TºRED is an Italian brand making bikes in Italy from steel, titanium and, with the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for their latest, now aluminum, too. The name is pronounced “tred / tread”.
Above, the Callithrix is their butted, fillet brazed Dedacciai steel frame that blends the classic material with modern features like thru axles, disc brakes and a full carbon tapered fork. It’s a beauty, as are their other road, cyclocross and race bikes…
The brass fillets are brushed smooth and combine with the graphics to create a good overall look (IMO).
TºRED has mostly stuck with threaded bottom brackets across the range.
Their flat mount disc brake design is one of the most minimalist we saw at the show, which is now a stock part in steel from Paragon (with ti versions coming soon, according to Mark at PMW). Those rotors are from Carbon-Ti, as are most of the skewers/axles shown on their bikes.
The Arachnid VedovaNera Edition is a custom blended titanium road race frame that’s sand blasted and then partially painted in matte black.
Up front is a tapered headtube for their custom carbon fork. They say their welds come away this smooth, that no sanding is done after the build.
The carbon components (wheels, fork, etc.) come from their own line called Toot. The fork has a 15mm thru axle with large knurled nut rather than the threaded insert, which lets you put the lever on either side depending on your preference. The brake hose runs internally, and a version of it is used for their ‘cross bikes, too.
Seat tube had to be custom worked to handle the different stresses put on it by moving the seat stays down, and then they used a softer, almost pure titanium for the stays to give it a bit more comfort. The rest of the bike uses totally custom tubes from Russia – 3/2.5 for the main triangle and 6/4 for the BB shell and head tube.
Asymmetric seat stays to clear the brake caliper.
The frame uses a standard threaded BSA bottom bracket, which doesn’t leave much (any) room for passing a cable or hose by it. But, they wanted a completely enclosed brake hose line. The solution was this custom tube welded onto the BB shell, so there’s no compromise to the BB shell and the cable or hose is protected.
Even they admit it’s a pain to route the rear brake hose, required a guide string or cable to be inserted first, but the result is rather clean compared to the hose exiting the downtube and then re-entering at the chainstay.
They offer both flat mount and post mount brake attachments, with the latter getting replaceable threaded inserts.
The Manaia is their new alloy road race bike that uses a 7000-series alloy blend of scandium-zirconium in the aluminum/magnesium tubes to create a stiff, light bike with construction made to take all the abuse you can throw at it.
The model name comes from the Maori culture of New Zealand, with the logo on the top tube representing the head of a bird, body of dragon, and tail of a fish. The story goes that it represents sky, land and water, and is shaped like an infinity “8”.
Compared to a normal design, the wrap-around seat tube design has 75% more welding surface area at the seatstay/seat tube junction, which they say makes the frame laterally stiffer.
It uses a standard round seatpost but gets this faceplate style clamp.
They made their own dropouts since no one had flat mount thru axle for alloy bikes (some of the other bikes, like a large portion of custom builders, use Paragon Machine Works dropouts).
While the other bikes here are already available, the Manaia just went on Kickstarter. Frameset retail will be €2,990, includes fork, headset and seat post, but earlybird and other deals are available.
On the Manaia are TºRED’s V-Strong One cranks (made by OMC-ITALIA), which use a modular design with a one-piece spider/chainring unit that machines both the large and small chainrings into a single piece.
The original version of this crankset debuted in 2009, but it’s gotten a recent upgrade with the switch to a pentagonal BB spindle interface.
The chainring/spider is machined from Ergal 7075 alloy that’s hard anodized with a higher thickness than is usually done for cosmetics. This, they say, gives it a longer wearing, more durable finish.
The ranks are machined then drilled the length to reduce weight. The complete crankset comes in at a claimed weight of just 540g. The modular design means you can quickly and easily swap between any of the chainring combos (50/34 – 52/36 – 53/39). Arms are available in 170, 172.5 and 175mm lengths, Q-factor is 145mm and chainline is 43.5mm.
Last up is their CamoBeast, which serves as both gravel and cyclocross bike and comes in titanium or steel. Both use a wishbone seatstay, and both use an open rear triangle so you can swap between chain and belt driven transmissions.
And, because they use interchangeable dropouts, you can switch them between singlespeed, Alfine internally geared ups or standard gears.
