the simplicity belie Obsydian’s employment of some proven build methodologies. The alloy frame is triple butted 7005-T6 series aluminum that has been custom butted and shaped for Obsydian’s specific design purposes. The Invictus is assembled by hand utilizing double-pass welding. Then the frame is fully shot-peened for increased durability. (Shot-peening alters the mechanical properties of the aluminum’s surface. The practical outcome is the lessened possibility of the propagation of surface cracks.)

Obsydian Invictus Alloy Road Frameset BB30

The only trendy feature of the Invictus — that which one may reasonably question the prudence of — is the inclusion of a press fit BB30. While general maintenance issues have pestered press fit technologies to some degree, we’re assuming the oversized shell was chosen to allow for larger diameter tubing and a stiffer bottom end.

Obsydian Invictus Alloy Road Frameset Taperd Headtube

In order to offer maximum stiffness at the front end, the Invictus is built with a tapered head tube that matches up with a full monocoque carbon fork. While Obsydian leaves us in the dark when it comes to total frame weight, we do know that the fork comes in at an impressive 360g.

Obsydian Invictus Alloy Road Frameset Rear View

Invictus believes the bottom line is, if you are a big dude who does not mind mashing on the pedals for hours and then tossing his bike in the corner before beelining for the obligatory after-ride-brew, the meaty Invictus is their best, and only, offering. If you identify with this, head over to their site here, for more info and purchase options. Frameset is currently in stock and comes in four sizes, SM/MD/LG/XL, out the door for £550.00 (aprox. $830).

obsydian-bikes.co.uk

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Callum
Callum
9 years ago

Or you could just buy a trek with a 30 pound higher weight limit… Better shop support, and a lifetime warranty as well. This Is a redundant product.

AlanM
AlanM
9 years ago

“Unlike the gram counting, carbon obsessed pretty-boys who are so in vogue today.” Way to insult your own advertisers and readers in one sentence. Impressive!

King County
King County
9 years ago

From personal experiences, and talking with friends, Trek’s warranty and reputation is the worst in the entire industry. If Obsydian handles warranty better its a feather in their cap.

Callum
Callum
9 years ago

I have had the exact opposite experience, working in a trek shop I have never seen one warranty claim denied. With some outstanding examples like a mid 90’s fuel frame snapping and subsequently being replaced with the modern equivalent… Warranties on new bikes frames usually arrive in 3 weeks. Bikes in two.

Paraguay
Paraguay
9 years ago

I think it goes without saying that you could always just buy a Trek. As for insulting your readers, I personally loved that bit about your typical roadie. I like where this company’s head is at. Good luck to them.

Mr. P
9 years ago

I am this niche. Primarily a mountain biker who crushes pedals rather than spinning and who wants a road bike that is ultilitarian/training (while all my cash goes to my MTB).

Flexy bits when mashing or going around turns is a confidence sucker. Lower confidence = lower speed.

Nice one.

P

pilf
pilf
9 years ago

@King County – That’s crazy. Trek bends over backwards to warranty everything, even when they probably shouldn’t. They once accepted a photograph of the owner with his bike in the early-1980s as a substitute for the original bill of sale. This to replace a bike that was 30 years old and had probably a hundred thousand miles on its thin walled steel tubes. They gave the guy the option of a new 520 would would fit his old parts, or a discount on a complete 4-series Madone.

The only time I’ve ever seen Trek reject a warranty is when it’s obviously crashed or the customer acknowledges that they bought the bike used.

wako29
wako29
9 years ago

@King Country – sorry, but if you think Trek has a bad warranty I’d like to hear what company you think has a great policy. In my experience (both as a consumer and later as a shop rat) Trek has gone above and beyond for their customers and I’ll go as far as saying that, in my experience, they have had the best warranty policy of ANY company in ANY industry.

dr_lha
dr_lha
9 years ago

BB30 + Clyde = recipe for creaking cranksets. A huge mistake IMHO, I speak as a Clyde who’s had to get his BB30 bottom bracket serviced twice last year.

JBikes
JBikes
9 years ago

What’s wrong with options people?

As for the PF BB30 – all bearings are press fit (ranging from slip to interference depending on application and desired preload). By going to a PF BB, you are just moving the fit from a threaded cup to the frame – no difference. The only issue is holding tolerances on your frame. If those are held to equal or tighter tolerances as a BB cup, there is NO difference.
My guess is that issues are due to installation of the bearing – i.e. user error. A bb cup eliminates bearing installation for most people since its a pre-assembled cartridge. A PF BB requires an owner or mechanic to perform this and increases the potential for installation error.

CT
CT
9 years ago

So how is this a better offering than, say, a 6066-T6 aluminium bike from HOY bike, or any other alloy bike from the major manufacturers out there?

JBikes
JBikes
9 years ago

one additional comment before people yell at me – I am positive some frame tolerances are not up to spec for a bearing installation. User error is not the issue with those.

dr_lha
dr_lha
9 years ago

JBikes: Right, user error. Who fitted the BB on my bike exactly? It wasn’t a user, it was the manufacturer, followed by a expert wrench at a Cannondale dealer, one of the best bike mechanics I’ve ever met in fact. Who fitted the BB30 on my friend’s Cannondale that mysteriously started popping after a year exactly? Cannondale, not the user. Where’s the user error here?

How about all the people on internet forums complaining of BB30 creaking constantly, and the many long and varied threads about how to fix the damn creaking that these BBs have compared to others?

Sorry but BB30 is great in theory, but in practice, especially for anyone who generates a significant amount of torque, is fair from perfect.

Mclulz
Mclulz
9 years ago

If a Trek crashes in the woods and no one is around. Does a fan-boy complain and warranty it?

tom
tom
9 years ago

Mclulz,

not sure what you are saying, but in any ecosystem, there are fan boys, as well as dudes who live to rag on a particular brand for no particular reason. Part of the balance of nature.

AlanM
AlanM
9 years ago

@tom, easy there. You are starting to sound like a rational person here.

MikeC
MikeC
9 years ago

They’ve found a great marketing niche. While Trek and others may have bikes which can support a heavier rider, and lifetime warranties on frames, they would be loathe to market them to heavier riders at risk of turning off a majority of their customers. If you weigh 160 lbs, are you going go buy a Trek marketed to clydes? Weight weenieism is rampant — do you think marketing a sturdy bike to the husky crowd is a smart move, generally speaking?

And even if big company bikes aren’t as over-engineered as this bike claims to be, chance of frame failure is way low, any given customer will never ride enough or hard enough to break a frame, and giving away a few warranty frames to those who do is cheaper than upping the specs. Bean-counters and engineers make sure of that.

If there’s anything I’d call BS on, it’s the double-pass welding. Most breaks occur just outside the weld, in the heat affected zone. Totally unnecessary, but again, a good marketing gimmick for their niche. I wish Obsydian success.

anonymous
anonymous
9 years ago

@JBikes

Since when were cup and cones press fit?

JBikes
JBikes
9 years ago

anonymous,
🙂 well your right, cup and cone bbs do not use “sealed cartridge bearings” as cyclists use the term. My comment applies to BB in which the bearings are supplied as unit with inner and outer race, and cage as one. I should have said “threaded shell” as opposed to “threaded cup”.

In that regards a external threaded shell (i.e. “conventional threaded) locates the actual bearing almost identically to a press fit BB. cup and cone is another topic altogether.

JBikes
JBikes
9 years ago

dr_lha,
You raise good points and there are many issues. “Press-fit” is not the issue though. It is how all almost all bearings are located.
The issue I have with PF BB in bikes is that it places a “hard” steel bearing race into a “soft” Al or CF frame. And, this is done with a relatively loose slip fit for installation reasons. Plus frame and bearing tolerance vary and I personally don’t know what I get when I buy “x” frame and “y” bearing sans bringing out the calipers. This all compounds the issue of long term reliability and movement between outer race and housing. I am not sure, but I’d suspect manufacturers run tighter fits on external BB shells since they can control installation (and heat the housing or cool the bearing as needed).

Done correctly (from frame manufacturing tolerances, bearing specification, frame clean-up, dimension inspection, install, etc) I wouldn’t expect a problem from press fit BB’s. That’s a lot of things to go wrong though.

Andrew
Andrew
9 years ago

@MikeC – “If there’s anything I’d call BS on, it’s the double-pass welding. Most breaks occur just outside the weld, in the heat affected zone. Totally unnecessary, but again, a good marketing gimmick for their niche. I wish Obsydian success.”

Your totally right this is BS marketing. I use to TIG weld at a place we called this flame dressing the weld. It smooths the ripples of the TIG bead. This is the same thing Cannondale did on their aluminium frames to get the smooth looking welds. This is not a feature, but is a defect. It lowers the overall strength of the weld area, because it adds heat and makes the heat zone larger. This means you have a larger area for cracks to begin from. This is simply done to either cover bad welds or to make the frame more visually appealing, but most definitely not a performance or strength feature,

Slone
Slone
9 years ago

This sounds exactly like the Velocite Selene that’s been on the market for several years. Not a bad thing- I had forgotten about Velocite until seeing this article. 499 or 299 for the NOS paint scheme with fork.

http://www.velocite-bikes.com/bikes-and-frames/selene/

Tom
Tom
9 years ago

Sounds like a marketing stunt. Bar a few lightweight exceptions, most aluminum frames do not have a weight limit set by the manufacturer. 7005-T6 and shot peening are quite standard in the industry.

I don’t see what makes this bike more “clydesdale specific” than other bikes.

Ras11
Ras11
9 years ago

I hate thinking about bikes as disposable or having short product life cycles. While it maybe marketting, it’s the kind that I like! i might get one for my son when he gets old enough.

Steve
Steve
9 years ago

High Rider Weight – Riders that are over 110 kg…. hahahahahahahahahah oh my god I nearly p……..ed myself laughing. You guys need to wake up and smell the lard!!! I am 196kg and I ride an off the shelf Specialized Allez with upgraded wheels and it’s perfect….110kg hahahahahahah

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