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TECH NEWS
Just in: Enigma Ezona ST, steel road bike with Shimano 105
Winter is the ideal time of year to be riding a reliable and comfortable steel road bike equipped with mudguards, and that is exactly what the brand new Ezona ST from Enigma Bicycle Works is. It’s their latest steel frame and costs £799, with the complete Shimano 105 build we’ve got in for review coming in at £1,549.
Based down in Sussex, Enigma has carved itself a reputation for beautifully made titanium road bikes in the past decade or so that it has been in operation. It also offers steel for those that don’t have the budget to stretch to titanium, or simply prefer the ride of a good steel frame.
- 15 of the best steel road bikes
The new Ezona ST aims to make owning a steel frame a little more affordable. It uses a Columbus Zona double butted tubeset throughout. The frame is handmade in the UK, and there is no doubting the quality of workmanship on show here; it’s exquisitely well made.
Enigma uses the same geometry as the long-running Etape titanium touring bike, designed for those who like to ride fast but favour a bit of comfort. It’s slightly higher at the front but not as much as many of the modern sportive bikes with huge head tubes.
The frame will accommodate 25mm tyres with mudguards fitted. It’ll go wider if you remove the mudguards but we reckon most people interested in this frame will be wanting to use mudguards for winter and year-round protection. All cables are externally routed, the headset is integrated and the seat tube accepts a 27.2mm seatpost.
Frame weight is a claimed 1,650g for a 56cm, with the complete bike pictured here weighing in at 10.3kg (22.49lb). The frame is available in a choice of three colours; Jaguar Red, VW Ice Metallic or Fiat 500 Blue.
Just one build is available for the new Ezona ST, and that features a Shimano 105 groupset with Enigma’s own Etape carbon fibre fork. Enigma also supplies its own aluminium handlebar and stem. Mavic’s Aksium wheels are solid and reliable, and fitted with Continental Ultra Gatorskin 25mm tyres. A Selle Italia saddle sits atop an aluminium Deda seatpost.
Enigma doesn’t offer a bespoke option for this new frame, but it is offered in six sizes from 52 to 60cm. Measurements for our 56cm test bike include a 577mm stack and 383mm reach, a 560mm top tube and 175mm head tube with 425mm chainstays.
More at www.enigmabikes.com/products/ezona and a full review in the New Year.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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12 comments
Hi all, the £799.00 retail price INCLUDES a full-carbon fork and the frame is handcrafted in our Hailsham East Sussex workshop. We use a full set of Columbus Zona/Life tubing and we believe the frame is considerably lighter than similar frames imported from the Far East or elsewhere. Our paint shop uses car paints, it’s a very modern facility using the very latest paint products. Because we use car paints we believe it makes sense to use the name of the car manufacturer to denote the colour as it makes it easy for people to relate to.
Are you sure? That blue is awfully like the paint on my 1960 Ford Squire.
Consistently lovely, and whilst a stock build still pretty good value for a handmade UK-built frame. Must pay them a visit sometime. Even looks good with mudguards, now if only they did a disc version.
£800 is stunningly expensive - having checked the enigma website that price does not even include a fork. The genesis equilibrium frame, which is roughly equivalent, comes as frame and forks for £450. What does this do to justify the extra spend?
The article states "new Ezona ST aims to make owning a steel frame a little more affordable" - is that just copied from the press release? I would say the opposite. It seems to make owning a steel frame very expensive.
without having explored the Genesis website, is it because they manufacture overseas as oppose to the uk?
I'm interested to see how this holds up against the Condor Frattello. Also interested if there is a disc option. While I wouldn't be interested in discs for my 'summer' bike I'd like to see discs for the all-rounder such as this
Handmade in Sussex I believe
Is the geometry table on the website correct? The 52cm is listed longer than both the 54cm and 56cm with a 384mm reach?!
'Stack and Reach' is taken from the BB to the headtube, so data focused on the front end of the bike. On a very small bike we need to keep an eye on the toe overlap, so the top tube length reduction and 'bike fit reach' is focused more from the seat tube than headtube end, so although 'bike fit reach' is reduced, the frame's listed reach increases. The BikeCAD drawings below may help
Ezonas.jpg
Is it just my eyes or us there something slightly unusual about the fork leg shape? I rather like the curve; gives it a classic look but is there a ridge running down the sides?
Nice useful bike. The only thing that would - slightly - put me off is paint colours named after cars. I don't like cars.
Funny, I thought the same with regards colours named after cars. Wonder wether that could affect potential sales?
Another thing, if you're going to use this as a winter bike, disc brakes would have a handy option too.
Rather than naming their colors after cars, it is more likely they used a color chip book to choose their colors from those already in use by the named manufacturers. It is a lot easier to tell your paint guy to use a paint code he can lookup than to give him a list of 8 colors and their proportions used to mix your super fancy shade of red.
All the same, they should have left off the bit about which color formulation they are using. That info doesn't sell a frame.