The brief

Chris was after a titanium road bike, a new beast to stay by his side for the rest of his life.

He also had a particular aesthetic in mind, so we knew this was going to be a hum-dinger of a build.

The bike

The frame choice is often the simplest part of the build, but this one presented a challenge.

We looked at the fit data Chris sent through, which initially indicated that a Summit would be the way to go. However, something about the data wasn't quite right -- the numbers simply didn't add up -- so we decided to do an in-house tailored fit instead. As we suspected, some of the original fit data was off. After consultation with Chris, we decided that a Strada -- which has a more aggressive position than a Summit -- would be a better choice.

As Chris was after a very clean look for his bike, we went for a Sram Force AXS groupset, which is the perfect blend of high performance with a minimalistic style.

Now for a super-lightweight wheelset. Tune's Princess Uli hubs are their top-end hub, and the lightest they make (which is saying something, for these guys). We were super-stoked to be able to get the first set of Princess Uli hubs to land in Australia. (Check out the photo and you'll see the face of Uli Fahl, founder of Tune, etched into the surface.)

We paired these hubs with 30mm carbon Bossi rims, and added some Continental GP5000s for speed.

Carbon aero Easton bars and Ciclovation bar tape completed the Strada's sleek front end.

As Chris already had an Ergon saddle on his other bike, we used the same model here. He also opted to upgrade to a Bossi titanium stem.

During our initial consult, Chris had mentioned he liked things he could polish. We couldn't back away from that particular challenge, so Pete hand-machined the top cap to give Chris something to shine to his heart's content.

Finally, we created a one-off paint colour -- let's just call it 'black opal' -- to custom-paint the head tube.

The end result was an elegant, almost gothic colour scheme to highlight the titanium. What a beauty! (If we do say so ourselves.)

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