Ever wanted to built the ultimate 'no expense spared' bike? Well now you can… and it won't cost you a penny.
Over the past few months we've tracked the progress of the Litespeed Blade on it's journey from drawing board, via the wind tunnel and the Radial Sheet Break Forming machine, to a bikeshop near you … well almost there. Wind tunnels and Radial Sheet Break Forming don't come cheap, oh, and of course it is made from titanium too…
All that adds up which is why the Blade frameset will cut a £6399 sized chunk from your bank balance. We reckon that right now it is the most expensive frameset in the world which holds out the possibility of building it up in to the world's most expensive bike.
With a six and a half grand head start you'd think that would be easy, but it's a harder task than you might imagine when Scandinavians keep insisting on making bicycles out of gold and diamonds. Currently the most expensive bicycle we can find is the Arumania Gold Bike Crystal Edition – yours for a piffling €80,000 (£69,296.22) and even their standard Gold Bike weighs in at €21,000 (£18,190,58) delivered. Mind you, how likely are you to ride down to shops on a gold-plated bike? Or indeed enter one in your local 10 or 25?
So your challenge is to suggest the most expensive build up you can think of for the Blade using real components and finishing kit – the winner is the person who can get it as far as possible over £20,000 without dipping it in gold (or any other precious metal) or encrusting it in diamonds – which would anyway play havoc with the Blade's laminar flow rendering it blunt as an aero time trial weapon. The complete bike in our main pic with HED wheels and 'bars probably pushes pretty close to the £20K mark, but we think you can get it higher…
There will be a prize. IT WON'T BE A BLADE!
Our challenge will be to get it built – Rebecca Pring from Litespeed's UK distributor, Paligap says they are up for it:
‘Building the most expensive bike in the world is a really exciting project to be involved in – doing something just ‘because’ and just for fun is great!!! We are eager to see what products make it onto the bike, and to see how creative readers will be!’
So let's see what we can do!
All you need to do to enter the competition is paste your suggestions for the ultimate build on to this story - we will also create a thread in the forum that you can add your suggestions to as well.
Here's some more suggestions to get the ball rolling…
A nice set of Lightweight wheels would be reassuringly expensive or maybe some FFWDs.
Campag Super Record Groupset? Or maybe something a little more esoteric… and expensive
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I'll admit I don't know much about the bike industry, but 35,000 bikes seems a shit-load of bikes to have in stock? Surely no manufacturer or...
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Reference to the scrap about politics prompted by a dig at the Conservatives made by a road.cc reviewer in this map review article.
Lots of good options and advice above, i'd also maybe suggest RedWhite for a bib focused company (especially long distance) with a good reputation...
Huge difference between being impolite and punching someone repeatedly in the face and tasing them....
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