Storck Fascenario.3 Comp Ultegra

The Storck Fascenario.3 Comp is part of its 'Allround' line-up, but don't let that make you think this is some kind of relaxed endurance or sportive machine, it's still a thoroughbred high-speed performance machine with the long and low position to match. It's an absolute blast to ride, and when it comes to price it's not a bad package.

• Pros: Sweet handling, very responsive frameset, good all-round package for the money
• Cons: Not the most comfortable bike out there, carbon handlebar is on the flexible side

We first tested the Fascenario.3 back in 2017 when David Arthur put the top end Platinum model through its paces, and while it performed very well indeed, the biggest hurdle to overcome was its massive £10,199 price tag!

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This model, the Comp, sits at the other end of the scale, and while at £2,224 it's still not exactly a cheap bike, it is much more affordable to many – and you are getting much of the performance and handling of the Platinum.

Ride

The Fascenario.3's stiffness is pretty much the first thing you notice as you set off. Everything feels so tight, especially through the bottom half of the frame and up front thanks to the fork. The whole bike is so responsive to your input, whether you are riding in the saddle or standing up on the pedals.

I had the most fun on the Storck out in the twisty lanes or mixing with the traffic on busy main routes – anywhere where I had to keep changing pace, accelerating out of bends before braking hard to enter the next one, or sprinting for gaps to match the flow of the vehicles around me.

The massive bottom bracket area, down tube and chainstays don't flex at all, and you can really smash as much power through the bike as you want without the feeling of any of it being wasted.

The handling is excellent too, so you can keep that pace high as you tackle technical descents, although the steering is quite lively and on the quick side so it pays to be smooth with it. Go into a corner with your upper body tense or not having thought out your line and the bike can become a little twitchy.

All of that stiffness can come at a slight cost, too. If the road surface is broken and rough, the Fascenario.3 can become a little unsettled and kind of skip around a bit. A lot of very stiff race bikes are the same, so it's not something that only affects the Storck.

You don't have to ride the Fascenario.3 like a loon all of the time, though, as it is a very competent mile-muncher.

Looking at the geometry, I'm kind of in between the small we've got here and the medium, so the lower front end and slightly shorter top tube still give me quite a racy position but it's a comfortable one and I could happily tap out the hours at a fairish pace.

Again, the stiffness of the frameset means you do feel rough road surfaces as they vibrate and resonate through the tubes, but I wouldn't say it ruins the ride. I'd take performance over comfort any day of the week, and I wouldn't say the Fascenario.3 is uncomfortable. Being able to run so much seatpost helps too, for a little added flex.

This Shimano Ultegra-equipped package weighs in at a pretty decent 7.3kg (16.1lb) so climbing on the Fascenario.3 is as enjoyable an experience as it ever is likely to get for me; I climb purely so that I can descend.

Again, it's the stiffness here which brings the fun as you can really attack short, sharp climbs with plenty of out-of-the-saddle action. If things are going to go on a little longer, sitting in the saddle and tapping out the rhythm works too.

Frame and fork

Storck uses a slightly different carbon fibre grade and layup throughout its different models, which is why the Comp frame is slightly heavier than the Platinum. The smallest size has a claimed frame weight of 1,050g with the fork starting at 390g depending on the length of the steerer.

There are lighter, but for this money I'd say it's still pretty impressive, and weight is never the be all and end all anyway.

Geometry-wise, things aren't massively aggressive considering how well this thing rides and handles at speed. The head angle is just 72.5 degrees, but Storck uses just a 38mm fork offset rather than the more usual 45mm found on a road bike to keep things exciting.

I mentioned earlier that this isn't an endurance style bike despite its Allroad moniker, and the stack to reach ratio certainly shows that. This size small comes in at 1.39 which is pretty aggressive – an endurance bike normally comes in at around 1.5 to 1.55 although this does tend to fluctuate a bit between sizes.

Aerodynamics is one of the key things about the Fascenario.3, which is why the whole frame and fork doesn't have a single round tube in its construction. It's what Storck calls 'Advanced Sectional Aerodynamic Shaping'.

The down tube stands out the most with its teardrop shape: a rounded edge underneath before flaring out, but rather than going for a full traditional tapered profile the tail end is cut off square, also known as a Kamm Tail.

The seat tube also has a squared-off trailing edge at the rear which, according to Storck, 'improves hysteresis flex behaviour combined with stable torsion stiffness and a positive aerodynamic effect'.

If the engineering aspect (something that Storck bikes have always been pushing the boundaries of) is of interest, then you could check out the website or pdf of the 2018 catalogue, which goes into full details of the design and explains hysteresis flex. There is way more insight into this bike on there than I could possibly go into here.

I've mentioned the size of the bottom bracket junction, which blends in perfectly with the massive chainstays and the large cross sectional area of the down tube. It's no surprise to see a press-fit bottom bracket either as it allows a wider bottom bracket shell, having the bearings inserted into the frame rather than threaded externally while maintaining the same q-factor (the distance between the cranks).

The bowed legs of the fork when looking from the front may appear odd compared with a lot of earlier thinking about aerodynamic forks, which were quite narrow, sitting close to the tyre and wheel. Storck's design basically prevents aerodynamically unfavourable vortices of the airflow, apparently.

Whether it all works without seeing the results in the wind tunnel is hard to say, but there is a reason that this bike is so damn fast and feels so stable at high speeds.

Storck also uses proportional tubing on the Fascenario.3 where the tubes take into account the difference in weight and leverage for taller and shorter riders. The shaping, wall thicknesses and diameters of the tubes are adapted to create the same levels and stiffness and comfort whether it's an extra-small or an extra-large. It can create quite a different looking frame from the smallest to the largest.

The Fascenario.3 has a clean looking frame with internal cable routing throughout and an integrated seatpost mount – you stop the seatpost from slipping by tightening the bolt underneath the top tube.

Finishing kit

The Fascenario.3 Comp comes in two builds – this one with the excellent Shimano Ultegra R8000 groupset, and the other with Dura-Ace. Or you can buy the Storck as a frameset-only option.

Suiting the performance on offer from the Fascenario.3's frame, the build comes with a 52/36 chainset and an 11-28 11-speed cassette. It might not be everyone's cup of tea but I could get full use out of every ratio across the range and Shimano offers plenty of cassette options if you want gears either side of this.

If you've read the Ultegra review you'll find that I think the updates over the 6800 previous iteration make a massive difference to overall usability and its crisp, quick shifting suits the ride of the Storck.

The dual-pivot brake callipers offer huge amounts of stopping power too.

Storck provides the stem and handlebar, with the former being alloy and the latter carbon fibre.

The ST115 stem looks the business with its white on black logos and it's certainly stiff enough.

It's impressive to see a carbon fibre handlebar on a bike of this price, too, and the Storck RBC220 bar is a nice shape. It has a round central section either side of the stem so you can fit computer mounts and lights before the tops become more of an aero shape.

It gives a wider platform to rest your hands on, plus there is a slight sweep back towards you as it heads towards the top bend. It brings the bar just a little bit closer to you at the point where you want to sit up in a more relaxed position.

The drops have quite a shallow bend with an anatomical shape, a flatter angled mid-section rather than a more traditional curve.

The only downside I can find is that it is quite flexible. Yes, it works to take some of the stiffness out of the ride, providing some relief for your hands, but when you are out of the saddle really giving it some, the movement can be quite disconcerting.

The carbon SP92K seatpost uses Selle Italia's Monolink design, compatible with its saddle range. It was developed back in 2010 and, as you can no doubt guess from the name, uses just a single central rail with a slot which lets you slide the saddle fore and aft over the seatpost clamp. The thinking behind it is that you have much more adjustment than the clamping area of traditional saddle rails.

The obvious issue is that you are tied into using Selle Italia's saddles, the SLS Monolink in this case. I got on okay with it; it's quite firm and I wouldn't say it is exactly my favourite shape, but as we well know, saddles are a very personal thing.

Storck has specced DT Swiss PR 1600 wheels on the Comp, which have a 23mm rim height and an inner width of 18mm, which isn't massively wide compared to a lot of other wheels on the market. It means that the 25mm tyres fitted come out at pretty much their nominal size.

Hub-wise you get DT's 350s which run smoothly and offer quick engagement when going from freewheeling to pedalling. We've had a decent amount of rain lately so they've seen some dirt and there doesn't look to be any ingress in the cartridge bearings.

The braking surface of the rims are machined, which offers consistent stopping power in the wet and dry.

With a claimed weight of 1,519g it's a pretty decent wheelset to suit the Comp's performance and wouldn't require upgrading too soon.

For the tyres Storck has gone for 25mm Continental Grand Sports, which are a decent choice. They don't have the same grip levels or fast-rolling attributes of the GP4000 race tyres but they're not a bad compromise.

Grip is still okay in the dry, although I found them a little bit twitchy on damp surfaces, and puncture resistance has been good, what with it being hedge cutting season.

Value

With the quality of the frameset and the finishing kit, I don't think the Fascenario.3 Comp is overpriced at all. A 7.3kg build is impressive for the money and with an upgrade to a set of lightweight carbon wheels you could get that even closer to the UCI's 6.8kg weight limit if you really wanted to.

It is up against some tough opposition, though, from the likes of Canyon's Ultimate, a very similar style of bike.

The Ultimate CF SL 8.0 is the closest model, and comes with Ultegra R8000 and Canyon's carbon cockpit for £1,999. It also gets a slightly higher spec of DT Swiss wheels, the P 1800s, plus better tyres.

> Buyer's Guide: 10 of the best Ultegra-equipped road bikes

One of my favourite rim-braked race bike frames from this year is the B'Twin Ultra CF, so good that I'm still hooning around on the test bike with some upgraded test parts on it.

Riding the two side by side, the B'Twin gives away a little bit of stiffness to the Storck, but when it comes to comfort the Ultra CF wins hands down.

An Ultegra-equipped B'Twin, the Ultra CF 920 with Deda finishing kit, Mavic Cosmic Carbon wheels and Fizik saddle, will also set you back £1,999.

Of course, with the Storck you are getting exclusivity over the larger, mass-produced brands, and lots of technology being handed down from the more expensive models. I would pay the £2,224 (based on current exchange rates) without question.

Conclusion

Overall I think the Comp model is probably the best bang-for-buck entry into Fascenario.3 ownership, only giving away around 600g to the ten-grand-plus Platinum offering.

If you are happy to compromise some comfort over outright performance, you won't be disappointed.

Verdict

An impressively fast machine with razor-sharp handling that really offers good value for money