Ever wanted to built the ultimate 'no expense spared' bike? Well now you can… and it won't cost you a penny.
Over the past few months we've tracked the progress of the Litespeed Blade on it's journey from drawing board, via the wind tunnel and the Radial Sheet Break Forming machine, to a bikeshop near you … well almost there. Wind tunnels and Radial Sheet Break Forming don't come cheap, oh, and of course it is made from titanium too…
All that adds up which is why the Blade frameset will cut a £6399 sized chunk from your bank balance. We reckon that right now it is the most expensive frameset in the world which holds out the possibility of building it up in to the world's most expensive bike.
With a six and a half grand head start you'd think that would be easy, but it's a harder task than you might imagine when Scandinavians keep insisting on making bicycles out of gold and diamonds. Currently the most expensive bicycle we can find is the Arumania Gold Bike Crystal Edition – yours for a piffling €80,000 (£69,296.22) and even their standard Gold Bike weighs in at €21,000 (£18,190,58) delivered. Mind you, how likely are you to ride down to shops on a gold-plated bike? Or indeed enter one in your local 10 or 25?
So your challenge is to suggest the most expensive build up you can think of for the Blade using real components and finishing kit – the winner is the person who can get it as far as possible over £20,000 without dipping it in gold (or any other precious metal) or encrusting it in diamonds – which would anyway play havoc with the Blade's laminar flow rendering it blunt as an aero time trial weapon. The complete bike in our main pic with HED wheels and 'bars probably pushes pretty close to the £20K mark, but we think you can get it higher…
There will be a prize. IT WON'T BE A BLADE!
Our challenge will be to get it built – Rebecca Pring from Litespeed's UK distributor, Paligap says they are up for it:
‘Building the most expensive bike in the world is a really exciting project to be involved in – doing something just ‘because’ and just for fun is great!!! We are eager to see what products make it onto the bike, and to see how creative readers will be!’
So let's see what we can do!
All you need to do to enter the competition is paste your suggestions for the ultimate build on to this story - we will also create a thread in the forum that you can add your suggestions to as well.
Here's some more suggestions to get the ball rolling…
A nice set of Lightweight wheels would be reassuringly expensive or maybe some FFWDs.
Campag Super Record Groupset? Or maybe something a little more esoteric… and expensive
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49 comments
Cinelli Imperial Leather - £54.80 from wiggle, 68.50 rrp not sure which counts?
Well dura ace shifters, Front Mech - lightweight rear mech at £799, SRM erogmeter @ 3825. I wanted to use, nitrided cassette fron poshbikes but wasn't sure this was compatible with 7900.
Also ulitmate pursuits have Dura Ace Di2 which is extremely expensive (towards lightspeed levels) for mechs with battery etc.. but they don't list time trial levers (or buttons?) but didn't think the STIs would be in keeping with TT build?
I found a better saddle:
http://www.brooksengland.com/shop/shopProductDetail.aspx?id=uid-20070521...
£512!!!!
That would be so incongruous, but so splendid. B)
Sounds like you went down a similar route to me, except that I had SRAM bar ends.
Oh and did you get the £2250 customised carbon aerobars from www.petracycles.co.uk?
Missed those they're fantastic - I had plain old Zipp Vukas + Zipp £300 stem
This is going to be one hell of a bike, do you think they'd let me borrow it for first 10 of the season?
Diamond is only a form of carbon....
yes, but I think the problem with diamonds is that they tend to be overly stiff in both the lateral and vertical planes rendering them far from ideal as a frame-making material… now stems and cranks made out of them that's another matter!
Yup. Well, that is it *looks* as if it should all work and it's all tri-specific. Except for the dice valve-caps...
Does it work in Real Life (tm)? I'll let you know about ten hours after the postman arrives tomorrow...
Soon baby, real soon.....
...damn.
Does anyone make custom carbon mudguards and racks?
£15195.99
Curse Litespeed for 'generously' throwing in the fork, headset, and seat post - although I think I could have gone higher if I handn't done all my shopping online
Oh, and I still need to find a set of skewers … though I'm not holding out much hope of finding a set for £5000.
Damn. £14693 here. If only I had more expensive tastes...
Bugger, stalled at £15,700.00, including the frame and forks.
Just thought.. If I ditch the cranks and get a Power-Meter thingy I can add a further £2k!
http://poshbikes.com/product.php?id=159
Then you won't need one of these… Zipp Sub 9 disc wheels with Saris Powertap
I can't find one wheel that's more expensive than this… but maybe I'm not trying hard enough?
...assuming I'm allowed to use a pair of not-very-tt-specific-but-awfully-expensive wheels
Can't see how i'll get over twenty grand though
Why not have BOTH! B)
You CAN have too much information y'know
add another grand for the full FSA system: http://tinyurl.com/ch3n8d
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