We first saw Festka, a custom handmade bicycle brand out of the Czech Republic, at NAHBS this year and were impressed with the details, tubing selection and overall light weights.
They showed frames using normal carbon molding, carbon tubes with alloy lugs, stainless steel and our favorite, a carbon-kevlar honeycomb tubed road bike.
Now, Festka is looking to add carbon lugged bikes to their stable. To do it right, they want to get the tooling to make a wide range of carbon lug angles for each frame size, letting them offer a wider range of custom sizing. More than 50 pieces are needed. To help finance the tooling and other equipment, they’re following the crowd funding model, but without the assistance of Kickstarter or Indiegogo.
The offer is simple: Buy a voucher for the frame in advance and you’ll get a full custom bike of your choice (road, mountain, fixie, commuter, whatever) for a heck of a deal. That includes custom color selection and a titanium bottom bracket and Cane Creek 110 headset, too. The campaign’s called Projekt 200, and only 200 vouchers will be sold at a price of $1,300 (€1,000) each. Normal price for these frames will be $3,600 (€2,750). As of this post, only 135 are left.
More pics of the Projekt 200 frame, and some of their other bikes, below…
Standard frame weights will be around 1,000g, but they say they can get them as light as 700g depending on customer wishes. Headtube is straight 1.5″.
The lugged construction allows any tube to be replaced in the event of an accident, meaning your bike isn’t just a disposable piece of composites. That, and they provide a 110 year warranty against defects. Delivery for the new model runs between March and June, 2013.
OTHER BIKES
The Royal Flush uses aluminum lugs and carbon fiber tubes.
Pascal hardtail mountain bike. Pick your wheel size: 26″, 27.5″ or 29er.
The Numbers uses the carbon-kevlar hybrid tubes for an exceptionally stiff bike. Check out cutaway tube photos here.
The Bezovka fixed/single speed urban bike.
THE PRESS RELEASE:
Progressive young Czech brand Festka Bicycles, which designs and hand-manufactures tailored bicycles and accessories, is presenting a unique opportunity and a great tip for a Christmas gift for all bikers: a chance to buy a hi-tech carbon frame for the fraction of its value within the Project 200 limited edition. By purchasing a voucher worth 25,000 CZK (1000 EUR, 1300 USD) at http://projekt200.festka.com/en, you will get a hi-tech carbon frame worth 69,000 CZK (2750 EUR, 3600 USD) with a titanium bottom Cane Creek 110 bracket and headset, the type of frame of your choice (road, MTB – 26″, 27,5″, 29″, cyclo-X, track, fixie, fitness or city bike) and tailored size, as well as an opportunity to build a bicycle for a unique price, including anatomic measurement, seating position adjustment using the Retül system, customization and colour options and consultation during the whole process of building the bike.
“By purchasing the frame, the customer participates on the production of forms for carbon couplings at the same time. It is a form of community financing, inspired by schemes such as the Kickstarter in the United States. To manufacture one type of a bike in one size, you need three forms. To make our offer as wide as possible, we need more than 50 such forms. The Project 200 was launched to collect financial resources to acquire the forms for the couplings,” says Michael Moure?ek, one of two founders and partners of Festka Bicycles, adding: “We opted for a luxury voucher which you can give as a Christmas present or wrap with a ribbon. The recipient of the gift will receive exactly the frame he or she wished, and will have a chance to choose type, colour and size. In addition to the frame, he or she will receive a number of other services, as well as a 20% discount on other components.”
FRAME DESCRIPTION
After two years of development, Festka Bicycles presents an ultimate carbon frame. Carbon couplings are used to connect tubes, which allows for tailor-made construction. The carbon tubes are a result of cooperation with CompoTech, a company which focuses on advanced solutions from sports to robotics. Using carefully-selected composition of high-strength fibres, the new tubes set new standards in strength and absorption of vibrations, further advancing our revolutionary sandwich tube solution. In the event of damage, the frame allows substituting any damaged tube for another. The head tube was remodeled to a new 1,5” size (upper and bottom bearing). This solution considerably adds strength in the front of the frame and improves fork fit. Every professional biker will confirm that a high-quality headset is of key importance, and that is why Festka opted for currently the best solution on the market – Cane Creek 110 52mm. Guarantee for 110 years speaks for everything. Since this is a top-level frame, the bottom bracket can only be made of titanium. There are, of course, no stickers on the bike and the design is created by airbrush and premium varnish from PPG, a world-renowned supplier. The weight of the frame is about 1000 grams or even less, depending on type. (We can make 700g frames, but weight has impact on function at this level. Limitation and potential complications are not worth the several grams you save on the frame weight.) The total weight of a road bike thus gets below 6 kg.
…AND ONE MORE PRETTY BIKE
