Rouleur Live tech gallery: Aero titanium, custom paint, and the return of raw carbon
All the fancy bikes from London's finest fancy bike show
Rouleur Live is traditionally the last show of the year, and given that everything new for the year has already been released, it focuses more on the bling, the custom, and the fancy.
Every stand is positively bristling with top-end bikes from predominantly premium brands, nearly all of which have been custom-painted, decked out in matching parts, and moodily lit for the throngs of cycling fans that pass through the halls of a former brewery.
While it isn't necessarily a place to tease out any industry trends, this year does seem to mark something that I'm absolutely here for: the return of raw carbon. For years, all bikes have been entirely painted, and mostly in matte finishes, but this year, there are noticeably more brands showing off the weave beneath gloss paint or clear lacquer.
There's also been a small proliferation of aero titanium, or half-Ti bikes, mainly in the independent builders' room, which has come about now that 3D printing in titanium has become easier and more accessible.
Get yourself a cup of tea and settle in for all the pictures from my wanderings.
Let's kick off at the Panaracer stand, with a very matchy-matchy Lab71 Cannondale SuperX.
A purple anodised Exposure Joystick up front.
New WolfTooth DEL pedals (part of a CTRL, ALT, DEL set) on the crank arms.
And matching Chris King hubs. A tasteful start.
Pearson isn't a brand we see much of, but it brought along its Shift 2.0 aero bike to the show.
It's a 7.25kg machine, and the first one of the raw carbon brigade for the day.
Road 1x is becoming a growing trend, and while Shimano doesn't yet make a dedicated setup, there are plenty of aftermarket options to make it possible.
Fork-frame integration is key for aero, and this seems to follow the usual playbook.
Definitely not raw carbon, but I'm always going to stop to admire a Pegoretti paint job.
Pegoretti frames are famous for their paint, and this gravel bike lived up to the hype.
Each one is hand-painted, often with non-traditional methods.
At Argon 18, there was a custom Nitrogen Pro, the new aero bike from the Canadian brand, and one we've already put in the wind tunnel.
Matching Scope wheel logos to the frame decals is a classy touch.
The integrated bottle cages were given the same purple treatment. You can see the air channels within them.
British brand Reap came up with a build for aero maestro, Dan Bigham. It's what can only be described as a gravel time trial bike. We've already brought you a full gallery of it, but... more raw carbon here.
Everything aligned and matching, as show bikes should be.
I daren't think how sturdy these would be off-road.
Reap also had a prototype road bike on show, destined for the wind tunnel.
The frame is 3D printed out of plastic and constructed around round carbon tubes to allow wind tunnel testing before committing to a full layup.
Small brand and sponsor of hill climb ace, Andrew Feather, Swi cycles had some very light (and raw carbon) frames on show.
Not sure those hoods are UCI legal, but the wavy top is quite appealing.
Yes, more raw carbon!
Here's a cutaway of the Swi headtube, with the bearing cups moulded in to shed some weight.
Titanium expert Sturdy was in the independent builders section with some fabulously Cerakoted frames.
Why limit yourself to just painting the frames when you can do the cranks too?
My favourite was Tom Sturdy's own winter bike, with some custom carbon mudguards.
The end of each stay is threaded and mounted with 3D printed titanium mounting hardware to dial in the fit.
I think this might have been the only bike with mudguards on in the whole show, which is sad.
Despite having no seatstay bridge the mudguards were rock solid.
Previously, Sturdy 3D printed its cranks, but now it CNC machines them in-house to cut out any supply chain issues.
I must say this uncoated titanium 1x setup really floats my boat.
From the thoroughly modern to the distinctly old school, it's Greg LeMond's bonded carbon and alloy Look.
His Selle San Marco saddle isn't going to win any weight contests, but it's a classic old school shape.
And this tightly spaced, Mavic-branded double crankset is also a looker.
Before monocoque construction became the norm, bonding carbon tubes with alloy lugs was the fashion for a small time.
Meanwhile at the Princeton Carbonworks stand the very cutting edge of composite and titanium was on show in the form of the Hope track bike.
It's the first time I've seen this bike up close, and the trailing edges of the forks are a lot more squared-off than I expected.
Renishaw makes 3D titanium printers and worked to create a lot of the hardware for the bike.
Yes, that's a 70-tooth Sugino Zen chainring. No, I don't think I could turn it.
It's truly enormous!
Up front, the tiny head tube really accentuates the wide spacing of the fork legs.
Elsewhere, still in velodrome mode, I spotted Colnago's latest Track bike with these lovely sculpted Vision bars.
I particularly liked the printed nose-cone on the stem.
Much like the Y1Rs, the front wheel is heavily sculpted into the downtube.
The seat post is much deeper than the road frame, though, with plenty of fore/aft available.
While the Y1Rs split opinion visually, I think the track version actually looks great.
On the Scott stand the gravel bike of Cameron Jones was on show.
He'd clearly got the memo about wider tyres being faster.
Like many pros, he's gone aftermarket with his cockpit to get long, low, and narrow.
The few strips of electrical tape speak of a computer that now won't rattle in the mount.
Scope had its R-series wheels on show, which use the same shape as the extremely fast Artech wheels but ditch the fish scales. I'm told they're very nearly as fast, but substantially cheaper.
The Scope hubs, 3D printed in alloy, are beautifully organic in form.
This Enigma was sporting a limited edition, polished set of Mavic wheels, which I was very fond of.
Nobody was more passionate about their products than the EXS reps on the stand. The Asian brand makes superlight aftermarket parts, including this 3D printed computer mount for a Cervélo S5.
And these quite gnarly-looking aero bar ends.
9.4g for a bottle cage is really very light, especially for one made of metal.
This seatpost topper for an S5 seatpost had a superlight 3D printed clamp.
If memory serves me correctly the brand also makes alloy stems for the S5 in all manner of shapes so you can keep that slammed, aero transition and still get the rise you want.
It also makes 36cm aftermarket bars, with a slight flare. I'm told this better caters to the narrower profile of Asian riders.
The S5 isn't known for comfort, so this aftermarket seatpost from EXS has been designed with an elastomer in it to rectify things a little.
Nothing groundbreaking here, but a very neat, colour-matching rear cluster, including the rear mech limit screws.
J. Laverack brought two new bikes to the show, the first being a 3D printed, aero, titanium machine.
Much like Sturdy bikes, nearly every piece was titanium.
It's still unusual to see aero-profiled metal frames, but they're becoming more common.
The brand also had a half-titanium-half-carbon machine, with more traditional tubes, all very neatly crafted.
I'm told this 3D-printed child's bike also had an option to come with carbon wheels!
I applaud the full commitment to the red theme on Jonas Vingegaard's red Cervélo S5.
Condor is always a staple of the show, and this dreamy, pearlescent paint caught my eye.
Bastion has been making lugged carbon and titanium frames for a long time now.
It's the little details that set high-end frames apart from off-the-shelf models.
The mind boggles at the polishing time that goes into these lugs.
A 130 stem, not crazy long by pro standards...
But on Pauline Ferrand-Prévot's tiny Cervelo, it is quite long.
Alec Brigg's WRX Subaru-inspired Canyon was also on the Panaracer stand.
It takes guts to spray a set of Lightweight wheels gold.
These beautifully matte grey Tactic hubs had their own stand. I do love the fact that the freehub body, never seen on the bike, has been anodised.
More Lightweight wheels, a brand that has somewhat fallen out of the desire tree in recent years.
They were fitted to Colnago's new-ish Steelnovo.
The bike was originally launched as a very limited run, but is now being made more widely available.
Quite a few Y1Rs bikes were kicking about, including this Pogačar-spec yellow one.
The frame had an almost fluorescent colour to it in the flesh, not the typical canary yellow of Tour bikes.
I LOVE these old school Campagnolo wheel logos. More heritage, please!
Hanging in the entrance were a series of vintage track bikes, including the legendary Lotus.
It was so ahead of its time, and I'd love to hear what this wheel sounds like at full chat.
On the POC stand, the brand was showing off some extremely lightweight-looking bikepacking bags.
I saw early units of this system being tested at The Traka.
Also kitted out in bags and covered in mud was the bike of ultra-legend Lael Wilcox.
The Specialized stand housed an un-bagged model of the diverge, with some motivational messaging on the down tube.
Tadej Pogačar's bike has had several iterations of the 3D printed computer mount, from a full shroud initially to this cutaway version later in the season.
He also opted to swap the stock bottle cages for superlight Elite Leggero carbon models, aiming to keep the system weight as low as possible.
On the Trek stand, there were several wonderfully painted models. This must have taken a huge amount of time.
Pinarello wasn't to be outdone on paint. I know, having tested the Dogma F, that the paint costs €1,000 or so, and going all in to even paint the saddle chassis adds even more to that cost.
Likewise the Most cockpit.
This raw carbon SRM crankset and CarbonTi chainring combo was quite eye-catching. Spot the adjustable crank arm length cutout at the end of the arm.
The SRAM stand played host to Field Cycles' latest machine, another bonded carbon and metal machine.
The joins between carbon and metal were wavy, which is certainly unusual.
The small sections of carbon in the stays are also unorthodox and certainly must add to the manufacturing cost.
It's really quite a beautiful bike to behold though.
Passoni was also exhibiting a similarly constructed, half-Ti aero bike.
More wavy tube junctions here, too.
Here's the latest SRM X Q36.5 pedal system.
It claims to have the lowest stack of any on the market.
The cleats are wafer thin in places.
I took a short hop back around to the Pinarello booth to catch Geraint Thomas' celebratory end-of-career bike.
Not a red dragon, but a gold one for the Welsh Olympian.
And a very gold headtube celebrating some of his many achievements.
The historic pro bikes are just... there for people to lean on. I'm glad they aren't my bike I must say!
These polished Tactic hubs caught the light on another Dogma F.
Inflatable helmets haven't caught on yet, but the novelty factor of seeing them is still high.
Campagnolo invented the corkscrew... well, not the actual corkscrew, that was Archimedes, but you know what I mean.
Another crazy track bike; Francesco Moser's big wheel.
The theory was that the giant rear wheel would act like a flywheel and help maintain momentum on the track.
Another classic of the genre was this Cinelli Laser.
And Graeme Obree's homemade bike, 'Old Faithful', is truly legendary.
Longtime carbon stalwart Parlee had a gorgeous cherry red bike on show.
At the Hunt stand I spied a pair of the new, recycled, eco-friendly tyres from Vittoria.
Matthew Brennan's bike was on show, complete with Gravaa's self-inflating tyre system.
A compressor in the hub can inflate the tyres via a remote on the bars.
I will leave you with this faintly uncomfortable photo of Matteo Jorgenson.
Will joined the Cyclingnews team as a reviews writer in 2022, having previously written for Cyclist, BikeRadar and Advntr. He’s tried his hand at most cycling disciplines, from the standard mix of road, gravel, and mountain bike, to the more unusual like bike polo and tracklocross. He’s made his own bike frames, covered tech news from the biggest races on the planet, and published countless premium galleries thanks to his excellent photographic eye. Also, given he doesn’t ever ride indoors he’s become a real expert on foul-weather riding gear. His collection of bikes is a real smorgasbord, with everything from vintage-style steel tourers through to superlight flat bar hill climb machines.
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