Just in: All-City Macho Man

You might not have heard of All-City but they’re a bike brand from Minneapolis - a mid-west city with a heady cycling culture - and All-City say their goal is to make a significant contribution to the equipment and culture of urban cycling.

It’s not all hipster fixies and Lego wheels though as whilst their range does feature fixed freestyle whips and riser-bared track bikes they also make some proper road and cyclo-cross bikes. The Macho Man is the new partner to their Nature Boy singlespeed ‘cross bike and comes with the added luxury of gears.

Forget all your fancy-pants hydroformed high-modulus uni-directional monocoque oversized carbon everything, the Macho Man flexes tough steely muscles. The frame is made from 612 Select ChroMoly steel with double butted down, top, and seat tubes while the chain stays are externally tapered, ovalized, and dimpled for tyre clearance, the seat stays are straight pipes tapering towards stainless steel dropouts. The forks are put together with 4130 ChroMoly tapered blades with a lugged crown. The frame is E.D. coated inside and out. E.D. coating is a rust-proofing agent that also improves the quality and durability of the paint, so the Macho Man will look this bright acidy yellow colour, or “Citroen” as All-City would have it, for a while.

All the cables run along the top-tube to keep them out the clart and further to that cause the rear derailleur cable is fully enclosed all the way down the seatstay and the front uses Shimano’s new cross specific CX50 top-pull front mech for a tidy cable run, although there is a pulley mount by the bottom-bracket should you want to use a standard road mech. For those days when you might not want to get muddy the Macho Man comes with mudguard mounts, and because the All-City guys think what they call fender mounts are ugly they’ve hidden the rear ones on the inside of the seat stays and placed the front ones on the blade of the fork.

Of course all that ferrous goodness is going to have some kind of weight penalty over your lightweight carbobling and this 55cm Macho Man swaggers up to the scales at a muscular 10.82kg (23.12lbs).

Shimano 105 bits deal with the shifters and the rear mech, while Tiagra sneaks in for the 12-28t ten speed cassette and hubs, which are laced to Alex Race 24 rims and have wire-beaded Continental Cyclocross Race 700 X 35c tyres on. Tektro R720 brakes stop them rolling along. FSA supply the Gossamer 46-36t chainset and SL seatpost which has an All-City Gonzo saddle resting on top of it. Salsa are in charge of the steering with the Pro Moto stem and Cowbell handlebars which are pleasingly wide and come with a 12 degree flare to the drops offering more off-road control.

All-City say the £1599.99 Macho Man is designed to go real fast off road, featuring aggressive yet traditional cyclocross racing geometry making it go like hell. Race season may be all but over but there’s still enough CX Sportives to strut around and a lot of manly playing in the mud to be done.

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