Kinesis Decade Convert2 Fixed

There's no doubt about it the Kinesis Decade Convert 2 is a good looking bike with its minimal, understated graphics, designed by UK artist Adi Gilbert ,and gloss black finish mated to black components it turns heads.

Riding through London it has had more than its fair share of admiring glances and people telling me that it is a 'sweet ride' and asking where they can get one (or where I am likely to leave it locked up!). Set up in its fixed gear guise, there is not a lot to this bike but what there is has been well chosen and put together, for a good compromise between durability and performance and as I've already mentioned it all looks good too.

Kinesis launched the Decade range of UK designed bikes to mark the 10 anniversary of the brand in Britain. The whole range, which also includes the Tripster, is available as framesets, with a few complete builds on offer too.

Like the Cotic Roadrat, and indeed it's Tripster stablemate, adaptability is the name of the game and on the Convert 2 this is mainly down to the clever ‘Swopout’ replaceable dropouts. Kinesis UK have designed a dropout that you can easily and quickly swap from vertical 130mm spacing to horizontal 120mm spacing for a track hub. Although only the 120mm spaced horizontal dropout is supplied with this build, the alternative vertical drop out with gear hanger can be bought separately for only £19.95.

The geometry is based around the Kenesis Racelight T frame, but with detail changes including shorter rear stays, keeping the wheel tighter against the seat tube and therefore quickening up the handling and giving a sharper snap on acceleration. In essence a road bike with a shorter wheel base which you notice when weaving through static traffic. All cable stops, brake, mudguard and rack eyelets are present to transform this bike into a full urban/utility/ commute bike. It is ready to take gears front and back if you want them at a later date.

The frame is made with slightly over sized double butted 7005 aluminium with very smooth welds rather than the fish scale welds that you might expect on a £600 bike. The curved alloy forks, mimicing Pinarello, give it an edge in the looks departments mated to the more traditional level top tube frame, and the internal headset keep the lines uninterrupted.

Being designed for the road, the geometry is not the twitchy, upright and tight angled that you get on a track bike but more relaxed giving you confidence at speed and the lack of toe-clip overlap means the front wheel won't foul your foot when doing slow, sharp turns. The bottom bracket is pretty low but our 54cm bike is specced with a 165mm length crank and I have had no incidents of scraping pedals.

That rigid alloy frame and fork combo does give a pretty stiff, unforgiving ride and the back wheel skipped about a bit over poorly maintained roads – it is lively enough to dance beneath you and skip back into line without any bother, but you do feel it in your wrists after a day out. The acceleration of this frame is fantastic, the short stays and the lack of any flex from the stays meant that even with the fairly tall gearing (48x16), getting away quickly from the lights wasn't much effort.

As I say, the gearing is tall, probably too tall for many, putting a 48T front ring with a 16T cog only gives you one skid patch… maybe two if you're and ambi-dextrous skidder, plus if you live anywhere with a slight gradient your work is going to be cut out! I suggest putting a 17T or a 19T so you can spin a bit easier and prevent wearing a hole in your tyre so quickly. On the scales, the complete bike (54cm) with pedals weighed in at 18.6lbs which is about 8lbs lighter than say a Charge plug.

Components wise there is nothing flash going on here. The Weinman wheels are good for an urban bike offering strength without being too heavy. Black spokes and black unbranded, sealed bearing hubs stayed true and spun smoothly. The fixed/freewheel flip flop rear hub only came with fixed cog and no freewheel. If you wanted to run it as a single speed you would have to buy and fit a rear brake lever and long drop brake calliper too.

The front brake is a very adequate Tektro dual pivot unit and space saving lever although the lever is on the left hand side in the US and continental style. This was of no bother since it is used very rarely, when I am feeling lazy but more annoyingly the lever could not be placed closer to the stem because the clamp on the lever is too narrow. A stiff and robust Oval Concepts alloy stem clamps generic alloy drop bars shod with cork grip. The short arm crank is unbranded but looks very similar to a Sugino and seems to transfer the power well. The no name alloy pedals ran smooth but anyone with feet bigger than a size nine would find the toe clips too short.

As far as value for money goes, your £600 pounds gets you a well designed, adaptable frame and forks which, as is, offers a very dependable urban trainer capable of transforming into a sporty machine or all weather ride. A Specialized Langster may cost £150 less and share many similarities like having an alloy frame but it is a few pounds heavier and doesn't have the flexibility of being able to run gears.

Verdict

The 'thinking man's fixed', a well thought out bike that can swap between fixed and geared by simply changing the dropouts. Ideally suited as a training bike or an urban cruiser (although a larger gear at the back will be needed).