Storck introduces Fascenario.3 road bike

Storck is introducing a new Fascenario.3 that’s intended to be “the best road bike” out there with features variously designed for aerodynamic efficiency, comfort, stiffness, and ergonomic performance.

The best road bike out there? That’s a big ambition. And how would you decide that? Different people will put different values on a whole bunch of attributes, but Markus Storck reckons that the Fascenario.3 nails it, naturally enough.

The Fascenario.3 has features designed for aerodynamic efficiency, such as ‘Advanced Sectional Aerodynamic Shaping’ tubing. The down tube, for example, has an aerodynamic profile with a chopped off trailing edge and the head tube has a slightly cinched in waist to lower the frontal area. 

The fork is interesting too. Check out how far the legs bow outwards between the crown and the dropouts. I didn’t pack the trusty road.cc vernier callipers – there’s always something! – so I couldn’t give you an exact measurement, but that’s quite an arc going on there. Huge, in fact. The idea is to allow air to pass straight through the gap between the fork leg and the wheel, avoiding turbulence and therefore keeping drag low.

Most forks designed for aerodynamics aren’t especially stiff from side to side – think of the blade of a knife or a plank of wood when pushed from the flat side – but Storck reckons that the Fascenario.3’s fork is very stiff thanks to the profile and the shaping. The idea is that although the bike might not be quite as aerodynamically efficient as the brand’s Aerfast time trial bike, it’s still highly aero and it scores more highly when it comes to other factors, such as bottom bracket stiffness.

Storck has also focused on comfort, speccing the Fascenario.3 with a new F.3 seatpost that provides a helluva lot of up/down movement. Press on the saddle and it’s very easy to provoke flex thanks to the Flat Section Technology – it’s a D-shaped profile. Some other seatposts offer this much saddle movement or more, but the F.3 weighs just (a claimed) 130g. If you go for a complete bike you’ll get a handlebar that’s similarly designed to exhibit direction-specific movement.

The Fascenario.3’s frameset is lightweight too. It’s a claimed 840g for the frame – Storck says that this could be reduced to below 800g in time with changes to the carbon layup – and 330g for the fork.

So aerodynamics, stiffness, comfort, weight…  Storck reckons that it’s a balance of all these attributes that makes the Fascenario.3 the best, and which will lead to it winning awards over the coming months. Confident! We’ve not ridden the bike yet so we couldn’t tell you for sure how it performs, but we’re working on changing that so stay tuned to road.cc for more soon.

Getting a Fascenario.3 in your life won’t be cheap. You’re looking at £5,559. For the frameset. 

Mind you, the standard version looks cheap next to this model created by Markus Storck for the Aston Martin car brand. It is built up with SRAM Red eTap electronic shifters and derailleurs, THM chainset and brakes, and  Zipp’s new 303 NSW wheels. The exclusive paint job is pretty special too. It’s pearlescent and looks different colours in different lights. Just 77 of these will be built.

How much? Well, it’s €17,777, seeing as you ask. Tell them that road.cc sent you and it’ll be… still €17,777, probably. 

www.storck-bicycle.cc