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Taipei Cycle: New products from Culprit, Santini & Birzman + bonus lugged wooden bike

Lots of new products including tools, jerseys, pumps and frames

It's day three of Taipei Cycle and we've found new products from Birzman, Santini and Culprit. Here are the highlights...

 

Culprit

First up, bike manufacturer Culprit, who have modified their Croz Blade aero road bike.

 

They’ve slimmed down the seatstays, for example, and curved out the non-driveside one so that it can take a 160mm disc brake rotor. You don’t have to run disc brakes, though, you can use direct mount of TTV brakes mounted behind the bottom bracket if you like.

Culprit have also altered the down tube shaping, shifted from a BB30 bottom bracket to BB386, and the cabling now runs fully internally around the BB with the addition of a new cover down there.

The Croz blade is available in a whole bunch of different colour combinations: you can choose your own base paint (from Teal green to fuchsia) and decals. You can even go for a full-custom option with matching bar, stem and seatpost.

Culprit are making some major revisions to their seatstay-less Legend triathlon bike.

They’re adding a brace between the chainstays and the seat tube to stiffen it up, making the dropouts vertical rather than horizontal, and switching to a BB386 bottom bracket. In fact, they’re making lots of changes all-round, and when done they’ll be heading back to the wind tunnel to see how all this affects the aerodynamics.

With all that in mind, no timescale has yet been set for the release of the second generation Legend.

 

Santini

Jumping to somewhere totally different – Italy, in fact – Santini have a whole bunch of new jerseys including this Reef which is a windproof and water resistant short sleeve model... a bit like Castelli’s Gabba then, which is a jersey that has ‘inspired’ many others from other manufacturers over the past couple of years.

Santini say that their Reef jersey has been developed with Team Belkin and that it is designed to be worn over the top of the riders’ long sleeve winter jerseys or over a short sleeve jersey with arm warmers.

The breathable membrane fabric is called Tempo and the jersey comes with a waterproof full-length zip and elasticated anti-slip cuffs.

Santini have included quite a bit of reflective material both on the front and especially at the rear.

Santini have a few special edition Giro d’Italia jerseys in the range, including this one that marks Stage 1 in Belfast.

They’ve included a Belfast theme...

...and the date of the stage on the back, look.

This is the jersey marking Stage 12 which goes into the Barbaresco wine region.

It says ‘La Strada del Vino’ on the back: the wine route.

 

Birzman

Birzman have new tools on the way, including a couple of toolkits that look cool.

First up is the Travel Toolkit which contains 20 different tools. As the name suggests, the idea here is that the box contains everything you’re likely to need it you go away with your bike: Allen keys and screwdrivers, of course, and also cassette and crankarm tools, cable cutters, a pedal spanner, chain splitter, chain whip, and so on. It seems like a good selection to us.

The Travel Toolkit is going to be priced at US$230 when it becomes available later in the year although we don’t have a UK price yet.

The Studio Toolkit is bigger, containing 37 tools. Everything that’s in the Travel Toolkit is also in here along with plenty more: an adjustable spanner, a steerer cutting guide, a rubber mallet, a threadless nut fitting tool, and loads more.

The idea is that you get everything here that you need to build a bike from the frame up. This one will be priced at $420.

 

Birzman have a new entry-level pump in the shape of the Swift. The hose has a screw-on head that you flip over to swap between Presta and Schrader. It’ll be available later in the year at US$28.

 

The other new pump is a black anodized version of the existing Tiny Tanker (which sits flat for easy storage).

It is the same shape and dimensions as the original version but it comes with a steel piston rather than an aluminium one so it will be a little cheaper. Again, we don’t have a UK price but it’ll be US$70.

There’s a new waterproof pouch called the Weather Warrior coming from Birzman too. It has a ziplock closure and it’s touchscreen compatible. It’ll take most 5in mobile phones and fit in a rear pocket of your jersey.

 

And finally... 

And finally, as they say on the News at 10, a wooden bike from Yijia Enterprise of Taiwan. It’s made from African Padauk, to be precise (no, me neither). But a quick gander on the Wood Database reveals it to be an African (well, the clue was in the name) hardwood that's strong and stiff and extremely durable with very good rot resistance, often used to make musical instruments. It's also among the most commonly misspelled wood names, but not here… ho, no. Probably. Oh, and it'll change colour over time through exposure to sunlight.

The down tubes and top tubes are hollow while the rest of the tubes are solid (okay, technically they're not tubes if they’re solid, are they?).

The manufacturer reckons the frame comes in at 1.82kg. It’ll set you back about £170 while the set of lugs is about £80.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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12 comments

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jacknorell | 10 years ago
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That wooden frame looks amazing and I really want one!

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Aminthule | 10 years ago
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What butt ugly bikes those Culprit offerings are. The wooden bike, looks do much more stylish and it's really only carbon in another form.

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Manchestercyclist | 10 years ago
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I'm a big fan of the wooden bike, it's fairly light and wood is a durable material after all, not a bad price either really.

It would be a great idea if they could sell the lugs to countries with less developed bike industries, and local craftsmen could add the tubes (and replace when necessary).

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userfriendly | 10 years ago
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I for one quite like the Croz Blade, I have to say. Looks like a really well rounded disc road bike to me. But ... if you have so many choices for colours, why that horrible yellow?  3

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jmcolp | 10 years ago
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Morethansonglyrics. You are correct about the saddle angle. The new croz blade is the first out of the mold and I built it up for display the same day as the show. During the show I have been too busy to notice it. Will correct tomorrow. Shows are quite stressful. I do agree and take credit for not noticing this. Thanks for pointing it out. Will be corrected Asap.

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morethansonglyrics | 10 years ago
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The saddle angle on the Culprit Croz Blade is laughable.

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Al__S | 10 years ago
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Good to hear! So this particular frame is a test/protyping one then? Whilst there's no way you'll catch me doing tri (running? EWW) pushing the boundaries of what is possible does interest me.

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jmcolp | 10 years ago
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Thanks for the comments about Culprit legend. The bike is the first of its kind and with that come some hiccups. The bike rode fine bit I wanted a stiffer bike for production so tested the theory with a simple brace add on to confirm how to stiffen the bike. The new design will ride well and be a smooth, attractive final product, many changes are coming. Keep following Culprit to learn more.

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ultimobici replied to jmcolp | 10 years ago
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First of its design? In what way? Zipp's 2001 had no stays in 1997!!

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Al__S | 10 years ago
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I was going to comment on the Cuplrit brace too- for something that is so optimised, that's an ugly looking bodge of a "fix".

Meanwhile I'm not convinced Santini have been well advised with that Belfast "mural" design, those murals are just a little politically charged. Being "inspired" by them and including the word "fight" in the slogan on it is VERY tin-eared to the cultural significance.

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Mat Brett replied to Al__S | 10 years ago
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Al__S wrote:

Meanwhile I'm not convinced Santini have been well advised with that Belfast "mural" design, those murals are just a little politically charged. Being "inspired" by them and including the word "fight" in the slogan on it is VERY tin-eared to the cultural significance.

Ha! Funnily enough, this piece had a paragraph in saying exactly that, but then I took it out before publishing because – you know, what? – I really don't want to get involved!!

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lolol | 10 years ago
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The Culprit chainstay brace just looks like an admission that it wasn't such a great idea to lose the seatstays in the first place.
I like the wooden bike, just for kicks, but surprisingly light

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