Enigma Evade Ti

British titanium specialist Enigma's latest model for 2015, the Evade, offers that fine combination of fast, energetic and effortless pace coupled with a smoothness and refinement to make a wonderfully fast long-distance cruising bike.

Enigma now split their range into Fast Endurance, Endurance, Versatility and Off-Road, which helps you better understand the diversity of their models. The Evade fits into that first category, a 'classical yet contemporary design so typical of Enigma, created for fast, smooth endurance riding' they say.

Nice looking bikes pass through the road.cc office on a regular basis, but to my mind few have looked quite as sharply appealing as the Evade. Painted titanium is a rare sight – the aesthetic appearance of a titanium frame is a USP – but Engima display great skill with the airbrush with their new Paintworks option and this is a classy demonstration of their talent. It wins your heart even before you've set pedal on it.

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Ride and handling

Even if you're not swayed by its looks, you will be swayed by its ride and handling. With the use of oversized titanium tubes and a reasonably racy but not overly aggressive geometry, the Evade provides plenty of excitement and speed, all backed up by the wonderful smoothness you'd expect from a titanium bicycle.

The Evade is well balanced. It's nimble and the steering is light, and there's enough feedback to help you exploit all the grip of the Mavic tyres. It's a bike happy and willing to be pushed hard. It was right at home in a leg-burning chain gang, and wasn't embarrassed by the armada of lighter and stiffer carbon fibre bikes. It held its own. Such riding revealed no shortcomings, with adequate frame stiffness when wringing the last few watts out of the legs.

On a more gentle but still reasonably fast-paced four-hour ride through the rolling Cotswolds countryside, the Evade really displayed its capacity to be a fine long-distance bike, with comfort and agility well balanced. It handled a wide range of road surface conditions and kept this reviewer comfortable throughout. The frame and fork remain elegantly composed over the roughest road surfaces and there was never any point when I wanted wider tyres than the 25mm ones fitted.

The smoothness of the ride is impressive. That is, of course, a big appeal of titanium, and fortunately none of the fabled titanium ride quality has been lost with the oversized tube profiles used in the Evade. In this guise, it's a worthy alternative to a carbon fibre frame, with an engaging and responsiveness that easily puts some carbon bikes to shame.

If I'm being really picky, the Evade does show its weight on steeper gradients, but only really at lactic-acid inducing pace; anything less and the slight weight penalty over a comparable carbon fibre bike isn't as detectable on the climbs as you might imagine. And at 7.52kg (16.58lb), the Evade can hardly be described as heavy anyway. The high level of stiffness in the frame provides a solid pedalling platform; there's no hint of bottom bracket flex when climbing out of the saddle and the front end is stiff and direct.

Where the Evade rewards you is on descents. It has brilliant high speed stability. Sudden mid-corner bumps or holes don't cause a harsh unsettling of the Evade. It's unfailingly composed, and through high speed turns with the Evade banked hard over, it feels superb. Grip levels from the Mavic tyres are predictable and the wheels are stiff under load.

Frame and build

The Evade, first launched at the London Bicycle Show in early 2015, is constructed from 3AL/2.5V double butted titanium. The down tube and head tube are both oversized, 44mm in diameter, a key difference to the other models in Enigma's range. The company's own carbon fibre fork with a tapered head tube is slotted into that head tube.

As we've come to expect from Enigma, and as witnessed on previous test bikes like the Elite HSS, the quality of the workmanship is second to none. All the welds are extremely tidy, the attention to detail is top notch. There are Breezer-style dropouts with a replaceable gear hanger. And in a pleasing nod to easy home maintenance, it has an external threaded bottom bracket and external cable routing. The frame accepts a 31.6mm seatpost.

You can choose the Evade in one of five stock sizes (53 to 59cm) or pay extra and go down the custom geometry route. The bike tested here was a stock 56cm, which fitted me perfectly, with few modifications required, with the geometry showing parallel 73-degree head and seat angles, a 56cm top tube, 409mm chainstays and a 16cm head tube.

Enigma claim a frame weight of 1,350g, which, while heavier than many carbon fibre frames, is still very competitive. Though not really a fair comparison, the frame weight of the admittedly entry-level BMC TeamMachine SLR03 carbon road bike reviewed recently was 1,230g, so there's less in it than you might imagine. If you make the same comparison with a flagship carbon race bike the gap widens significantly, but then you're looking at a substantially bigger cash outlay. But of course weight isn't really a big factor when considering a titanium frame, it's just interesting to see that the weight difference isn't that much of a penalty.

You have a number of choices for buying an Evade. You can buy just the frame for £1,399 or frameset for £1,655, or go for a complete bike. The most affordable complete bike is a Shimano 105 11-speed build coming in at £2,699 with Mavic Ksyrium Equipe wheels and Engima finishing kit. That price rises to £3,899 for a top-spec Shimano Dura-Ace build with Mavic Ksyrium SLS Wheels. There's an Ultegra bike in the middle, and you can choose Campagnolo EPS or Shimano Di2 as well. The most expensive build also offers a choice of any finish, while the cheaper bikes are limited to a brushed appearance with a choice of decal colours.

When we asked Enigma if we could test the Evade, they pulled out the stops and actually sent us their show bike, decked out as it is with a Campagnolo Chorus 11-speed groupset and Mavic Ksyrium 125th anniversary wheels. And what a build. The yellow details of the Mavic wheels have inspired the paint job of this special bike, with matching bar tape, Fizik Antares saddle, and yellow decals on the frame, fork and stem. It's a wonderful demonstration of Enigma's custom paint shop programme, and a sign of their growing confidence to steer away from the typical titanium appearance.

The Campagnolo Chorus groupset provides lovely ergonomic hoods and crisp shifting, with noticeably more 'clunk' as each push of the lever sends the chain across the cassette compared with a Shimano or SRAM drivetrain, not that that's a bad thing. Paired with the Mavic Ksyrium 125 wheels and their Exalith 2 ribbed brake track, the brakes are forceful, providing ample performance in the dry and wet. Mavic's own 25mm tyres provide oodles of traction and the volume is sufficient to smooth out wrinkles in the road surface.

The Mavic Ksyrium 125 wheels have a list price of £1,100, a significant contributor to the high price tag of this overall build. But they're light, with their claimed 1,370g weight positively contributing to the sprightliness and quick turn of pace the Evade is able to muster when given half a chance. You can read the full details of these special Mavic wheels here.

Enigma's own finishing kit is unassuming but all good quality kit. The custom painted stem – matching the Mavic parts – is a lovely touch. A couple of steerer spacers provide some handlebar height adjustment. The bar is pleasingly shaped with reasonable reach and drops, and a carbon fibre seatpost is decorated with a yellow band to complete the package.

This bike build would set you back £5,000 if you were to replicate it. While there's no doubt that's a lot of money, the more affordable 105 bike compares favourably with other titanium options, so Enigma are working hard to be reasonably competitive on price.

Overall

This is a stunning looking bike with stunning performance. It's a very dynamic and engaging ride that rewards those cyclists who like to wring every bit of performance out of their legs but still want the smoothness and comfort for those days when they're not chasing speed. It's docile and supple at low speeds, stiff and responsive when you turn the power up.

Verdict

Enigma's new Evade offers an exciting and fast-paced ride with impressive smoothness and composure