Since the Kickstarter campaign, the Fabike has seen design changes at the headtube and seat tube, and the brakes were changed to aero v-brakes. The overall look and geometry have stayed the same. The concept, if you recall, is to provide one bike to handle multiple types of riding. Set it up geared or singlespeed, with drop bars or flats, single chainring or double. The same frame handles it all, and looks good doing it.
The big news is that they’re in production, and they’ve simplified the offering from the original concept of designing virtually every major component on the bike, too. Ambitious, sure, but not entirely practical.
“We still have some components, including the brake levers, flip flop hub, wheels and chainring,” Founder Fabio Putzolu says. “But other parts, like the cranksets, will be coming from SRAM and others.”
Why? Costs for one. But mainly because he found some customers wanted the option of a higher end road group with all 22 speeds, and their original design was only as a single chainring. So, they’ll offer their own chainring for single ring setups, which has a corrected chain line to move the chain line 3.5mm inside so it works correctly with a current 10 or 11 speed cassette.
Pics, video and more below…
The dropouts, which were a highlight of the original design, remain intact. Swap in the one with the derailleur hanger and run it geared, or swap sides to change the spacing from 130mm to a track-ready 120mm. The frame is even belt drive compatible.
The dropouts are a bit thicker than standard, so you’ll need a wider mountain bike skewer to run a geared setup.
Frame weight is claimed at 1.1kg, and a frameset with brakes, fork, seat clamp and headset is 1.9kg. That’s not the lightest “frame” weight, but Fabio says the dropout system makes up 200g of the total. The frames ship with all the spare parts (dropouts, cable routing hardware, etc.) to configure the bike anyway you want.
For those setting it up as a singlespeed, the front derailleur braze on mount is removable. Cable routing is fully internal, even through the bottom bracket shell. Internal tunnels make it so you simply insert the cable and it’ll pop out where it’s supposed to be.
Available for spring 2014, pricing is $2,590 (€2,390) for the frameset. Oh, and that name? It no doubt plays off Fabio’s name, but technically means “Flexibly Adjustable Bike”.
Check out all the details at Fabike.it.
