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TECH NEWS

Your chance to build the most expensive bike in the world

£6399 for the frameset what can you add to get it over £20,000?

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

road.cc's founder and first editor, nowadays to be found riding a spreadsheet. Tony's journey in cycling media started in 1997 as production editor and then deputy editor of Total Bike, acting editor of Total Mountain Bike and then seven years as editor of Cycling Plus. He launched his first cycling website - the Cycling Plus Forum at the turn of the century. In 2006 he left C+ to head up the launch team for Bike Radar which he edited until 2008, when he co-launched the multi-award winning road.cc - finally handing on the reins in 2021 to Jack Sexty. His favourite ride is his ‘commute’ - which he does most days inc weekends and he’s been cycle-commuting since 1994. His favourite bikes are titanium and have disc brakes, though he'd like to own a carbon bike one day.

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49 comments

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stufield replied to Chuffy | 15 years ago
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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?

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stufield replied to stufield | 15 years ago
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Chuffy replied to stufield | 15 years ago
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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?

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stufield replied to Chuffy | 15 years ago
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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?

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Chuffy replied to Hammy | 15 years ago
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Hammy wrote:
schmiken wrote:

£21,180.42.
Get in!

dip it in gold? Cos apparently that's against the rules

Diamond is only a form of carbon....  39

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Hammy replied to Chuffy | 15 years ago
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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!

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Chuffy replied to thebikeboy | 15 years ago
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thebikeboy wrote:

Good work Chuffy, but is it all time trial kit and if the bike got built would it work?

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...  3

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Chuffy | 15 years ago
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Soon baby, real soon.....  19

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Chuffy | 15 years ago
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...damn.  14

Does anyone make custom carbon mudguards and racks?  39

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Jon Burrage | 15 years ago
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£15195.99

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thebikeboy | 15 years ago
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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  1
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.  20

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Chuffy | 15 years ago
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Damn. £14693 here. If only I had more expensive tastes...

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DaveP | 15 years ago
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Bugger, stalled at £15,700.00, including the frame and forks.  20

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DaveP replied to DaveP | 15 years ago
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Just thought.. If I ditch the cranks and get a Power-Meter thingy I can add a further £2k!  19

http://poshbikes.com/product.php?id=159

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Tony Farrelly replied to DaveP | 15 years ago
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 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?

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cactuscat replied to Tony Farrelly | 15 years ago
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...assuming I'm allowed to use a pair of not-very-tt-specific-but-awfully-expensive wheels  1

Can't see how i'll get over twenty grand though  2

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DaveP replied to Tony Farrelly | 15 years ago
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tony_farrelly wrote:

 Then you won't need one of these… Zipp Sub 9 disc wheels with Saris Powertap

Why not have BOTH! B)

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Tony Farrelly replied to DaveP | 15 years ago
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You CAN have too much information  y'know 

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cactuscat replied to DaveP | 15 years ago
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DaveP wrote:

Just thought.. If I ditch the cranks and get a Power-Meter thingy I can add a further £2k!  19

http://poshbikes.com/product.php?id=159

add another grand for the full FSA system: http://tinyurl.com/ch3n8d

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