Pace 42:16

Pace have been fettling a range of bikes, bits and clothing from inside their shed on the Yorkshire Moors for near on 25 years although you may never have heard of them as up till now it's all been about mountain bikes. Most notably aluminium mountain bike frames, including one that they won't be allowed to let lie, famously and iconically made from square tubing that mountain bikers of a rose-tinted persuasion get all damp around the chamois over. So for Pace to come out with a bike made of *gasp* steel, with *faint* round tubing brazed into a *fetch the smelling salts* road bike, is certainly an unexpected departure to some.

Born out of a personal desire, like all the best bikes, possibly, Adrian Carter - the head boy at Pace Cycles, designed the 42:16 after fixiefying his mountainbike to ride to work over the bleak northern winter and after realising that it was a bit of a slug on tarmac fancied a bike more suited to the task, and so this fixed machine was born. As the market seemed flooded with pile-em-high-sell-em-cheap before the bubble bursts fixies Adrian decided to create something that's a pleasure to own, easy on the eye and more stable and comfortable to ride, not yet another old track frame dusted off and bodged for hipster street use. He did reet enough.

The 42:16 frame is finished off in a pleasing "Ultra Pale Green" that looks more of a "Spitfire Underside Blue" colour really, and that's no bad thing. Everyone who saw it, without exception, remarked on how pretty it was, and then spent five minutes making appreciative gurgling noises as they discovered all the little details that decorate the bike, and leaving it in it's natural environment outside coffee-shops to conduct passer-by testing it got an ample amount of admiring glances and double-takes.

Rather than look like the result of an unholy drunken union behind the bike sheds with a box of Lego, as many fixies seem to be these days the Pace all co-ordinates rather beautifully. The colour-matched straight blade steel fork and very nearly unique steel one-piece stem and handlebar blend with a custom Charge Spoon saddle. The rest of the finishing kit is a go-with-anything black. The frame and fork are peppered with sweet little niceties; the stem bolt is hidden round the wrong side of the bike, an aesthetic feature that's also kind on knees, a "42" and a "16" are embossed into the tops of the fork legs, the chainstay is chromed with pin-stripe paint detailing and the bike has enigmatically minimal graphics.

Thoughtful attention to the small stuff is displayed in the components too, the 42:16 comes with a custom Pace etched 16t CNC machined track rear sprocket, the FSA headset, layback seatpost and Vero crankset are collar-and-cuffs and the latter's hidden chainring bolts are a smart touch. And as this one is part of the initial run of 100 Limited Editions the 42:16 comes with an individually numbered brass ID plate mounted on the bottom-bracket, ultimately useless but worth a secret smile nonetheless. Under harsh Fashion Police scrutiny the angular and gumpy FSA seatpost is the slightly ugly fly in the beauty cream, a more elegant seatpost would certainly set the bike off to a tee.

The track-ends are quality items rather than the pressed steel cut-outs on some fixed-wheel bikes, and they come with integral adjusters to help with wheel positioning and chain tension too, which is a Good Thing, just don't forget to pack the teeny allen key along with the 15mm spanner should you want to get the rear wheel out by the side of the road.

And beauty is not just skin deep, Pace are keen for this bike to last and make the bold claim that the 42:16 is one of the best corrosion protected steel frames in the business. Underneath the twin-pack epoxy paintwork a coat of chrome plate covers the hard-living chain and seat stays and the main frame triangle is phosphate treated during the manufacturing process to add internal and external corrosion resistance. All graphics are applied over the paint surface before the whole frame is sprayed with a tough high gloss laquer clearcoat. Certainly on the surface it's a hard-wearing frame, after being treated badly and clanked and rattled while locked against various street furniture and rubbed against other bikes the 42:16 remained resolutely scratch and scuff free. While on street-smart practicalities the frame is designed with room to fit mudguards, with eyelets decorating the track-ends and the forks, and there's a suitable hole in the seatstay bridge, so a rear brake is a possibility too if you want to flip the rear wheel round and use a freewheel.

Obviously looks aren't everything, apart from those times when, you know, they really mean quite a lot, but thankfully the 42:16 rides pretty nice too. While the fillet brazed custom double butted 4130 CrMo steel is neither super-light exotic nor bargain gas-pipe heavy the top-tube passes the fingernail flick test with ease, and the whole bike track-stands on the scales at 19lbs for the Large without pedals, making it sturdy enough for the harsh reality of the gutter but light enough for jaunts outside the town boundaries.

On the road it doesn't quite have that instant steel bike clichd spring, it's there all right but deep down and slightly muted, that's not to say it pedals like a dog, far from it, there's a pinch of ferrous feedback when punching the pedals and attacking the fixed gear making it certainly no slouch, and it's comfortable over distance where it smoothes the miles along, well, at least the back half does as unfortunately the steel love affair unravels up front. The combination of a steel handlebar welded to a steel stem, bolted onto a straight-blade steel fork with a deep-section wheel stuck in it makes for a resolutely solid front end so that palms, wrists and forearms soon become acutely aware of the minutiae of road surfaces. Familiar potholes become reacquainted as unwanted enemies, and new friends will be made of minor irregularities previously unfelt as the 42:16 literally pounds it's way across the tarmac. The grips don't help much either, although they're bulbous and maybe too fat for smaller hands they're pretty firm deep down and don't do too much to dampen the ride.

Ignoring the jack-hammering ride the position offered by the stylish one-piece flat bar and short stem makes the 42:16 a real giggle to weave around town on, the position is nice and upright for traffic visibility, not so much fun into a headwind though, and steering is lightning quick for speederbike traffic threading, while the geometry that's been designed for the road rather than the track ensures nothing gets too nervously out of hand. While great for short blasts the combination of short stem, flat bars and harsh front end gets a little weary over several miles with the Tyrannosaurus Rex riding position getting tediously uncomfortable and inefficient, which seems to be at odds to the bikes long distance promise suggested by the pair of bottle-cage mounts on the down and seat tubes.

As an experiment the bar and stem combo was swapped for a 'normal' cockpit with an alloy stem and set of dropped bars stolen from the shed and it transformed the bike. With a more stretched out position, a variety of places to rest the hands and the less solid components soaking up some of the road vibration the bike morphed into both a more aero street hack and an enjoyable mile muncher. A little of the snappy steering was lost but it was still snickety enough to split traffic and long distance rides were suddenly a pleasant proposition, for me that was a fair trade for losing the bike-about-town good looks of that fashionable bar and stem.

Wheels are burly Halo Aerotracks with on-trend deep section rims, the front is radially spoked and the rear is flipable for singlespeed freewheel fitting should you not have the knees or cojones for fixed. The wheels survived a few months of town bashing and country lanes without a flinch and stayed true and smooth running. A single Tektro brake lever that looks more style than substance pulls on a Tektro dual-pivot calliper brake to do the slowing down thing on the front wheel, your leg muscles are the brakes for the rear wheel, obviously. Despite it's diminutive size the dinky lever does an impressive job of stopping, leading to almost an over-the-bars incident when first used in anger. The anodising on the braking surface of the rim wasn't an issue in the dry but as soon as there was a little damp in the air then a few revolutions of preplanning were needed to stop, and as the rim coating started to wear off wet weather stopping began to improve.

The gearing is, as you may have guessed, a 42 chainring up front linked to a 16 tooth cog, which if you live somewhere with significant gradients could find a little top-heavy and might consider changing, it is uncertain if Pace will supply different frame graphics to suit whatever ratio you may choose to use. The Schwalbe Blizzard 700x25 tyres are designed for riding, not for fixie-skids, and they're a comfy all-rounder. They softly take off a little of the harshness of the front end yet roll well, grip unflinchingly in all weathers and survived the test puncture free. The chain did it's thing with minimal stretch and despite the best efforts of some hefty leg braking the split-link didn't come undone.

The Charge Spoon saddle has found friends in many a bottom, and there were no issues here, it wasn't the most comfortable saddle with the majority of the rider's weight forced upon it with the Pace's original short and sweet cockpit but with the trial dropped bars and stem on it felt considerably more at home twixt the cheeks as rider weight was more balanced over the bike.

All the bearings and moving parts ran smooth throughout some miserably invasive weather, which is more than you can say of some off-the-shelf fixies, although the square taper bottom-bracket did work loose.

The 42:16 is available in four sizes, each with a dedicated stem length and bar width, supplied with a front brake only and without pedals for £795.

Verdict

When there's a tinge of sadness as a test bike has to go back then it's usually a sign that it's a goodun. The Pace 42:16 was put back in the box with a pat on the top-tube and a heartfelt goodbye.

Yes, it's a bit on the rich side for a fixed-wheel bike, but it's not a cookie-cutter cheap old frame with a different paint job, it's a decent steel frame with a bouquet of well thought out little details, and all the components are of a pedigree, not no-name specials to keep the cost down to a shop-window price-point, all of these things go a long way to justify the extra spend. And it is very very very pretty, one of those bikes that will get wheeled out the door with a smile long after the cost has been forgotten and it's stylish enough to be a smart looking fixed-wheel bicycle long after the fixie thing has moved on. Ride wise it's a whole bunch of fun, with a short and upright riding position town riding is a fast and skittish experience and it's hard not to ride the 42:16 at full gas everywhere because it simply induces giggling. But that which makes it such fun over short distances makes it a pain as the miles increase, the cramped stance combined with the punishing firm all-steel front end gets weary after a while. Experimenting with a longer and more compliant cockpit stretched the rider out comfortably and also stretched the bikes legs too. With room for mudguards the 42:16 has the ability to be not just a trendy fixie but a useful year round bike and with the fixings to bodge a rear brake on there as well an even more versatile beast if you want to run a singlespeed freewheel or don't want to rely on your legs for braking all the time. I didn't want to give it back because bar and stem issues aside and after a layoff of a decade it made me want to ride fixed again. That's fixed, not fixie.