Would you spend £6k on a bike from a brand no one’s ever heard of?

You might not have heard of the Quick Pro AR:One, but the built-up version pictured here hits the scales at just 6.3kg, complete with power meter pedals, bottle cages, sealant in the tyres, and a GPS mount up front. A medium-sized frame (in a matt black finish) weighs from 762g with titanium bottle cage bolts and derailleur hangers in place. The frameset in the Harlequin finish shown here is $1,999 (£1,638), so what’s going on?

The bike you see here belongs to Joe Whittingham, CEO of China-based online retailer Panda Podium. You might know Joe from the China Cycling channel on YouTube. He knows pretty much everything there is to know about the Asian bike industry.

Panda Podium sells the Quick Pro AR:One and Joe was involved in its development so he’s in no way a disinterested party here, but we thought you’d be interested in seeing what sort of bike you could put together by speccing equipment mainly from Chinese brands.

“This is designed to be my race bike,” says Joe. “I don't do much racing anymore, but when I do, I need a nice, fast bike that has good rolling resistance on the flats in the pack, but that’s also pretty light for going up the hills so I can use what little weight advantage I have.”

The first thing you’ll notice about this particular Quick Pro AR:One is the Harlequin paint job, designed by Joe. Distinctive! If it’s not for you, you can save $100 (£82) and a little weight by going for a Matt Black or Team Edition (blue/black) finish.

The frame itself is made from Toray’s T1100 and M65 carbon fibre – which is high-quality stuff – and weighs as little as 680g (XS size) in its raw form, just out of the mould.

The Quick Pro AR:One is a true monocoque, produced as a single piece rather than being made up of separate parts that are bonded together after moulding.

The Quick Pro AR:One is built with a BSA (threaded) bottom bracket and has space for tyres up to 32mm wide. It’s UCI-approved for racing at all levels… and this is very much a race bike. Former WorldTour pro rider Martin Laas, who was involved in the development process, apparently had the stiffness dialled back a notch or two, but we’re still talking about a frame that prioritises efficiency over long-ride comfort.

The geometry is highly race-focused, as you'd expect. Joe uses a small frame, but as an example, the medium comes with a 534.6mm stack height and a 386.7, giving a stack/reach of 1.38. That's aggressive. The head tube is 130mm on the medium model. Even on the XL size, we’re only talking about a 160mm head tube, so if you want a lofty front end to keep your back and neck happy on relaxed café rides, look away.

As mentioned up top, Joe Whittingham’s complete Quick Pro AR:One hits the scales at 6.3kg. That’s with his normal wheels fixed in place. We’re talking about 5.9kg with climbing wheel on.

“This is my race bike,” says Joe. “As you see it here, this is 6.3kg. That’s with the bottle cages, with the Garmin mount, all that stuff. We've still got 2x on the front, we’ve got proper tyres with sealant in there, a proper cassette. Zero compromises whatsoever.”

We’re certainly not suggesting that weight is everything when it comes to choosing the best bike – not by a long, long way – but this shows you what’s possible here.

The Quick Pro AR:One frame comes with a 20mm offset seatpost as standard, but you can buy a zero-offset seatpost for $99 (£81), and that’s what you see on Joe’s bike.

The braking/shifting comes courtesy of Shimano’s top-level Dura-Ace 9200 groupset while most other components are from the Panda Podium portfolio. Guess that’s one of the benefits of being CEO.

> Read our review of Shimano's Dura-Ace R9200 Groupset

The combined handlebar/stem is a Farsports F1X ($499/£409), for example, the wheels are Craft Racing Works (CRW) CS5060 ($1,680/£1,376) with a 50mm rim up front, 60mm at the rear, non-standard white spokes, and a claimed weight of just 1,290g.

The chainset is Cybrei Carbon with alloy spider and carbon chainrings ($729/£597), the saddle is MVMT M-Gold ($229/£188), pure carbon and just 65g… The list goes on.

Joe reckons the total cost of his bike is $7,504.95. That converts to about £6,147. Of course, you could build a complete bike based on the Quick Pro AR:One frame for less than that.

“My brief with this was just to make the highest performance bike I could, money no object,” says Joe Whittingham. “Performance was number one. This is not a budget build. You could save yourself a heap of money on this build by swapping things out.

“I'm using Dura-Ace. You could swap that to Ultegra and lose a tiny bit of performance and save yourself a whole bunch of money. I'm not suggesting everyone go out and splash this much money on a bike. I just wanted to see what it felt like for once in my life to have a money-no-object performance bike, and that's what I came up with.”

That said, even Joe’s tricked-out boutique build isn’t expensive compared to most Western brands, considering what you’re getting here… But, yeah, we take his point; you don’t need to spend $220 (£180) on Overfast carbon thru axles, for example.

We’ve not ridden the Quick Pro AR:One so we can’t comment on the performance, but this looks like an interesting bike and demonstrates what’s possible with a little imagination if you’re willing to give Chinese brands a go.

Check out loads more Bikes at Bedtime here.