Orbea Orca ‘Back in Black’ edition launched

Orbea are perhaps best known for their orange bikes that used to be raced by the now defunct Euskaltel-Euskadi team, but if orange isn’t quite your colour, take refuge in the news that they have just released a brand new stealthy  matte/gloss black edition frameset.

The story behind the new colourway is to celebrate the special one-off Black Mamba frameset the Basque company created especially for Samuel Sanchez at the 2013 Giro d’ Italia, which seems an odd colour choice for a man so wedded to gold since winning the 2008 Olympic road race. Remember his gold Sidi shoes created to match the gold bike he was riding at the time? But at the Giro this year for some reason he shunned the regular orange team edition bikes and rode an unpainted black Orca.

So rejoice, you can now buy yourself a similar black Orca. To create the finish Orbea use a combination of a gloss and matte clearcoat over the naked carbon, leaving some of the fibres exposed. They’ve added just a couple of blue logos on the head tube and seat collar, otherwise it’s mostly free of decals and giving it a very clean look. We know not everyone is a fan of black bikes, but this one is tickling our fancy. And don’t fret, the Orca will still be offered in Euskaltel-Euskadi orange team livery for die-hard fans.

Both colorways are available in the top-of-the-line Race level frameset and are available as upgrades to any of their stock Orca complete bike builds for a $500 upgrade cost. The Race frame uses a more expensive carbon than the Performance level frames to produce a 100g weight saving, making it their lightest frame. It comes with the Orca Monolink seatpost as standard, which is claimed to be light and offers a wider range of fore-aft saddle adjustment. We're getting a UK price for the complete bike for you.

See the new bike in all its glory at www.orbea.com/gb-en/sites/orca/

This news follows the recent arrival of the Orca B M10 into the office, a £2,999 bike with Shimano Ultegra Di2 11-speed that is a couple of rungs down the ladder from the top-end black stealth frame, but carries similar visual cues.