This year, Moots turns 35, and to celebrate they’re offering up 50 of these Vamoots RSL road bikes with limited edition paint and custom ENVE wheels. They’ll be built up with Dura-Ace Di2 and a custom Fizik Aliante leather saddle. Yours for just $14,500, orders open up March 1. Each is built to order with a lead time around 12 weeks.
With a hearty congratulations to Moots, what we’re celebrating about, though, is their new Vamoots Disc RSL road bike, which takes the classic brand in a whole new direction…
All of the high end bits come stock, but the paint-matched frame pump adds $275 to the ticket.
The new Vamoots Disc RSL borrows the front end of the rim brake model and adds an entirely new rear end with 3D printed dropouts. The parts, which have been in development since May 2015, are being made by I2M in the UK. It uses the flat mount disc brake standard with 142×12 thru axles. What’s striking is how smooth the design is.
While the main frame is internally butted 3/2.5 titanium, the dropouts are 6/4 powder. Why make them this way? Because, Moots says, it would take so long to machine a piece to their specs, it would be more expensive. The 3D printed parts are also lighter, and it gives them this smooth, sculpted aesthetic you’ couldn’t get from traditional metalworking.
An almost final version is shown here, and they expect to start shipping the bikes by June 2016.
The printing also allows them to easily create channels for Di2 wiring. The lower half’s end has a male design that inserts into the chainstay.
The upper side has a rounded profile that lets them attach the seat tube at varying angles depending on frame size. They’ll make two different size dropouts to cover the full range of frame sizes.
To go with the bike, there’s a new flat mount, thru axle fork that’s their own design. It’s full carbon and tapered 1-1/8″ to 1-1/4″ with a 12mm axle.
Tire clearance tops out around 700×28…it is a performance road bike, after all, not a gravel racer. Frameset starts at $5,300. Claimed weight is 3.0lb even for a 55cm frame size. Fork weight is TBD, target is around 350g it’ll use a 6mm tooled axle. (Yes, I’ll update with a photo of the complete bike soon…just wanted to get this posted quickly!)
Not new, they also had a customer’s Routt on hand showing off a beautiful paint job. It’s not often a Moots gets covered in paint, but when it looks this good, it gets a pass.
