The brand Duratec has been well established in Europe for two decades building a wide range of top-level aluminum bikes from road to mountain, with pretty much everything in between. Even while producing light and stiff alloy frames they haven’t been sitting on their hands in Central Europe, but have spent the last few years developing their own unique monocoque carbon frame production in-house. Now the first of those bikes has been made public with their new road Phantom, being introduced by their multi-discipline, multi-time paralympic champion Jiří Ježek who has spent 15 years racing on their bikes…
In fact, Duratec has been working with carbon since 2001 combines with alloy, but this is their first all-carbon frame, and the first application of the Onepiece Technology process that they have spent the last few years refining. From the way company founder Milan Duchek talks about the new bike, the biggest work has been in developing the ‘functional production technology’ necessary to build the bikes from carbon to the level of quality and consistency they desire.
The raw material they are working with for the Phantom is the top Japanese Toray T1100 & Granoc carbon fiber that you might find in some other premier carbon bikes, but it is their in-house construction process & nanoalloy resin that sets it apart. For the Phantom, Duratec take 400 pieces of carbon fiber and assemble them into their mold to create the bike as one piece without a single joint. One of the key elements of that construction is what Duratec call AFCF (or Accurately Fitted Continuous Fibre) that amounts to them maximizing the continuous length of fibers used in the frame to improve strength & durability.
The bike that they have debuted with Jiří Ježek last weekend at Bespoked is one that he actually isn’t allowed to race due to it being under the UCI weight threshold. That said, the Phantom frame has been approved for racing and bears the UCI certified sticker. With a frame claimed to weigh just 760g for a size 57, the complete bike built up with a SRAM Red eTap drivetrain and Zipp 404 tubulars weighs in at 6.15kg, and would sell for about 9143€.
The Phantom sticks with mostly round tubing as Duchek focused on building the optimal stiffness to weight. The bike gets internal cable routing, a hidden wedge-style seatpost clap in the top of the toptube, a tapered headtube & Press Fit bottom bracket, both with full-carbon bearing seats.
Even the dropouts are full-carbon, with 1k weave fiber reinforcement & an alloy replaceable hanger.
The frames are produced in the same Czech factory that Duratec has been working in since they started in 1997. Duratec has put the Phantom into limited production now, with the bikes being built-t0-order with about a 10 week lead time. Building the bikes to order continues one of the benefits of their alloy bikes, that Duratec offers a wide range of paint colors so you get the finish you want and a one-of-a-kind bike.
The sloping geometry frames are available in 8 stock sizes in 2cm intervals, from effective seattubes of 49-63cm offering a wide range of fits, with custom geometry apparently available as well for an upcharge. Complete bikes are available from 4737€ with a Rival 22 group, Ritchey WCS components & Fulcrum Racing 5LG alloy clinchers.
