Storck’s brand new Fascenarios.3 Platinum comes with some pretty big claims, and a pretty big price tag as well. We’ve just taken delivery on the bike for review and we run through the key details in the video above.
The pictured test bike, with Shimano Ultegra Di2, Edco carbon clincher wheels, Conti tyres and Storck’s own finishing kit, and costs £9,300. If you just want the frameset on its own, well that’ll set you back £5,600. We’ll let that sink in for a moment…
Storck bikes have always had a reputation for big prices, but that’s a result of company founder Markus Storck really pushing the boundaries of frame design, not accepting the conventional wisdom and creating his own innovative solutions to creating lighter and stiffer bikes than the competition.
The Fascenarios.3 Platinium is the company’s latest creation, billed boldly as “the best road bike” and pitched as an all-round model that combines high stiffness, low weight, comfort and aerodynamics.
A custom carbon fibre layup and careful tube profiling have resulted in a frame that weighs a claimed 840g and the fork is 330g. It’s not a dedicated aero bike, Storck has the Aerfast for the aero freaks, there are some serious aerodynamic influences in the frame design, most notably the bowed fork blades and Kamm tail shaped down tube which it calls Advanced Sectional Aerodynamic Shaping.
Comfort has been considered, and the D-profile seatpost is designed to allow a small range of saddle deflection. It’s the same story with the company’s own handlebar, which is designed to flex on just on direction, under the force of impacts travelling up through the front wheel.
That’s just a brief overview of the bike, you can read a more detailed first look from the launch last year here, and Mat Brett’s first impressions here. Stay tuned for the full review soon.
(Yes, we didn’t have a box to pull the bike out of, so improvised with a sheet…)
12 thoughts on “Storck’s Fascenario.3 Platinum road bike costs £9,300”
9k+
9k+
with Ultergra?!
The world has gone officially stark, raving bonkers.
JimD666 wrote:
Surely you mean Storck raving bonkers.
JimD666 wrote:
Indeed it has…
That is the exact same
That is the exact same thought that popped int my head when I saw it
.
“A custom carbon fibre layup
“A custom carbon fibre layup and careful tube profiling have resulted in a frame that weighs a claimed 840g and the fork is 330g. It’s not a dedicated aero bike, Storck has the Aerfast for the aero freaks, there are some serious aerodynamic influences in the frame design, most notably the bowed fork blades and Kamm tail shaped down tube which it calls Advanced Sectional Aerodynamic Shaping.
Comfort has been considered, and the D-profile seatpost is designed to allow a small range of saddle deflection. It’s the same story with the company’s own handlebar, which is designed to flex on just on direction, under the force of impacts travelling up through the front wheel.”
Yet you’ve led with the price just to get some clicks. Good one. The true Daily Mail of cycling.
To be honest, it just looks
To be honest, it just looks like any other carbon bike.
drosco wrote:
Pretty much. Google “Gavia Imperiale SR1” they have a striking resemblance.
+1 for the whole “9k plus for Ultegra” comment too. Completely fucking bonkers is the term I wouldve used, but then again Im a mouthy cunt.
drosco wrote:
It is. Just that they’ve probably put in the R&D themselves to reinvent the wheel and have to recoup the costs.
For that sort of money I
For that sort of money I would at least expect a triple chainset option.
Or a 5 speed.
Or a 5 speed.
Would consider it as a winter bike or one to get the kids into cycling…
The high price goes towards
The high price goes towards the cost of the aero R&D. Carbon frames alone have now become cheap to make. Any chinese shop can you get a custom rig at a fairly afforable price. It seems like every brand is having to reinvent the wheel in terms of R&D, especially with the aero aspect of it. Hence they all charge high prices. As time passes and the technology will trickle down the features discovered in the R&D will start becoming more obvious to others and costs will start to go down. One thing about the technology in the bicycle industry is that the pace of obvious improvements to features is very slow. It takes them like ten years to realise obvious flaws in a design and then making changes; such as say moulding a shape one way rather than another, or pulling this plug instead of that one, or routing cables in a certain way. Only recently (~5 years) has high tech engineering been coming into the industry and still they can’t get it right (judging by the prices). It’s as if cycling tech isn’t taken very seriously and when it is the prices are jazzed up like nobody’s business. I can’t say that I can blame the motivating factors. The sport itself has an incredible number of flaws to begin with. There are certainly much better sports to stay healthy instead. It could be argued that the technology itself is far removed from the practicalites of the sport. I digress..
I’m struggling to see how a
I’m struggling to see how a jack of all trades frameset like this would require any significant R&D costs, It’s not as though you’d have to bend physics to create what appears to be a decidedly average frame – you can get a 200g lighter frame for half the price if you can ignore the serious aero credentials and a dedicated aero frame that weighs roughly the same