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Dlouhy Cycles’ The Mule is a modern handcrafted steel bike for all-roads

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike
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Having worked together developing & building bikes for a couple of years, I’ve spotted more bikes from Dlouhy Cycles this fall, a colorful mix of their customers’ road & trail bikes crossing my path at several friendly rides & races. But it was this hand-painted, golden fern-encrusted all-road Mule that caught my attention over the holidays. And it warranted a closer look…

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule, custom handmade steel all-road bike

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike
c. Dlouhy Cycles

Dlouhy Cycles is a small two-man custom steel bike workshop based in Leipzig, Germany – Jan Dlouhy lends his name for the downtube & Mario Vogel whose name means bird in German provides the playful headtube logo. Bringing together years of prior experience designing frames for a large German bike manufacturer & work as a mechanic, 2019 was the first full year of commercial framebuilding for Dlouhy. That has opened their workshop up to a broader audience, and rather quickly grown a waiting list, too. Dlouhy looks set to grow quite a lot in 2020, crafting handmade custom steel bikes for road, gravel, cyclocross, touring, XC & trail.

The Mule – Tech details

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike

I pretty much always love to see new handmade steel bikes. And if there was ever a discipline destined for that steel-is-real ride quality, this disc brake all-road bike is the perfect match. Dlouhy’s The Mule is fillet brazed from a lightweight mix of double-butted Columbus steel tubing – Life tubes for the majority of the frame, plus slightly beefier Zona chainstays.

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike

What appear to be hand-painted gold ferns that envelop the front half of The Mule are actually painstakingly masked details created by Dlouhy’s favorite painter Mario Pitsch.

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike

In fact, so much attention was put to the details, that after painting this bike once, the team decided it wasn’t quite gold enough. So they went back to the start, and refinished the frameset with more sparkle.

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike

Dlouhy’s bikes are all made-to-order, fully custom for each buyer, so the geometry & details can often be refined to suit each cyclist. This bike features a tapered 1.5″ headtube for an InSet Chris King headset, fully internal cable routing, a 27.2mm seatpost with built-in clamp, a threaded T47 bottom bracket, flat mount disc brakes, and 12mm thru-axles. The compete bike includes a painted-to-match full carbon Bombtrack EXT gravel fork with anything cage mounts, plus tabs for full-coverage fenders front & rear.

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike

The complete bike gets 700c x 35mm Rene Herse (formerly Compass) Bon Jon Pass tubeless black wall all-road tires on custom Tune/NoTubes wheels. The road-oriented frame has clearance for a bit wider tire at the chainstays up to 40mm, and the fork can clear up to a 45mm tire.

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike

The customer’s complete build includes a Dura-Ace mechanical drivetrain with Rotor Agilis alloy cranks, then a cockpit mixing a Thomson alloy stem & Salsa handlebar with an offset Deda carbon seatpost topped by a leather Cycles Berthoud saddle.

Dlouhy Cycles – Pricing & availability

Dlouhy Cycles The Mule steel road bike, custom handmade steel all-road bike

Dlouhy states that a typical custom steel all-road frame starts at around 1800€, while this The Mule frameset including the painted-to0match Bombtrack fork retails for 2300€. As for how long it will take to get yours… current delivery date is about six months after you put down a deposit.

Dlouhy-Cycles.com

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13 Comments
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Luiggi
Luiggi
4 years ago

Why do you guys keep stamping the “handmade” moniker to steel and titanium bikes? I have yet to see a bike made by a robot or something similar. Even the Robot Bike Co. ones are assembled by humans. And they are using their hands to do so.

Robin
Robin
4 years ago
Reply to  Luiggi

It’s pretty much standard across the industry. It’s not just a BikeRumor thing. Everybody understands what’s meant by that phrase: handmade=custom.

Surely you’ve heard of the North American Handmade Bicycle show.

Timmbers
Timmbers
4 years ago
Reply to  Robin

its got a better ring to it that “North American Non Robot Built Bicycle Show” or NANRBBS

Velo Kitty
Velo Kitty
4 years ago
Reply to  Luiggi

I agree with you, Luiggi. Actually I wouldn’t even call this one “handmade”, as it is fabricated with plenty of power tools.

Seraph
Seraph
4 years ago

“Let’s make a show bike. Make sure to put SRAM rotors on Shimano calipers so they know we’re legit.”

jeff
jeff
4 years ago
Reply to  Seraph

We all know they will never be taken out for a ride. I would not be shocked at all to find out that the brakes don’t even have hydraulic fluid in them.

Sw
Sw
4 years ago
Reply to  jeff

Sure some custom builds are objet d’art but plenty of “show bikes” get ridden hard, even ones with bonkers paint like this. And maybe the owner prefers the look of Centerline rotors to the two-tone finned DA ones.

Tomi
Tomi
4 years ago
Reply to  Seraph

Tbh this is the best setup possible. Shitty shimano rotors are flexy and noisy while the Sram centerline rotors have eliminated most noise issues. It is just too bad they decided to use the one piece centerline instead of the two pieces one.

Velo Kitty
Velo Kitty
4 years ago
Reply to  Tomi

Can you explain more for those of us aren’t familiar with disc brakes?

Jeff
Jeff
4 years ago
Reply to  Tomi

I think you are the first person to ever put SRAM and [quiet] braking in the same sentence. Even in the summer but especially in the winter, I can tell who in the group is running SRAM brakes at the first red light by simply listening for the death howl.

you see
4 years ago
Reply to  Seraph

This is not a show bike. I know the owner.

Velobuck
Velobuck
4 years ago

Love that bike. Even has a proper saddle on it.

bimjeam
bimjeam
4 years ago

The brand should rename to “Dlouhy Vogel” , If you know what I mean 😀

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