Moda Bikes are proud of their British heritage and their latest offering is a carbon fibre machine designed and manufactured on these shores.
Moda say it’s the only carbon fibre frame they know of that is made in Britain. We’ve racked our brains and can’t think of any other, perhaps except the UK Sport bikes designed by British Cycling and ridden by the likes of Bradley Wiggins and Sir Chris Hoy at London 2012. And you need very deep pockets if you want to get your hands on one of them.
Moda, like most brands, usually outsource the production of their carbon frames to the Far East before assembling the bikes at their Derby HQ, but their latest work, dubbed the UK Carbon Project until the official model name is unveiled, is the fruit of their ambition to create a modern machine born in the UK.
Moda’s James Ryan told us the firm had three boxes to tick to get the UK Carbon Project off the ground: it had to have the British story behind it, be commercially viable, and relatively affordable for the consumer, as opposed to a marketing machine with a price tag which puts it within reach of only a select few.
We spotted the frame at the Cycle Show, where it had been assembled only hours before – in fact, the prototype frame was so new the resin was still setting.
The frame has been built by Vekta Composites, a Stoke-based company whose background is, according to Moda, in automobile engineering having worked with the likes of Bentley.
Vekta told Moda they could build a frame which weighed as little as 500g. That’s super-super-light and Moda have instead plumbed for a frame which should still fall comfortably below the magic sub-kilo mark, although final claimed weight is to be confirmed as the frame’s design could well be tweaked.
Moda are aiming for a January 2013 launch, and the decals and colourway will be different to the hastily put together prototype on display at the NEC. Price is to be confirmed but is expected to be around the £2,000 mark.
