Orange CarbO road bike: sold out
Orange dips a toe in the road bike waters and has it bitten off by tarmac happy punters
Orange carbO tarmac model at Eurobike.jpg
You may remember that at Eurobike we reported that Halifax-based MTB maestros Orange were launching a Carbon road bike. The CarbO features a full 105 drivetrain and easton finishing kit, and retails for £1,900. Or it did, because they're pretty much all gone already.
Orange were testing the water with the CarbO and it was only a short run, but the message from the punters would seem to be, "come on in - the water's lovely!". We spoke to Dave at Orange bikes today who told us that "The first batch are almost gone before they’ve arrived", which is clearly good news for Orange but not if you were hoping to snap one up yourself.
Presumably Orange will be on the blower to the factory to get some more frames made up based on the popularity of the first run, but it might be a while before they're back in stock. When they are, we'll let you know. Heck, we might even try and get hold of a test bike ourselves...
Nice.
The future's bright; the future's road.
any word on the frame? i hope its not but it looks like a badged up catalogue carbon frame much like the one that got slated on here a few weeks ago.
The frame is a Chinese standard model from a large Chinese manufacturer. Same frame as a derosa r838 and the Ribble stealth. Ribble sell this same spec for around a grand (orange decals sold seperate!).
It's not a surprise that they went for a stock frame. I remember Brant when he was at On-One saying that for the cost of tooling up to make Midge, Mary bars, etc they could have brought the tools for making custom carbon frames. Orange bikes are very good, unless they try to do something special, like the Vit-T - a friend has one and ended up rebuilding the wheels before he rode it. He couldn't be bothered with the hassle of sending it back after the delay in getting it from Orange.
I don't think the actual lay-up is the same as others that use the mold - Orange have been working on this bike for a while. You can use an existing mold to keep costs down, but spend a bit of time on lay-ups and you can have a very different ride feel.
Remember all the discussion on the Onix bike earlier in the year? James-o is right: just because it *looks* the same, that doesn't mean it *is* the same.
I emailed Orange about it and they said that their first delivery of the CarbO is due in November with just 60 bikes arriving. Out of that 60 they only have 10 left (7x 52, 3x54). They have another order due early next year.
The bike will come in at £1899.99 and has a full 105 groupset, Easton Aero wheels, Carbon steerer on the fork and Easton EA30 finishing kit. The geometry is semi-compact but full chart will be available when the bike goes live on the website, which should be in the next week or so.
I think they should have called it the 'vanilla'. Don't know why but expected something a little bit different from the Halifax lot. It doesn't look like a filing cabinet though, so that's good. Interested to see how it rides but I'm sure it'll sell. The Orange 5 MTB is truly THE 'marmite' bike. It's lunchtime.....
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