There’s a new bike brand on the block. 13 Bikes is the new in-house, ‘premium’ offering from Halfords, launching with a 15-strong range of road, mountain and urban bikes.
13 Bikes is the brainchild of Justin Stevenson, who has previously worked with Whyte, Saracen, Dawes and Raleigh, and the five-bike debut road range includes three bikes based around a carbon fibre frame, the Intuition Gamma, Beta and Alpha, and two bikes based around an aluminium frame, the Intrinsic Beta and Alpha.
There’s a distinct aero flavour to the road line-up, from the top-of-the-range, £1,799 Intuition Gamma, to the entry-level, £499.99 Intrinsic Alpha, with aero-optimised tube profiles on both the carbon fibre and aluminium frames, and brakes hidden from the wind. The trick, Stevenson says, is in providing the rider with a wind-cheating advantage without compromising on weight or comfort.
“We started with a blank sheet of paper, with the idea being that, particularly at this price point, we’ve made bikes as light as they can be, so we want to make them faster,” Stevenson told RoadCyclingUK.
“If we make them faster by making them more aerodynamic then that normally comes with a compromise, either being that they’re heavy or uncomfortable, and we didn’t want that. We wanted to make sure that whatever we designed was still very comfortable and didn’t have that weight penalty.
“We’ve done that by effectively designing our own bike from scratch. We’ve hidden the brakes behind the fork and underneath the bottom bracket. That has a small aero benefit but the main advantage is that is allows us to design that area around the seattube and seatstays to improve comfort, because you don’t need the reinforcement there to deal with the brake.
“We tested an aero seatpost and it was marginally faster but it was more uncomfortable, so we’ve gone with a thin seatpost, 27.2mm rather than an oversized post, and it’s nearly as aero.”
A 830g frame (claimed weight) is at the heart of the Intuition Gamma, which is otherwise equipped with a Shimano Ultegra groupset, TRP T822/820 brakes and own-brand carbon/aluminium deep-section wheels for £1,799 and an all-up claimed weight of 7.7kg.
Next in line are the Intuition Beta and Intuition Alpha, which both use a carbon fibre frame which shares the same tube profiles as the Gamma, but with a revised carbon layup which bumps the claimed weight up to approximately 980g. The Beta (£1,399, claimed weight 7.9kg) is equipped with Shimano 105, while the Alpha (£999, claimed weight 8.6kg) gets Shimano Tiagra parts.
Move down the range and many of the key features carry over on to the aluminium-framed bikes, including aero tube profiles, internal cable routing and hidden brakes. The Intrinsic Beta (claimed weight 9.5kg) comes with Shimano Sora for £749 and the Intrinsic Alpha (10.7kg) wears Shimano Claris components and is yours for £499.
There’s also an aluminium-framed cyclo-cross/commuter bike, the Innate Alpha (claimed weight 12.2kg), which has Shimano Claris components and Tektro Lyra mechanical disc brakes for £499.
As for the name, 13 Bikes, it’s inspired by riders who have been handed the number 13 in a race, and pinned it on to their jersey upside down to ‘reverse’ the bad luck.
“Superstitious riders who get the unlucky number 13 as a race number have often turned it upside down to reverse its powers,” said Stevenson. “Thinking smart, defying convention, creating an advantage – that’s the inspiration we’ve followed to create our new bike brand, 13, and it’s why every one of our bikes has a reverse number 13 on the seatpost.”
The initial range of 13 Bikes will be available through selected Halfords stores and online via www.13-bikes.com. ‘Phase two’ is already in the pipeline. “We’ve got a lot of stuff we’re just waiting to press the button on,” said Stevenson – that, he told us, includes a disc-equipped road bike so watch this space.
Website: 13 Bikes
