EB18: Chiru Vagus+ ti adventure bike rolls TeXtreme cockpit, fiber spoked wheels

Chiru founder Pierre Arnaud Le Magnan has always been into making bikes for long distance, off road events. His endurance hardtails have tackled multi-day, cross country efforts, and now he’s built a drop bar bike for similar adventures. The new Vagus and Vagus+ use his typical 3/2.5 titanium to create two different models capable of running different wheels and tires. The larger Vagus+ is more like a drop bar mountain bike and fits 29×2.1 tires. The standard Vagus, shown up top fully built and rather dirty, runs your choice of 700×45 or 660B x 2.1″ tires.

The frames use a dropped seatstay design, which are then curved to further improve compliance.

Up front is a big tapered headtube and oversized downtube.

The bike has ports for a stealth dropper seatpost, three water bottle mounts and uses the threaded T47 bottom bracket standard.

The back end can fit a fender and rack.

Claimed weight is 1.5kg for size M in either version. Retail is €1,800 with his own brand carbon/Innegra fork. It has a 510mm axle-to-crown measurement for for 29er wheels, available in boost and standard axle widths. The Vagus+ Will work with the Lauf XC fork, and the Vagus will fit the Lauf Grit if you want a little cushion up front. Check them out at ChiruBikes.com.

Carbon Endurance Component

Pierre’s other business is CEC, which now makes handlebars, seatposts, forks and rims using TeXtreme’s Innegra material woven into the layers.

The Innegra adds impact protection and vibration damping.

For the weights and the features, they seem fairly priced, too. MSRP is €130 for the handlebar (185g or less) and €140 for the seatpost (190g).

The Innegra rims are new and don’t have all the specs available yet.

His other new wheels are these carbon rimmed 29er XC race wheels laced up with Berd Spokes’ Dyneema polyethylene spokes. These spokes are flexible, yet nearly impervious to destruction, UV light, moisture and anything else you can throw at them. And they weigh about 2.2g each, coming in at roughly half the weight of decent steel spokes.

At one end is a stainless steel threaded rod, letting it thread into normal spoke nipples. The fiber attaches to it by sliding over the rod, which gets stuck in there much like your digit gets stuck inside a Chinese Finger Trap.

The other end slides through any spoke hole, J-bend or straight pull, and has a loop woven into the design. It’s secured by simply sliding another piece of the material through it, then pulling it tight. It’s a simple design that lets you build them into any wheel, using your choice of hubs and rims.

The wheels have a claimed weight of 1,090g for 27.5 and 1,150g 29er. Not quite as light as the Tune wheels using the same spokes, but close…and probably closer to production. Rim weights are claimed at 300g and 315g each, with a 24.5mm internal. Available in Boost or standard spacing. Retail is $2,000.

Pierre says they do lose about 15% of their lateral stiffness, but you gain 3x more compliance so you finish feeling much fresher. They’re aimed at hardtail or fully rigid mountain bike riders, but can be used for gravel bikes and cyclocross, too.

Also on the display table was his new 1REV sealant, which he says works so fast that it seals in a single revolution of the wheels.

To go with that are new alloy valve stems with a beveled base and thicker rubber grommets to make it easier to get a good seal. Check out the rest of their line at CEComponent.com.