Italian brand, Fizik, occupies a dominant position in the saddle market and has now branched out into finishing kit.
Their small, but perfectly formed stand at Eurobike was one of the show’s highlights, featuring a wall hung with accurate replicas of team bikes from each of their WorldTour partners. The Giant TCR Advanced SL of Belkin’s Tom Jelte Slagter, for example, was suitably diminutive.
Our interest lay beyond the window dressing, however. We’d come to see a new range of handlebars, and a seatpost and stem, all branded under the name Cyrano.
Fizik introduced its Spine Concept system to a range of saddles five years ago (snake, chameleon, bull: an anthropomorphous representation of a rider’s build, flexibility, and riding style), which it has now extended to handlebars and stems. The pitch? You can pair your Fizik saddle with a Fizik cockpit. There’s a Fizik seatpost, too.
The finishing kit is called Cyrano, and the handlebars are offered in shapes for ‘snakes’, ‘chameleons’, and ‘bulls’. The conceptual link seems straight-forward enough: flexibility, or lack of, in the spine is as likely to effect handlebar shape as saddle shape. Lightweight types, typically known as racing snakes (see where Fizik are going with this?) who enjoy a flat, slim saddle are also likely to opt for a long reach and deep drop in the handlebar. The ‘snake’ handlebar, for example, has an 85mm reach (the top of the handlebar to the brake mount) and a 140mm drop.
Each shape is available in three materials (two carbon, in varying lay-ups, and one aluminium) which Fizik categorise with similar nomenclature to their range of shoes. The flagship bar is the £299 Cyrano 00, which weighs a claimed 175g (our hand went up, cartoon style, when it was passed to us, having been braced subconsciously to receive an item that weighed, well, something). The unidirectional carbon R1 is hardly heavy at 205g.
Fizik believe the concept moves handlebar selection beyond a basis solely in shoulder width. It’s one we’ll be putting to the test on a forthcoming bike build project. Watch this space.
A corresponding stem and seatpost was shown on Fizik’s stand at Eurobike, too. The alloy R1 stem, equipped with titanium bolts, is priced at £89.99, and available in 110mm or 120mm lengths, and in a seven or 20 degree rise (the latter, an unusual looking item).
Finally, Fizik have doubled their Cyrano seat-post range by adding a second model. The flagship carbon post has been renamed the R1, and its new aluminium sister is simply called the Cyrano. Like the R1, it works with 7mm round rails and rails with an oval cross-section up to 10.3mm. Both models come in a range of diameters from 27.2 to 34.9, and in lengths from 270mm to 400mm. The claimed weight for the £135 carbon R1 is 200g. Fizik claim 235g for the Cyrano.
