Parlee Z4, Part 2

I had the pleasure of riding this Z4 last week and there's a lot to be said about it. It's definitely the breed of a race bike, it handles very quickly with razor precision. And it climbs well, handles well, descends well. It does everything exceptionally well. The complete bike including pedals and bottle cages with essentially a last generation Campagnolo Chorus build (with Record brakes, and hubs) came in at a very respectable 16lbs14oz or 7.64kg on the digital Park scale. The more often quoted bike mass doesn't include those things needed to make it function like a bike like pedals and cages and so I weighed it that way too. In that configuration it dropped to 16lbs2oz or 7.32kg. But hey, it's only Chorus and the wheels are fully eyeleted alloy clinchers and the bar, stem and seatpost are aluminum. It's a solid bike that you could ride for a long time without any concerns about how delicate some of the parts might be.

I didn't ride it very far, a quick run out to UBC and back to the store was all it took, but in that short distance I managed to run it up a couple of hills, descend a nice little curvy fast bit of road, sprint away from a couple of traffic lights, and dodge a few pedestrians sneaking out from between parked cars. I'm a big guy and I didn't at any time feel the frame was unhappy under me. It handled the sprints away from lights expertly and without noticeable flex or derailleur rub, the inevitable choppy bits of urban road were smoothed nicely by the top shelf carbon fiber employed in the frame. The dolt who stepped out from between the parked cars should be quite happy that the bike goes where you point it. Yes, it's a very nice bike.

Some comments about the build, all Parlee frames are shipped with Edge Composites forks which have been garnering favourable press. Edge Composites and Velonews at Sea Otter both have details on the company and what they are up to. The fork looks great but in the interest of full disclosure I have to say that it was a bit of a pain to install. The steerer tube on the fork was slightly oversized and there was a seam running down the side of it from the mold and I had to file and sand away this seam to get the conical washer of the headset to sit inside the upper bearing. It's a small thing and easily remedied but I wouldn't want Joe Home Mechanic buying one of these forks and taking it home and trying to install it himself if this is normal for this fork. That being said, the fork rode quite nicely and seemed expertly matched to the frame's geometry. The fork that comes on the Z4 and all the other models of Parlee is Edge's 2.0 model that weighs a slight 340 grams claimed (my digital scale put it as 344 grams, but that was before filing off the seam so maybe it got lighter?)

Another unique accessory that comes with each and every Parlee is an incredibly light and elegant carbon front derailleur clamp adaptor. The clamp weighs a mere 7 grams and comes with a 4 gram bolt for a combined weight of 11 grams. Compare this to a Campagnolo adapter and bolt that weighs 31 grams. Yeah, it's only 20 grams but hey, if you could reduce the weight of everything on your bike by 65% you'd be pretty happy. The clamp is quite solid once installed and I didn't notice any issues with flex or shifting efficiency as the front derailleur derailed but it was a little finicky to install. Again, Joe Home Mechanic might not enjoy installing it but with a careful hand and an understanding of "tight enough" you'd have no problem putting this on your bike.

So yeah, there it is, a Parlee Z4. It's not a cheap bike but, man, is it ever an incredible ride. Everyone should have one of these.

Parlee Z4, Part 1.

Here it is, Parlee's Z4 frame. Parlee is arguably the world's best manufacturer of carbon fiber framesets with numerous awards for "bike of the year," "race bike of the year," "coolest thing ever," "bike most worthy of trading a kidney for" etc etc. That being said, Parlee doesn't actually make this bike. The Z4 was introduced last year as a more affordable way to get your hands on a better than average carbon bike. To get the price down they moved away from a "one at a time" approach building each one by hand in Peabody Massachusetts and went overseas to find a more affordable way to do things. Lots of companies do that in today's market and some even do a good job of it while others are simply trying to undercut the competition by finding cheaper and cheaper ways to make things. While Parlee was trying to find a more affordable way to do things they never at any time thought about compromising the quality of the bike itself.




You'll see that they've paid attention to what makes a nice professional quality bike. Extraordinarily sleek dropouts, a burly bottom bracket, and a delicate yet elegant carbon cable guide are all indicators of a top quality frame. "But what does it weigh?" The Z4 actually weighs in at a lighter weight than its more prestigious top shelf brethren, the Z1 (an example of which also arrived this afternoon at bicycles, also an incredible frame that will be built up into a demo bike in the near future, you'll be wishing you were tall enough to ride a 56cm frame when you see it...) There are lots of ways to weigh a bike frame so I weighed this one twice, once as a complete frame including water bottle bolts, seat collar, and cable guide, and once without all those "extras." As a bare frame the Z4 weighed a mere 967 grams but even with all the stuff that makes it a real bike frame it was still sub 1000 grams at 997 which, for a size large, and a real world weight as opposed to the weight you publish in the ad copy, is a very respectable number.



The fork is made by Edge Composites and comes in at 344 grams uncut. It's full carbon from tip to toe and though I'll be the first to acknowledge that a "squeeze test" isn't much of an indication of anything, this fork feels quite stiff in the hand.



So there it is, part 1 of the Parlee Z4. I'll be building this one up tomorrow or the day after and taking it for a short ride (yes, the customer who is about to be the proud owner of this bike knows I'll be riding it and he says he's okay with that so I'd be dumb not to take it for a spin.) If it rides half as good as it looks it will be impressive for sure.

Product review time.

It's all about the contact points, where your hands touch the bars, where your butt interfaces with the saddle, your shoes enveloping your feet and firmly attached to your pedals, and there you are, symbiotically connected to this machine and moving through space and once you've made effective connections to your bike you need to make an effective connection to the ground. Ah, tires, there are so many to choose from. I don't stock a lot of tires here. Well, I do, but not a lot of selection within a single price range or performance category. I try to cover any use and a number of price points but I don't have five different $50 road tires. I've had good luck with tires and bad, you can get a flat on a $90 tire just as easily as you can on a $10 tire, glass seems to not have any concerns for how many hours you had to work to afford the tires on your bike. But the tire you select will change the way your bike rides. Higher thread counts and more supple casings make for smoother rolling tires. The way the rubber wraps around the casing will affect a tire's propensity for sidewall cuts. There are indeed, good tires and bad tires.

I'd been riding Kenda tires on my mountain bike for quite some time and despite their more affordable price tag I'd been thoroughly impressed by their durability and performance. So one day some time ago I picked up the catalogue to check out what Kenda offered in the way of road tires. I found the Kaliente L3R Pros at a reasonable price and I ordered a pair to try them out. Once mounted up I immediately noticed they rode pretty much as nicely as the Vittoria Open Corsas they replaced despite being about half the price. The had a nice round profile and gripped quite well in the corners. I though, "hey, if these are this good, I wonder what their expensive tires ride like." Once again I go back to the catalogue to look for more Kenda tires only to discover that the ones I had just put on my bike were the high end Kenda road tires.

The Kenda Kalientes weigh a mere 195grams, and even though they aren't the highest thread count available they are a respectable 120tpi and manage to ride as smoothly as any tubular I've tried. I've had my first "trial" pair on my city bike for better than 2000kms now and though they are looking a little beat up they look like they have a fair bit of life left in them. The rear tire is only just starting to square off while the front is nearly perfect. The Kalientes have what they call an Iron Cloak layer to aid in the prevention of flats. I'm not one to buy into the voodoo magic layers of any tires being overly effective at preventing flats. Sharp things on the road will eventually find their way into your tire leaving you swearing as you realize this is the one day of the month you've commuted without a spare and a pump with you. That being said, I've only had one flat with these tires and I blame that one wholly on myself. (it was a flat that involved an under inflated front tire, a pot hole, a couple too many beers in my belly, and a race for last call at the Brickhouse, can't blame the tire for any of that.) And all my 2000+kms on these tires have been in the city where tire gnawing glass is found in abundance along the sides of the streets.

How much would you pay for sub 200gram, sticky, well wearing, flat resistant tires? Try $39. Why would I stock anything else?

Elysium Ti

You're not seeing double, there's two of them, nearly identical.



The hanger has a really nice detail. If you look closely (click the picture to enlarge it) you'll see a small weld bead about halfway between the derailleur bolt and the quick release end. This is where Chris welds a CP hanger to a 6/4 dropout, the result being a softer, weaker hanger on a solid and strong dropout. If you get yourself into one of those messes where mud, a stick, small animal decides to wedge itself in between your chain and your derailleur making it decidedly less efficient at moving your bike forward but decidedly more efficient at ripping parts of your bike apart what will happen here is the welded on bit will bend or snap before any damage is done to the actual frame. This is a good thing. And it's a stiffer, stronger setup than most flimsy bolt on derailleur hangers. This is also a good thing.



The Elysium ti, as with all titanium bikes built by Dekerf, uses North American sourced 3/2.5 titanium with custom Paragon dropouts and fittings. The signature wishbone stay styling can be had via an alloy casting as seen here or in a completely new welded titanium version. I have pictures of the new version too somewhere that I will add at a later date.



These should make a couple of people pretty happy. They certainly made me happy in the shop today.

FYI, today's soundtrack for building stellar mountain bikes brought to you by the Constantines. http://www.myspace.com/constantines

Sneak Preview

I'm building up two of these at the shop this week. They are essentially twins, his and hers, different colours though, and very nice. This is just a teaser, more images to come once they are both built.