A new lightweight TRed Rea Urano steel disc brake road bike gives the custom Italian bikebuilder a more modern premium steel road racer. The next evolution of their Aracnide family, TRed builds the new Rea Urano with an ultralight steel alloy they say perfectly balances race-ready stiffness with the light weight of a climber’s bike, and all-day comfort from smooth asphalt to cobblestone streets…
TRed Rea Urano custom steel road bike
Following in the footsteps of the 6.1kg ti Rea Titano, a new steel Rea road bike further evolves T°Red’s long-running Aracnide road bike platform, adding more comfort, lighter weight & fully integrated cable routing to the mix. Like the ti bike, the new top-tier steel bike gets its ancient god-inspired name, now in Acciaio.
Lightweight steel
While premium lightweight steel bikes mostly focus on being triple-butted or stainless, TRed has long touted the use of a unique 2460/2461 steel superalloy with Niobium inside as a way of building lighter steel bikes with thinner tubing to maximize stiffness without compromising rider comfort. It was the base of their special OOL edition 5.9kg rim brake & 6.6kg disc brake Aracnide road bikes, as far as 5 years back.
Now it continues as standard on the new range-topping Rea Urano, although here they are looking at a 7.4kg complete bike weight with a more off-the-shelf and more versatile set of light components. You can always go lighter if your budget allows, and TRed feels confident that they can get their top steel & ti bikes under the magic UCI 6.8kg limit for those buyers looking to go wild.
Tech details
Like the titanium version before it, the new Rea Urano gets upgraded with fully internal cable routing, seamlessly tucked inside a rather conventional-looking and separate TOOT x BLKTEC carbon bar & alloy stem. The secret again appears to be routing all the cables into the custom carbon TOOT T20D fork steerer developed with Dedacciai that allows a smaller 1 1/8″ upper headset bearing.
While the Rea Titano had wireless shifting, this setup shows routing compatibility with the 1x mechanical shift Campagnolo Ekar in addition to the hydraulic rear brake line. The front brake continues inside the steerer, down into the left fork leg. The result is a super clean look, most likely aided by an internal steering stop to protect the cables inside the headtube.
The new steel Rea also gets the same reshaped seatstays of the ti bike, dropped further down the seattube and with a bend before the dropouts for improved vertical flex & rider comfort.
The bike also features plenty of serviceable modern tech standards, like a T47 threaded bottom bracket, 27.2mm seatpost with external clamp, flat mount disc brakes, and 12mm thru-axles with a replaceable alloy derailleur hanger.
Parametric custom geometry
Another hallmark of TRed’s custom bikes is their parametrically optimized geometry, fully custom using TRed’s proprietary LeHonard parametric design software to tailor both fit & ride quality individually to each rider. Buyers start with the style of riding, then progress to individual body dimensions before the perfect bike geometry is output for final review.
TRed Rea Urano – Pricing, options & availability
They haven’t fully added the details to their website yet, but TRed can already get you started on custom building a steel Rea Urano road bike for you, made by hand in Italy. Options are pretty much unlimited from geometry to paint jobs to build spec.
Complete Ekar 1×13 builds similar to this bike start at 5890€, with this 56cm bike said to weigh 7.4kg complete with made-in-Italy 37.51mm deep TOOT carbon wheels and an ultralight Berk Dila carbon saddle. Your own build is up to your imagination.
