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TECH NEWS

Your chance to build the most expensive bike in the world

£6399 for the frameset what can you add to get it over £20,000?

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

Tony has been editing cycling magazines and websites since 1997 starting out as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - which he continues to edit today. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes.

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