The Strasbourg 71 gravel road bike debuted in summer 2015, and we’ve reviewed it here. Now, there’s an all-new Aramid reinforced carbon fiber model with additional bottle mounts and very clean stealth fender and rack mounts. Inside the frame are carbon fiber tubes to guide the cables, giving you quick and easy changes should things get Dirty Kanza nasty. Check it out…
Full length internal cable and hose routing keeps it clean looking and shifting smooth. Oversized cover plates open up wide to direct the cables into the full length internal channeling.
Protecting the seat tube’s backside and the bottom of the down tube are external layers of Innegra Aramid fibers. They left it visible to show it off. The combo of Innegra and carbon fiber is said to be half the weight of just using carbon, yet 50% more impact and damage resistant. The protective sections actually extend further down, wrapping around the bottom of the BB shell.
Note the bonus tire clearance, making room for mud or the rack/fender mounts. Lower mounts sit flush on the seatstay just above the Syntace X-12 thru axle.
12mm thru axle up front, too.
The front derailleur mount is reinforced to hold up against the powerful new electronic derailleurs. Or, remove it and install the cover plate for cleaner 1x builds. Below it is an adjustable chain catcher to prevent it from dropping off and damaging your frame. Further up the downtube are four sets of water bottle bolts. While they’re spaced a bit close for actually putting two bottles on there, they do give you flexibility in where you want your bottle or allow for accessories below a bottle. Look for three complete build options – Shimano Ultegra, Shimano 105, and SRAM Rival1. All three get Prologo saddles, DT Swiss R23 Spline wheels and Clement MSO 700×36 tires.
The Sallanches 64 is their gran fondo race machine. The name celebrates Eddy’s win to become the amateur world champion in 1964. For 2017, it gains a carbon fiber disc brake model.
Like many of the Merckx bikes, it gets extensive tube shaping and angling.
It’s running flat mount brakes and 12mm thru axles front and rear.
The EM525 race bike adds an “endurance geometry” model, which essentially just swaps in a taller head tube to bump the stack height and decrease the reach, putting the rider in a more upright position without adjusting any of the angles:
The stack and reach of their bikes progress somewhat linearly across the size range, as does the size of the steerer tube’s taper. They all get a 1.5″ lower cup, but the length of the taper is longer on the taller frames, which creates a stiffer fork for larger frames. Note the clever front brake entry point on the front of the head tube.
