No holding back from Parlee Cycles for this week’s Bike at Bedtime, the Massachusetts-based brand confident it has created “one of the finest bicycles ever made”, a tribute to late founder Bob Parlee and featuring a money-no-object build around its brand new Z-Zero GT.
It’s a two-for-one in that Parlee has just launched its new Z-Zero GT, the bike to lead its Z-Series going forward as the Z-Zero “gets even better” in its latest lighter, stiffer form. If that’s not enough though, there’s also the Bob Parlee edition, of which just 25 will be “meticulously custom made for the owner” and are never to be built again, a tribute to the late founder Bob who passed away in September after a four-year battle with cancer.
To celebrate Parlee’s 25 years of bike-building and to honour legendary founder Bob, the product and paint team were unleashed with the aim of creating the best possible bike. It’s got design flourishes to pay tribute to Bob, such as his signature and ‘RTFB’ motto, that’s ‘Ride The F***ing Bike’ for anybody who doesn’t speak bike builder.
As a massive Campag fan, Parlee says Bob would “be smiling to see the return of the famous thumb lever”, the limited edition Z-Zero GT featuring Campagnolo’s newly released 13-speed Super Record Groupset. Elsewhere, it’s got an SRM power meter, handbuilt Partington R-Series carbon wheels, CeramicSpeed bearings, a Black Inc. integrated cockpit, Pirelli’s P-Zero Race TLR tyres, Better Bolts, and as classy an in-house paint job as you could ever wish for.
On those design touches, there are 24k gold leaf elements that pay homage to Bob’s previous work building traditional wooden boats, the art of gilding (applying thin sheets of gold leaf onto a surface) commonly used on boats for names and other decorative flourishes.
We’ve not got any word on pricing yet, but given the newly announced standard Z-Zero GT with Campag 13-speed Super Record is $22,990 (£17,072), it’s safe to assume we might have needed to start saving a while ago.
The process saw Parlee “go around the world” to pick its partners for the dream build: Campagnolo, SRM, Partington, CeramicSpeed, Black Inc., Pirelli, Deda and so on. Absolutely no expense has been spared.
Bob Parlee had originally been in the business of building boats but turned his skills to bikes back in 1999, a decision I’m sure we can all agree was the right one.
Sadly, Bob passed away in September following a four-year battle with cancer, although, as the team at Parlee has made clear, his legacy lives on in every bike they produce, none more so than the Bob Parlee Edition Z-Zero GT.
The team has summed up Bob better than we ever could, so in their/his words: “Bob was a quiet person and certainly preferred to be at the bench working rather than on the phone talking. People would approach him at a race or ride and ask him to describe the nuances of the ride quality or the performance of one of his bikes and he would often just say ‘try it’ and push the bike towards the person. After a while we all began to say his response to any question about the bike would be to just ‘ride the f***ing bike’ and also, as advice, when in doubt, and you are not sure what to do… just go for a ride!”
Amen to that. You can find all the info on Parlee’s website… oh, and it comes with some bling extras, because you couldn’t possibly be expected to pump up those tyres with a standard track pump, could you?
