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TECH NEWS
Halfords launch new own brand 13Bikes range of aero road, cycle-cross and hybrid bikes
We’ve been down to Fitzrovia today to take a look at the new range of bikes from 13. 13? 13. It’s a new bike brand from Halfords, based around an aero platform in carbon and alloy, with road- and mountain bike-influenced city hybrids and a CX bike thrown in for good measure and it’s available online right now on the Halfords website.
So why a new brand?
Having just bought out Boardman, Halfords obviously already have their own premium road brand with cutting edge design and aero tech - and they sell Pinarellos too. But they clearly think there's room in the market - and their stores - for another, and with premium road sales growing by 35% in the last year at Halfords, who's to blame them for wanting a bigger slice of the market?
We had a chat to Justin Stevenson, the chief designer on the brand, to get a bit more information about how and why 13 came about. “We started with a premium customer in mind”, he told us. “We don’t really have enough choice in that market so we needed something. That was basically my brief, just that.”
“In the end I started with a concept that comes from my riding. I wanted an aero bike but whenever I’ve ridden an aero bike I’ve always found that the deep section wheels can be uncomfortable and the frames are too, and they often carry a weight penalty. So the idea of the 13 road range was for the bikes to be aero and comfortable, with no weight penalty. We started with the Intuition Gamma, the top road bike, and we’ve tried to bring as much of that bike as we can to the models further down the range”.
Intuition Gamma, Beta, and Alpha
The Intuition Gamma will set you back £1,799 and for that you get a carbon aero frame with a claimed weight of 835g, a carbon fork, Ultegra transmission and carbon/alloy deep section wheels. The claimed weight of the full bike is 7.7kg
Both the front and rear brakes use direct mount posts, and they’re both kept out of the wind. The front brake is behind the fork, and the rear sits underneath the bottom bracket. All cabling is internal, and all the bikes feature full internal cable guides to make re-cabling the bike as simple as possible.
The team have spent time in the wind tunnel with the road range, and like many other manufacturers they’ve chosen to drop the seatstays down the seat tube for a simple aero boost (as shown the Intrinsic Beta above). The bike uses a standard 27.2mm seatpost, and the combination of that and the thin stays means added comfort, says Justin. “You lose a bit of aerodynamics with the round post but the combination of a thin post and dropped stays is about the same as normal stays and an aero post”, he told us.
“Deep, wide wheels are the single biggest aero gain we can make”, he continued. “We’ve used an alloy and carbon construction because we found it gave better levels of comfort. The carbon is structural, it’s not just a fairing, but the spokes are attached to the alloy.”
The head tube is tapered, but the bikes us a 1 1/4” bearing for the crown race rather than the more ususal 1 1/2”. It’s extra stiffness over a standard bearing but with less of a frontal profile than the bigger race.
There’s two other Intuition models, the Alpha (£999.99) and the Beta (£1,399.99). Those two bikes share a 980g carbon frame and they also use a slightly heavier fork than the top end model. The Intuition Beta gets Shimano 105 running gear and some similar deep section wheels to the Gamma. Overall it only gives away a claimed 200g to the top model and that makes it the value pick for us out of the carbon bikes: you’re still getting a full carbon, 22-speed bike with deep wheels but you’ve got £400 left in your pocket.
The Alpha is a Tiagra 20-speed build and the wheels are a semi-deep alloy. It’s got a claimed weight of 8.6kg Like all the Intuition models, it uses TRP’s T822/820 aero brakes for stopping duties.
Intrinsic Beta and Alpha
The Intrinsic is the alloy aero bike, which does a pretty good job of aping the shapes and curves of the carbon model. Again, brakes are hidden and cables internally routed.
The £749.99 Intrinsic Beta is a Sora 18-speed transmission with the same TRP aero brakes as the carbon models and an FSA Tempo chaniset to save a bit of spend. It weighs in at a claimed 9.5kg.
The cheapest road bike in the range is the £499.99 Intrinsic Alpha, which uses the same alloy frame as its dearer sibling. You get a 16-speed Claris groupset and a 10.7kg claimed all-in weight.
The bikes look good in the flesh; it’s nice to see some flashes of colour and a move away from the very safe black/red pallette. the £1,399 Intuition Beta, with green highlights and World-Champion-ish details, is the best looking in our opinion. As well as the best value. So we’ve asked for one of them. Stay tuned for a test.
Innate Alpha
The Innate Alpha is touted as the CX bike; in reality it’s more of an all purpose commu-tourer and at £499.99 will appeal to people who like a tough bike to knock about on. 13 do have plans for a premium crosser too, but that’s still on the drawing board. You get Claris 16-speed and Tektro Lyra brakes for your money; it weighs in at a claimed 12.2kg.
Implicit Beta and Alpha hybrids
There’s a range of hybrid bikes too. Well, two ranges. The Implicit is the fast urban platform, with road gearing and rigid forks. The Aplha build at £499.99 still manages hydraulic discs (Tektro HDC300) and an 18-speed drivetrain with Altus rear mech. The £699.99 Implicit Beta gets Shimano Acera brakes and Tiagra 20-speed transmission. Both share a frame that takes plenty of design cues from the road bikes, with dropped seat stays and internal cables.
The Intuitive range is more based around the mountain bike geometry, and there’s three models. The cheaper two – The Alpha at £429.99 and the Beta at £499.99 – get Suntour suspension forks and mountain bike gearing. The £899.99 Gamma scores a carbon fork and an Alfine 8-speed hub.
So that’s the whole road range for now but there’s more to come. “The plans for a bigger range are all on paper”, Justin told us. “Road discs are ready to go, and a women’s range is coming too. We’ll be looking at a higher end CX bike too.”
The bikes are on the Halfords website now and will be available in selected stores. As we were leaving Louise from Halfords was teeling us that someone had already bought one, so there’s some early aodpters out there…
Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.
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68 comments
Couple of snaps, including rear brake setup
photo_33.JPG
I can give fist hand experience on their entry level Implicit Alpha.
I was told that my review wasn't allowed on their website because I needed to read their terms and conditions for posting...(!)
So. The bike itself looks good, the rest leaves a lot to be desired. I had this bike for a grand total of 2 rides and was so dissatisfied that it went back. There is an absolutely horrific rattle from the rear of the bike, which is both distracting and terrifies anything in your path. No chance of seeing any wildlife! The other major concern for me was the internal cabling. Shoddy workmanship. The holes for the internals look like they've been done with a hammer and chisel, leaving paint chipped away and the frame susceptible to rust and damage. I have attached a photo to show how terrible it is! Top is my Mekk, bottom is the 13 Implicit Alpha. To the credit of the Halfords guy Shane in Dorset, he ordered me a replacement but upon arrival, advised that the new bike was no better than the original. In short. Don't waste your money. I've ended up with a Specialized and it's a world away from that piece of junk.
image_1011.jpg
Bought one of these at the weekend with 10% discount (taking it to £1,620). I have had a Bianchi alu frame for the last 18 months and have been looking at carbon option up to C.£2k over the last few months. I was going to go Canyon but was always worried about the lack of test ride. I rode on a number of bikes at the NEC bike show a couple of weeks ago including Bianchi, 13 & Pinarello. Although not a proper ride the track allowed a decent play with the machines. I decided to bite the bullet and go for the 13. This was throwing caution to the wind as there are no reviews etc but it felt good (even in comparison to the £3k-£4k bikes i played on), I think it looks good and the spec for the money is great. I weighed it with some Ulteg cabon pedals and it comes out about 7.7kg medium frame (based on 3 weigh-ins with me holding it on not very accurate scales, mind!). Due to weather i have only had 1 ride but it has been set up well by halfords, feels quick and those wheels make a great sound cutting through the air (good grin factor!!)
Reason i didnt go for quivalent Boardman is basically the Boardman looked a bit....boring. Fancied taking a chance on something a bit different. Yes carbon may not be amazing grade or whatever you 'experts' reckon but its bloody good value! I am concerned about those rear brakes getting muddied up but the ride i went on (damp) did not throw much at that area and there are some good length cable protectors on the cables.
Will report back when i'm a few more rides in but so far, very happy with my purchase
I had a ride on the Intuition Gamma at the Cycle Show this weekend. It's fantastic, and in comparison to some of the more expensive bikes on test (namely Bianchi Infinito cv Chorus) it felt and handled brilliantly.
I get the feeling just because Halfords has been mentioned people will be put off, but that is pure snobbery.
On the flip side, I also rode the Intrinsic Alpha (the cheap one) and it was woeful!!!
After reading the owners manual, I am definitely not going to think about getting one!
The manual reads like a 'Get out of jail card' for Halfords.
http://www.halfords.com/wcsstore/libraries/document/13_user_manual_new.pdf
Fitting mudguards - asumming that's possible - would protect the rear-mounted front brake from winter road crud, but I'd imagine the rear brake will require regular deep cleaning to keep it working and not rotting away.
Shite name. Shite looks. I do like the wheels though, the Alu/Carbon mix is a sensible choice, I do wonder about their durability though.
Will be interesting to see how the brakes on the back of the forks and the BB fare in the British weather. I know the brakes aren't a new design and have been around for a year or two, mainly on the pro race scene where you have a mechanic cleaning and lubing the bike after every ride but will that happen with this brand when it hits the shops?
One of the most hilarious comment treads in a while. Great morning reading, thanks guys.
i don't quite understand why halfords felt the need to bring out their own range of road bikes when they already own boardman?
doesn't this mean they are competing with themselves?
A little, but Boardman are generally different (at the moment). Don't know about the rest of 13 versus Boardman as I haven't looked at them, but the 13 road bikes have aero considerations with two similar alu models (who else does those? I can only think of Merida with the higher end 2015 Reacto and Felt with the AR15). Boardman have the top end AIR series with the lowest model retailing at £2K (with 105 components). The "CX" Innate Alpha sits below the Boardman CX Comp, one hundred quid cheaper - and probably now (without discounts or sales) the cheapest of those types of bikes with disc brakes on the UK market. I wonder what they plan with another CX model in the future given that Boardman has that pretty well covered from their CX Team onwards.
Seems to me though at the present more of an attempt by Halfords to fill a void in the Boardman range while also trying to go head to head with something slightly different against the likes of Wiggle with Verenti.
More likely, they will promote and cost Boardman's as a premium brand now it is established and pretty well regarded (apart from here it seems). This 13 brand will probably sit just below it.
It's like the Sports Direct model of filling your store with brands you own but look different. Throw in a bit of quality stock to make the consumer feel they have a choice.
To my eyes the aero one looks like a Giant Propel
The 13 upside down is a nice detail as to how pro cyclist put their race number on their shirts, i like that idea rather then some silly meaningless name as decathlon does does it. typographically i would have stayed very close to the actual race numbers for the brand.
More people on bikes is always good. But I fail to see why anyone would buy one of these over the Boardman equivalent, really.
And I guarantee that a large proportion of them will be assembled with the brakes on the front of the fork.
They'll probably build them upside down as well so the 13 is the right way up
They are direct mount brakes, you couldn't fit them to the front of the fork since there would be no mounts available. Unlike normal brakes which pass through the fork.
unless of course you fitted the fork facing the wrong way
Yes, that's exactly what I meant.
*deleted*
Or worse still, the handlebar stem will be mounted on the carbon fork/steerer using a star-fangled nut (like Halfords did with my CX bike).
"We had a chat to Justin Stevenson, the chief designer on the brand, to get a bit more information about how and why 13 came about. “We started with a premium customer in mind”, he told us. “We don’t really have enough choice in that market so we needed something. That was basically my brief, just that.”
Ah yes, the poor beleaguered premium customer with barely a brand to choose between, thank heavens we have another small variant of painted triangles to consider.
I think it's fairly obvious the 'we' he refers to is Halfords.
Quite strange really how Halfords release a well priced and thought out bike (Saw a guy riding a prototype when I did a day on the Ride Across Britain last week) and the internet forums go batshit slagging them off, but someone like Planet X or Ribble do and everyone applauds them.
It's quite likely that most Halfords customers don't give a crap about what's said on some geeky interwebz forum. Nor should they.
Ribbles and Planet-Xs are low grade, open-mould crap too. Some people simply have no taste. They probably get their clothes from Jacamo too. The heathens.
I really hope this comment is in jest. Not all of us can afford to spend £2k+ on a bike that's spent 3 years in R+D and is dripping with Hi-mod carbon and top-end components. Personally, as someone who works for a charity on a modest salary, i'm looking for the best possible value for money that will allow me to get out on the road and enjoy myself. If that means buying a Ribble/Planet X/Boardman/Canyon/Rose then that's what i'll do.
I think you might need to work on your ability to read a 'nuance'. Didnt the bit 'the heathens' give you a clue?
On this site, you never know!
None the less, it's yet another own-brand with a barely differentiatable product in a market of barely differentiable products. I guess it's competing with Revolution & Pinnacle but like others I'm struggling to understand why you would choose it over a Boardman seeing as it has exactly the same connection with Halfords as that brand but without the positives to back it up
*looks at geometry sheets*
Uh huh.
*waits for next brand, plays with BikeCAD*
I was intrigued with your comment so checked out the charts. Size 56cm has a 565mm effective top tube and 160 mm head tube. 420mm wide handlebars and 175mm cranks.
That sounds like a well thought out bike to me, certainly not for fat lads who want their bars higher than their saddles. What do you think is wrong with it?
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