The upcoming Time Skylon road bike is a big advance for the storied French brand, changing up their trademark two-piece construction and giving them a proper aero road bike to drive the peloton.
The frame reportedly continues use of their RTM (Resin Transfer Molding) and woven tubes, but builds the frame as a single piece rather than bonding the rear triangle onto the front. It also bumps up some tube cross section sizes from what we’ve seen before, which helped them make the frame both lighter and stiffer. One of the benefits of their fiber construction method, which lays dry fibers into the molds rather than stiffer pre-preg, is that they can get more complex shapes and details. Here, they’ve used it to smooth each section of the frame into the other to give it better aerodynamics…
Most noticeable is the junction from the fork crown into the head- and down tubes, but the upper headset cup sits a full one-and-a-half inches lower than their other race bikes. Time makes their own forks, too, all in-house.
All of their racing geometry road bikes use a carved seat tube, and the Skylon follows suit. The seatstays are heavily shaped, likely to work with the frame’s embedded Vectran fibers to reduce vibration and add a bit of compliance. The chainstays use a new monobloc, asymmetric design to prevent power loss between the cranks and the full carbon dropouts.
Routing is internal, with the same frame working for both mechanical and electronic drivetrains. Bottom bracket is BB386.
Word is it’ll hit shops in the next couple weeks. More details as we get them.
Huge thanks to Contender Bicycles in Salt Lake City, UT, for sharing the info and pics!
