NeilPryde Bura SL

The NeilPryde Bura SL is a lightweight race machine, but it's also comfortable enough that you can cover miles and miles at speed without issue. For the quality of the frameset it could really do with lighter wheels, but otherwise it's a great package.

This latest Bura SL has been given a bit of a facelift – but it's not just on the surface that changes have happened. The frame and fork have been completely re-engineered to focus on the ratio between stiffness and weight. It certainly has a lot of one and very little of the other.

> Buy this online here

Ride

The Bura SL frameset is up there among the lightest, at a claimed 710g for a small (760g for the large) and a further 300g for the full-carbon fork. Even with its full build here in a medium guise, the whole bike only comes in at 7.2kg (15.9lb) with entry-level wheels.

Weirdly, though, to me it didn't feel like a superlight bike, even when I swapped the wheels out for some light carbon fibre ones. Compared with the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 9.0 I tested a few months back, the NeilPryde doesn't have the same snappiness under acceleration and when climbing. It might be the carbon layup or grade or whatever's behind the extra £600 and almost 1kg weight difference – the wheels perhaps – but with the Canyon you stamped on the pedals and bang, off it went; while the Bura SL is quick, it didn't feel as responsive under acceleration.

The Bura SL is a very capable machine, though. It's hugely efficient over varied terrain and one of those bikes that can cover a hell of a lot of mileage without you really noticing. A lot of this is down to its comfort in the saddle.

Like the Ultimate, the NeilPryde has an overbuilt bottom half of the frame – down tube, chainstays and bottom bracket area – while softening the upper half, most notably the pencil-thin seatstays, which are designed to flex to reduce the amount of road vibration travelling through to the rider.

When you're seated you can really feel the seatstays doing their job – I occasionally found myself looking down at the rear tyre to see if I'd got a slow puncture. These high levels of comfort mean your muscles aren't constantly getting battered about so you suffer less fatigue.

When you need a little bit of oomph, though, out-of-the-saddle climbing or acceleration for instance, then you certainly won't be feeling any flex around the Press-Fit 86 bottom bracket area.

And this is one of those bikes that seems to respond better to out-of-the-saddle climbing too, no matter how steep the hill. Even on those shallow false flats it often feels more efficient to stand up and gently rock the bike from side to side. Some bikes just seem to be like that.

When the speed increases, the NeilPryde deals with things without fuss. Up front you have a tapered head tube for increased stiffness under load caused by direction changes and high speed braking. This keeps the bike tracking on your chosen line through the bends, although it just lacks that little bit of precision to make it a truly great bike to ride.

Frame and fork

The Bura SL is manufactured from what NeilPryde calls C6.9 grade carbon fibre, a mixture of Toray 46T and 60T high modulus uni-directional carbon fibre no less. Hi-modulus carbon fibres see more refinement than lower quality grades, with more fibres being packed into the same size space, increasing its stiffness per cross-sectional area. Less material can be used (therefore less weight) for the same stiffness, or you can go the other way: more material, more stiffness for the same weight.

NeilPryde hasn't just attacked the stiffness to weight ratio via the use of the carbon grade, though – notice the ribs and gussets added behind the head tube/top tube, top tube/seat tube and even down at the chainstay/seatstay junction. NeilPryde calls it Exoskeleton, with the position and layup of the structural enhancements being decided by FEA (finite element analysis) where a computer program works out specific loadings on a 3D CAD model before even prototypes have been built, a hugely cost effective way of designing.

Another way NeilPryde has increased the stiffness to weight ratio is by minimising the number of tube joins – more tubes means additional carbon to bond each join. One place this can be seen is the rear triangle with its one-piece stays. Part of the seatstay, dropout and chainstay is moulded in one piece, ensuring strength throughout an area that sees a large amount of loading.

Tube shape and size hasn't been ignored either, most noticeable when looking at the down tube. Yes it's massive in diameter throughout its length, thanks to the oversized bottom half of the head tube and huge bottom bracket shell area, but that's not all. The tube is actually asymmetric, with more material one side of the centre line than the other as it approaches the BB junction. This puts more material where it's needed to combat the extra loads from the drivetrain. It's most notable to the eye when you look at the three – yes, three – water bottle bolts as they appear offset. Having three bolts gives you two bottle mounting options, with the lower being apparently more aerodynamically efficient.

As far as geometry goes, you can see why the Bura SL has such a racy riding style, with the medium size in for test having a 545mm top tube, a 500mm seat tube, and a 140mm head tube. The chainstays are short at 405mm, and so is the wheelbase at 975mm.

The stack (the vertical distance from the centre of the bottom bracket to the top of the head tube) is 555mm and the reach (the horizontal distance between those points) is 381mm. Those figures suggest you'll get a performance orientated position very close to that of a peloton-ready race machine with a ratio of 1:45.

Finishing kit

For your £2,999 your frame will come adorned with a full Shimano Ultegra mechanical groupset, FSA SL-K components and a Fizik Arione saddle. All top end stuff that flatters the frameset.

There is little left to say about the Ultegra group that we haven't already covered, but it is basically a brilliant groupset with near-Dura-Ace performance at a greatly reduced price.

The Bura SL uses a 52/36 chainset option paired to an 11-28 cassette to give a great spread of gears for the type of quick riding the NeilPryde is aimed at. The shifting is spot on even under load, and the brakes are some of the best dual callipers out there.

The matching FSA kit is a nice touch too, where it is all too common to see generic alloy components gracing top end frames. Here the FSA handlebar is carbon fibre and very nice it is too, with very little in the way of flex but plenty of comfort.

The stem is alloy, the seatpost carbon fibre. It is held in the frame by way of an expanding bung and, once tightened, stays in position.

I'm a big fan of Fizik and have been riding Ariones on and off since they were originally released. I like the extended length, and this one was great straight out of the box.

Wheels and tyres

The Fulcrum Racing 5 wheels are a bit of a let-down at this price point. A frame of this quality requires something much better than a couple of hundred quid's worth of wheels. They take the edge off the bike's climbing and acceleration because of their weight, though they are solid performers that will stand up to a lot of abuse, and would make a great set of training wheels.

During testing I swapped them out for some Fulcrum Speed 40T carbon tubs, which weigh a mere 1,213g, making the bike a bit lighter and more responsive (although not to the extent that I'd like).

Tyre-wise, NeilPryde has specced some from Clement, an iconic name making a return to the industry thanks to new owners. The Strada LGGs aren't the company's top end tyres but, as with the wheels, they are solid, dependable performers that grip well in the wet and dry and seem to offer no issues when it comes to rolling resistance.

Overall

The Bura SL is a very good bike, and if you want a lightweight race machine that is so comfortable you can cover miles and miles at speed without issue, then it should definitely be on your one-to-consider list. Its wheels can do with an upgrade, but other than that I'd be happy with it in its standard specification. It's very well engineered and an excellent example of the whole stiffness/comfort/weight balance.

My only criticism – possibly because of that balance – is that I like a little more involvement with the bike I'm riding, and each ride left me a little underwhelmed. You might feel completely differently and want a bike that just gets on with the job without fuss, but I always like a bit of excitement too, to get the adrenaline flowing; the Bura SL didn't quite do that for me. That's not to say it isn't very good, though, and it certainly achieves what NeilPryde has set out to do: it's fast, it handles well and you can't fault its comfort levels.

Verdict

A lightweight race machine that's also comfortable for covering the miles