Check out Dangerholm's custom Scott Foil RC Liquid

Gustav Gullholm, better known as Dangerholm on social media, has dropped a brand new Scott Foil RC Liquid build. This bike marks the first ever dedicated road bike built by the Swede. He says the aim of this build was to “take the essence of the Foil to the next level, building an aero bike with elegance and performance turned up to 11”. So let’s dive into the details of this Bike at Bedtime that would be a bike of dreams for many. 

In telling the story of this Scott Foil RC, Dangerholm said he wanted the bike to resemble and bring the feeling of looking at a beautiful supercar - think matching body panels, small logos, clean tyres with no big brand patches and so on - but in bicycle form. 

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“Over the years I’ve been riding pretty much everything, from BMX and trials to downhill and racing marathons, but road for some reason just never happened," Dangerholm said.

"At long last I got my hands on the new and rather amazing SCOTT Foil RC frameset last year, so in autumn I built a test mule version."

That test mule also made it to our Bike at Bedtime section, so head over to the feature to check how it looked back in October. 

From October, Dangerholm got his creative hat on and started to work on transforming the Foil to be an even more well-performing and good-looking bike. 

The special effect paint is called ”Liquid Gold”, and gives the bike its name. It shifts dramatically from being completely transparent, allowing the black carbon fibre to be visible as if just clear coated, flipping between green, gold and in some angles even blue tones. In low light, the bike becomes much more discreet with glossy olive tones.

Dangerholm is well known for stripping the paint off mountain bikes, and that is what he did to the Foil, too. He explained that a bike's paint can weigh as much as 150g. 

For this bike, low weight wasn’t a main goal, but the paint ended up being relatively lightweight anyway, adding just 38g. And speaking of weight, stripped from paint Dangerholm’s Foil RC frame came in at 868g including hardware (888g also including seat clamp) for a size L/56cm. Considering this is an aero bike, that's pretty light.

Syncros offers several seat post variants for the Foil, all featuring the same super-thin aero design. Except for different setback options, the Duncan SL Aero seat posts come in either regular or CFT versions. For this build Dangerholm chose both, and with different saddles. 

“Since I have both options for this bike, I decided to take the opportunity to run different seats as well. Some people might question this, while I view it a bit like how it for a runner sometimes can be good to mix it up with different shoes. 

“For the lightweight combo, I’m using a Coco Designs Spline which has been custom painted to match the rest of the bike. These are handmade in France on a small scale, and it was started as a passion project by the founder who otherwise works in the aerospace industry. It weighs just 65g but there are two features that make it especially interesting.”

For the CFT seat post, Dangerholm opted for Syncros Belcarra V1.0 Cut Out. 

The cockpit is the fully integrated Syncros Creston SL IC Aero with a 90mm stem and 400mm width. The shifters are SRAM RED AXS with custom-painted carbon fibre brake levers.

The brake callipers are the C22 from the German brake manufacturer Trickstuff, often featured on Dangerholm’s mountain bike builds. Trickstuff also makes the brake disc rotors used on this bike, which are the Dächle Ultra Light. The front is 160mm and the rear is 140mm, both fastened with centre lock adaptors from Bike Ahead Composites.

Then there are the wheels. This is an aero bike and as Dangerholm said, he doesn’t have to worry about any UCI regulations, which dictate that wheels must have at least 12 spokes. Dangerholm’s choice was the Bike Ahead Composites Aero wheels, which are a relatively new variant of the brand’s iconic six-spoke carbon wheels. The German hoops weigh around 1,450g for the pair.

“The one-piece full carbon construction allows them to have a very slim and efficient shape for both the spokes and the hub shell. The spokes completely disappear when you look at the wheels straight on, compared to most others where you can see the spokes flare out at the hub. And while I haven’t seen the supposedly very positive aero test data, I’m inclined to believe they truly are fast,” Dangerholm said about the wheels. 

The wheels are rolling with titanium thru-axles. Made by METI in Italy, the special axles should be “stiff, strong and timelessly elegant”. The tyres are Michelin Power Cup Competition Line in 25mm width up front and 28mm rear, and the logo patches have been carefully sanded off to ensure a perfectly clean look. 

The tyres are set up with Revoloop Ultra Race inner tubes, which are super light at just 25g each.

Titanium is used throughout this Foil’s hardware. The Sturdy Cycles titanium crankset features 3D-printed crank arms and a 50t titanium chainring - yep, just a single chainring. The cranks spin on a Kogel Ceramic bottom bracket, the chain is SRAM Red and the pedals are Wahoo Speedplay Nano featuring titanium spindles. 

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Dangerholm explained his gearing choice: “I decided on running a 1x drivetrain partially because of the aero benefits, but also coming from mountain biking I’m quite used to having slightly bigger gearing steps and don’t feel it’s very problematic.

"Depending on where I ride and how much climbing there is to do, I have two SRAM Force cassettes for the bike. One is a 10-36T for flatter rides and the other is a 10-44T to use when necessary. That explains the choice of the SRAM RED AXS XPLR derailleur, more commonly seen on gravel bikes because of its wide-range cassette compatibility.”

The custom Kogel Kolossos Aero rear derailleur cage has been featured in our Tech of the Week series, and is a pre-production unit that was specifically made for this bike.

Dangerholm adds: “[I was] originally planning to run a regular Kolossos oversize derailleur cage system, but Kogel stepped it up and designed this Aero version to perfectly fit with the theme of the bike.

"Used on this bike is the first pre-production unit, which has been custom polished by me, and hopefully the production version will become available this summer."

And lastly, you might be wondering what this build weighs. 7.11kg in total, according to Dangerholm. 

Let us know what you think of Dangerholm's build and as always, remember to check out our other Bike at Bedtime features for more cool bikes!