NAHBS 2010 – Vuelo Velo partnered up with Black Sheep Bikes to create some of the swoopiest, swerviest bicycles at the show.
With Black Sheep doing the cutting, welding and building of the titanium tubes, Vuelo Velo focused on the design of some very curvaceous bikes that had passersby stopping in the aisle. The Track/Fixie bike above used dual chainstays to provide some vertical forgiveness, but they were set extremely wide and used flatter, oval shaping to keep it laterally stiff. They’re also really, really short at just 360mm…you’re not going to get the rear wheel much closer to the bottom bracket than on this bike.
They also had a great “comfort” bike that used a truss fork and Gates Carbon Belt drive and a sick 12lb road bike that showed off some super-new carbon/alloy Tune hubs. Check out all the freaky goodness after the break…
The seat- and chainstays curve outward, and the seat stays bend in around the seat tube, but never touch it:
This design, which you can see above and below, further aids the vertical compliance, but probably puts more of the lateral stiffifying work on the chainstays.
The track bike had pressed in bearings with a BB90 setup for Campagnolo cranks. The dual chainstays come slightly closer together at the sliding dropouts.
We mentioned the stays were set wide…how’s this for wide?
Vuelo Velo’s road bike shared the same eye-catching curved seat tube but used a more traditional rear triangle. This bike was built up crazy light with a host of fancy new Tune and AX Lightness parts. Note the rear brake cable run.
Fixed derailleur mount set back to accommodate the curved tube. All cable routing was run internally.
See those fancy new Tune wheels? They have carbon AX Lightness rims. Guess how much VV said they weigh?
700g for the set! And he rode this bike in the Rapha Gentlemen’s Ride, so they handled some rough roads and such. I looked up the parts: Tune Mag 90 = 99g rear /Mig 70 = 71g front. AX Lightness SRT24 carbon tubular rim = 195g each. Total without spokes and nipples is 560g, and they’re likely built with Sapim CXRay spokes like most of AX’s other wheelsets. Anyway, back to the bike…
Standard 1-1/8″ headtube up front.
Di2 battery and wiring harness are tucked up under the bottom bracket. The road bike uses a Shimano BB86 bottom bracket.
VV claimed it was 12 lbs as built. Price be damned…and actually, they didn’t have pricing set for any of their models. Vuelo Velo is a very new company, this was their coming party.
Vuelo Velo’s comfort bike is called the Copenhagen. It shares features from both the road bike (BB86) and track bike (dual chainstays), but is designed for kickin’ around town at speed and in style. This one was fresh outta the box and not fully built when we stopped by. VV said this bike is leading toward a future e-bike that would put the battery in front of the rear wheel like an OptiBike.
Cables for the internal gear hub pop into and out of the downtube via ti ports. Rear disc brake cable routing runs under the top tube.
How’s that for a multi-purpose dropout? Brake caliper’s not mounted yet, but the hub controls mount below and outside of the disc.
