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Reader’s Ride: Fairwheel’s urban Parlee Altum Disc

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Altum_Disc_XTR_01
all images courtesy of Fairwheel Bikes

So earlier this week we featured a pretty sensible steel flat bar cross bike built by Vlad Cycles to take on a bit of road and trails.
And now for something completely different, on the complete other end of the spectrum of reality is what Jason Woznick thinks of when you say flat bar road & gravel bike. This custom build is pretty standard fare for a Fairwheel Bikes in-house project. By that I mean that it starts off with a frameset most people would drool over, and then proceeds to jump off the deep end with the most light, exotic, and sought after components you can imagine to put together a bike that pushes the line towards craziness. Built on a stock Altum Disc frame and fork from Parlee, hop past the break to get a closer look at the details…

Altum_Disc_XTR_14 Altum_Disc_XTR_05

Fairwheel began with the stock geometry Altum Disc with its 910g frame and 320g fork and clearance for 28mm rubber. They even stuck with the standard paintjob. But from there it kind of went off the rails. The tiny little details start to sneak up on you like the 9g Tune Wasserträger carbon bottle cages, and the fact that the entire bike gets matching anodized green aluminum and titanium bolt upgrades.

Altum_Disc_XTR_08 Altum_Disc_XTR_11

The bike’s cockpit stars of fairly tame (for Fariwheel) Selle San Marco Aspide Carbon FX saddle and a Parlee carbon seatpost. Head to the front and it goes exotic pretty quick with a carbon Mcfk stem clamping a flat carbon Extralite Hyperbar. This is also where the bike leaves the conventional road build behind, and mixes in some mountain kit. To get that upright townie feel with a flat bar on this commuter, Fairwheel swaps in a new XTR Di2 set of shifters and controller/display that handle the rest of the road drivetrain. It’s not the first time Fariwheel has played a bit of mix-and-match with Di2 gear, and surely won’t be the last.

Altum_Disc_XTR_02

The drivetrain itself consists of a set of Shimano Dura Ace Di2 derailleurs, that simply get upgraded with that pretty green bolt kit. For a chain they throw in the KMC X11SL with a nice black ti-nitride coating.

Altum_Disc_XTR_04

At the heart of the bike it uses a THM Clavicula SE 110BCD compact road crank , with rings from Carbon-Ti that are, yes made of carbon and titanium with light aluminum hardware. The wheels themselves are also from Carbon-Ti with the big, new ano green straightpull hubs, laced to carbon rims, and are shod in 28mm Continental GP4000 tires.

Altum_Disc_XTR_09 Altum_Disc_XTR_07

Finishing it out the bike gets Carbon-Ti brake rotors that are stopped with XTR hydraulic brakes (again that flat bar comes in handy.) And keeping the wheels in place are more green bits, with Carbon-Ti thru-axles.

The final complete bike for tooling around the city (presumably one that you own a good portion of) weighs just 6.021kg/13.25lbs, without pedals. Retail price is… out of your price range if you are asking.

FairwheelBikes.com

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16 Comments
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Mike
Mike
8 years ago

Are those hubs Boost(TM) compatible?

Peter D
Peter D
8 years ago

Such a waste of a beautiful frame… get rid of those flat bars!

Veganpotter
Veganpotter
8 years ago

Pretty cool but for the likely $10,000+ pricetag, I’d expect a lighter bike

Sean P
Sean P
8 years ago

Did they say gravel bike? @ vegan, and maybe something that would take wider than 28mm tires? For that gravel stuff. You’re right about the 10K plus too!

joenomad
joenomad
8 years ago

Ha…nevermind.

Nunyab
Nunyab
8 years ago

Love it. Over the too urban bike that I’d ride, of course I’d have to get a better job.

Ian
Ian
8 years ago

All those sketchy boutique parts and its still 13 pounds?

Myke
Myke
8 years ago

@ian not really, everything seems legit to me.

Antipodean_eleven
8 years ago

@Peter D “Such a waste of a beautiful frame… get rid of those flat bars!” Yawn…

champs794
champs794
8 years ago

Surely a Fairwheel hybrid build is jumping the shark. Might as well mount an AX-Lightness one piece cockpit upside down and hack in some stem shifters.

JBikes
JBikes
8 years ago

I’ll remember this when I’m ask to pay full retail because bike shops are starving and margins are low. Kidding (kind of).

Colin
Colin
8 years ago

If you are complaining about the weight, get real. It has a fairly deep wheel (for an ultralight) and is running wide, clincher gp4000 tires. No part of that bike is sketchy if you maintain it.

I’m only mildly jealous of the crankset. Ok, really really jealous.

Jason, if you are reading this, are you ever going to get more?

Giancarlo Lopez
8 years ago

Seems like I’m not the only one building up a nice crossbike into a flatbar funbike. Currently building a S-WORKS cruX into a fun commuter.

greg
greg
8 years ago

Splitting hairs here, but the chain is not ti nitride coated, it’s DLC.
It would be cool if it had clearance for some zippy carbon fenders. Maybe some green ESI grips, or Ergons if you like that sort of thing…
Needs lights too. And a Spur Cycle bell.

Ripnshread
Ripnshread
8 years ago

My dream would have been the Parlee Chebacco, carbon fenders, bigger burlier tires and an integrated hub charged light /di2. But nice FWBike build it is.

Marco
Marco
8 years ago

@Mike Yes they are available Boost too: http://www.carbon-ti.com/products/hubs/x-hub-mtb-sp-boost

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