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.