The Tour is a couple of weeks gone now, but we still keep turning up unique yellow kit. In celebration of the Tour de France heading back up some of the most iconic Alpine climbs this year, Mike Pryde’s new bike brand Chapter 2 decided to put together an ultra exclusive edition of their carbon Tere road bike. Its is the latest in Chapter 2’s small volume, rotating custom finishes offered on their bikes, giving cyclists a chance to get ahold of a truly unique bike. Pryde’s new team singled out the 17th stage of the Tour to commemorate and are doing it with just 17 bikes…
Chapter 2 gets that for many cyclists, buying a new bike isn’t just a tool to ride harder or go faster, but also an extension of some sort of individuality or personality. So they are trying to take the best of both worlds by combining a premium performance road bike available in standard Essential finishes, but also offering an ever-changing Limited range of bikes that will come with new paint job designs being introduced every half year or so.
The idea being that the Limited bikes stay exclusive, and buyers can always be sure that their bike’s design will stay unique as new designs are introduced.
The 2017 Tour route was filled with plenty of famous climbs, like the Port de Bailes, Peyresourde, Croix de Fer or the Izoard. But at 2642m and still almost 30km from the day’s finish, the Col du Galibier was where Chapter 2 thought this year’s winner would be decided. At the end of Stage 17, it was a break away rider who took the victory, but eventual winner Chris Froome (already in yellow) safely rolled in on the podium for the day, picking up bonus seconds and reinforcing his yellow jersey lead.
After digging into the Galiber’s history for the Limited edition bike, Chapter 2 put together the yellow on black graphics for the bike that take the official yellow Tour stage profile and wraps it around the Tere’s oversized aero ra carbon downtube. The toptube gets a readout of each of the cols and their heights, while the top of the downtube matches those up with the profile.
Tech details are unchanged from the Essential collection Tere that we detailed earlier this summer (and previewed back in the spring.) That means frame weight around 950g for the Kamm tail shaped frame & fork.
Only 17 of the Limited TDF’17 special edition frames will be made, and they are available exclusively with rim brakes. The Limited bike is sold as a frame kit with frame, fork, seatpost, headset & stem. Each bike is hand painted and numbered and sells for $3250.
