We’re taking inspiration from the season this month, celebrating a ‘Summer of Cycling’ by turning our attention to the type of riding afforded by the better weather.
For many riders, summer means only one thing – racing. To that end, our test fleet this month includes machines intended to respond without hesitation to your input.
Here’s a late addition to the ranks – the A:xus Duran, a Chorus-equipped, full carbon, no prisoners taken racing bike, designed in Germany.
The Duran’s intended purpose can be easily decoded from a close inspection of the frame.
Its huge down tube is the most eye catching feature; flat on the underside and retaining its rain gutter proportions from the head tube to a similarly oversized BB30 press fit bottom bracket. We’re expecting unflinching stiffness from both.
The top tube has a flattened upper surface and a pyramid shaped underside. It broadens from 4cm at the seat tube to 5cm at the head tube.
While on the subject of the head tube, we can report a unit of medium height (130mm on our 54cm test bike; compare and contrast with 120mm on Trek’s H1 fit Madone 6.9, or 140mm on the Scott Foil Premium). Like the down tube, it’s of considerable girth, promising stiffness, and has a slightly curved leading edge.
The rounded seat stays are extremely slim, not perhaps the same degree of slenderness boasted by Cervelo’s R3 and R5 super models, but thin enough to promise compliance. We’ll let you know.
Chainstays are deep at the bottom bracket (at 4cm a further pledge of stiffness), narrowing to 1cm at the drop out.
A:xus claim a weight of 890 grams for the frame, and 300 grams for the 1.5” steerer fork. Given that the complete bike tickled our scales at just over 6.5 kilos, we’re inclined to believe them.
Componentry is largely A:xus’ own, and includes a set of hand built, 50mm deep carbon rims (extremely light and shod with Conti Sprinter tubs), and what appears to be a very nicely machined brake caliper. Bars and stem are carbon-wrapped alloy (why?) and paired with an aluminium seat post and alloy-ti railed saddle.
We’ll be putting the Duran through its paces in the coming weeks and reporting our findings in a full review.
Custom colour options are available. Frameset prices start as £1699.
