PoloAndBike started about almost seven years ago as a company focused on the fixed gear community in their native Spain. They quickly spread across Europe as bike polo & urban fixies bloomed into road & criterium racing, and then getting dirty with cross racing. From humble beginnings on straight gauge steel bikes, they’ve evolved and refined their offerings to include light alloy racers, and now two all-new full carbon framesets – the Gaia for getting off the road to explore gravel tracks and cyclocross courses and the Centinel for hitting the asphalt. Poloandbike has also updated some of their mainstays, with a colorful limited Team Edition of their popular alloy Williamsburg fixed crit bike, the Limited Edition premium steel Greyhound, and stealth urban Cmndr…
Gaia
The Gaia is one of the first two carbon framesets from Poloandbike, and was developed specifically to give their cyclocross team a bike that could handle off-road racing, as can be seen in this bike which is actually one of their race bikes, and not the standard spec.
But while it served the team well this season racing cross, Poloandbike in fact are hyping it as a comfortable gravel racer. Able to be built up as either a 1x or road double with internal routing, clearance for about a 38mm tire, and a soft riding 27.2mm seatpost, they see the disc brake bike as more of an all-rounder.
The carbon Gaia is only available in complete bike builds, and comes in four stock frame sizes: 50, 52, 54 & 58cm. The standard builds are based around a typical gravel riding setup with Shimano 2×11 drivetrains. The mechanical shifting Ultegra bike includes a set of Nesta Orbis 3.8 Disc carbon clincher and TRP Hy-Rd brakes for 2800€. A 105 bike with alloy wheels will sell for 2200€.
But like Poloandbike’s cross team who also races this frame, complete cyclocross builds should also be available through your local dealer.
The 1116g carbon frame and its 477g for have some gravel versatility built-in. Both frame and fork are said to be built around 12mm thru-axles, while the frame molds in aluminum bosses for a light rack or fenders, while the fork has drilled crown but didn’t appear to have a fender mounts on its legs.
Centinel
Pairing with their new carbon gravel bike is the carbon Centinel for endurance tarmac riding. Poloandbike had already made an alloy road bike, and this one now ups the ante, available in two builds, each with their own paint job. Both completes share the same 900g frame matched to a 442g full carbon fork.
The Centinel frames get a slightly broader five size range from 48-56cm. Unlike the carbon Centinel is said to be available also as a frameset only for those who want to build up their own complete.
This top C.1 model gets a pretty much complete Ultegra 2×11 build, FSA cockpit, and Vision Team 35 wheels to end up at a claimed 8.1kg weight and a 1990€ pricetag. A 105 version with Miche wheels packs on about 600g extra, but brings the price down to 1750€ with its similar gray & green paint job.
Williamsburg Team Edition
The Williamsburg Team Edition gets the same 6061 T6 alloy frame that Poloandbike’s fixed gear criterium team races on, and now riders can get the popular pastel team paint job as well. Limited to just 40 frames, buyers can get the 450€ frameset including the painted to match carbon fork, or shell out 900€ for the complete bike with an alloy finishing kit, H Plus Son Archetype rims on P&B hubs for its claimed 7.9kg total weight in the three stock frame sizes.
Greyhound & CMNDR
The Greyhound is a limited edition fixed crit bike as well, but welded from a mix of premium Italian steel tubing. Available either as a 1500€ frameset or this complete 2500€ race build, only 40 of the Columbus Spirit/Max/Life frames will be handmade in a cooperation with custom Madrid-based framebuilder Andrés Arregui.
The 4130 CMNDR urban fixed gear isn’t new, in fact we’ve covered it before, but it does get a few new colors and a bit of a spec update for 2017. This S.A.S. Black version is one of four that include a vibrant blue, white, or matte green in the 2569g frame and matching 455g fork. Each frameset is available for just 250€ including the full carbon fork, or a complete fixed build for just 500€ in three sizes – 50, 54 & 58cm.
All of the bikes are available through Poloandbike’s network of distributors mostly in Europe & North America. All of the new metal bikes should be available now, with the new carbon Gaia & Centinel ready by the end of April 2017.
