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Culprit launch disc-equipped Legend bike without seatstays at Taipei International Cycle Show

New disc-equipped Legend comes without seatstays for a damped ride

Last weekend we ran a story on Culprit’s new Legend bike but we were unable to show you the complete frame because the patent had yet to be filed; now we can, and here it is.

What you can’t fail to notice is that the Legend is built without seatstays. We caught up with Culprit’s General Manager Joshua Colp at Taipei Cycle and he explained that the reason for that is to provide a degree of damping for a smoother ride. This bike is aimed at triathletes who have to get off the bike and immediately run – a full marathon in the case of Ironman athletes – and the idea is to help them start that leg of the race feeling as fresh and comfortable as possible.

In order to build the bike in this way, the chainstays are made together as a yoke rather than individually bonded onto the back of the front triangle. This is intended to help with the stiffness. The chainstays are also built oversized for the same reason.

One of the other key features of the Legend is the use of disc brakes. Culprit have been working with Ashima to produce the hydraulic disc brake system used here with the lines runnin internally, the front one exiting halfway down the fork leg and the rear one exiting towards the end of the chainstay. If you prefer, the bike will also take TRP TTV brakes or Shimano’s direct mount design. The gear cables run internally too.

The frame is a full-carbon monocoque built with Toray 800 carbon. The seat angle is a steep 77° although you get considerable adjustment via the seat post because you can move the clamp fore/aft, selecting from eight different positions (and you can slide the saddle forwards and backwards on its rails in the usual way). The seat post is held in place by two clamping devices, by the way, so there should be no problems with slippage which can be an issue on some aero designs.

The Legend uses a PF30 bottom bracket and an Acros The Clamp headset, removing the need for a topcap. The design is compatible with a PRO or a Trigon aerobar/stem.

The rear spacing is 135mm for the use of disc brakes although alloy adaptors will bring that in to 130mm. You get these with the brake kits across the Culprit range of bikes. The dropouts are horizontal so you can position the wheel accurately, with two offset positions.

The lack of chainstays and the disc brakes mean that the Legend is not a UCI legal design but there’s nothing here that outlaws it in triathlon. Interestingly, Joshua is already thinking about taking the seatstay-free design and adapting it into an endurance road bike design. Loads of the big brands are adding vertical flex at the moment – the Trek Domane, BMC Grand Fondo and so on – and a version of the Legend designed for a similar type of ride could be possible, although it’s a long way off yet.

A rideable version of the Legend should be available by June with full production likely by November. The price for a frameset is likely to be around the $3,500 mark, although that’s far from confirmed.

A totally different new product from Culprit is this prototype kids’ bike. It’s so new that it doesn’t have a name yet. Culprit already do kids’ bikes but this one is cheaper than previously – around $900. That’s not cheap for a kids’ bike, clearly, but the idea is that this is a high-quality choice.

The frame is 7005 aluminium alloy and the bike will be equipped with a single chainring matched up to a 9-speed cassette (a 10-speed model is shown here but don’t let that fool you). Shifting will come courtesy of Microshift and braking via dual pivot Tektro brakes.

The new bike will be available later in the year. The UK distributor for Culprit's kids' bikes is Criterium Imports Ltd (07894 314534, criteriumimports [at] gmail.com).

There's a new alloy road bike for adults coming from Culprit too. More details on that when we get them. In the meantime, check out www.culpritbicycles.com for full details on the range.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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13 comments

Avatar
griggers | 11 years ago
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I think they're missing a trick here. If they had a chain stay-less frame they could do something really interesting by getting a slimmer profile and making triathletes go faster!

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andyspaceman | 11 years ago
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It's not pretty, but I think that's partially down to the paint finish. Or lack of any real effort with the graphics.

I'm also questioning the need for disks on a TT bike, when there are more aero options that'll slow the bike 'well enough'.

But with the seat stays, Cervelo said years ago that they could build their bikes with no seat stays, and they would be faster for it, if only the UCI would allow. So I'm all in support of that. I understand the need for the UCI to ensure safety of new technologies and designs, yada yada, but sometimes they are just luddite dicks.

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TheHatter | 11 years ago
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Can you fit mudguards on it?

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velotech_cycling | 11 years ago
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I never thought I'd be typing these words - but this travesty of bicycle design is even more hideous than a C59 Disc ...

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Karbon Kev | 11 years ago
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yet another manufacturer trying to reinvent the bicycle, sigh .....

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6654henry | 11 years ago
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Sorry but i think it is hideous. Also why discs? How much braking do you really do in TT's and Tri's? Definitely too much if you need discs.

To take away the seat stays you'd have to beef up the chainstays just to cope with the load which is ok, but then add in discs and you've got all sorts of twisting and bending moments happening along the length of the chainstays, not to mention the chainstays not flexing the same amounts due to the brake being on one side. There's also the rider putting force through the BB which twists the chainstays and there's road reactions such as bumps to contend with.

And those brake levers....

I think it was a problem that didn't need solving and the aero benefits whatever they may be will be undone by that v un-aero seatpost

New engineering is exciting. Just not this.

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koko56 replied to 6654henry | 11 years ago
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6654henry wrote:

Sorry but i think it is hideous. Also why discs? How much braking do you really do in TT's and Tri's? Definitely too much if you need discs.

To take away the seat stays you'd have to beef up the chainstays just to cope with the load which is ok, but then add in discs and you've got all sorts of twisting and bending moments happening along the length of the chainstays, not to mention the chainstays not flexing the same amounts due to the brake being on one side. There's also the rider putting force through the BB which twists the chainstays and there's road reactions such as bumps to contend with.

And those brake levers....

I think it was a problem that didn't need solving and the aero benefits whatever they may be will be undone by that v un-aero seatpost

New engineering is exciting. Just not this.

So are you saying that ride is gonna be stiff?  26
___________________

That triangle at thew back is funny look at the seat sta... the fuu?

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welly2 replied to 6654henry | 10 years ago
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Quote:

To take away the seat stays you'd have to beef up the chainstays just to cope with the load which is ok, but then add in discs and you've got all sorts of twisting and bending moments happening along the length of the chainstays, not to mention the chainstays not flexing the same amounts due to the brake being on one side. There's also the rider putting force through the BB which twists the chainstays and there's road reactions such as bumps to contend with.

Do you not think they've thought about all this?

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CarbonBreaker | 11 years ago
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Some potential in that design, but not sure why you'd want an aero bike with discs, particularly for Tri, where you are on a reasonable road course, that's unlikely to be very technical.

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Jon Burrage replied to CarbonBreaker | 11 years ago
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CarbonBreaker wrote:

Some potential in that design, but not sure why you'd want an aero bike with discs, particularly for Tri, where you are on a reasonable road course, that's unlikely to be very technical.

There are plenty of technical tri courses but I agree, don't really see the need for discs and I cant quite grasp how this will make any difference to the freshness of an athletes legs over, say, a Scott Plasma Premium or Felt DA which have proven themselves to work well as long distance tri bikes.

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aslongasicycle | 11 years ago
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Phoarrr. Damn the UCI and their silly old rules.

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RobD | 11 years ago
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There's clearly some thinking outside the box going on over at the culprit design office.
Not sure about the seatpost, it looks a bit of an odd angle, but I like the rest of the design, I'd love to see that translated into a road bike.

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Mat Brett replied to RobD | 11 years ago
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RobD wrote:

Not sure about the seatpost, it looks a bit of an odd angle, but I like the rest of the design, I'd love to see that translated into a road bike.

If you mean the curved seatpost in the gallery rather than the one on the Legend, there's a titanium section in there. It's designed to flex. Sorry, I've not had time to write about it yet but I'll hopefully get some more details up on road.cc at some stage.

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