With its lush white paint and italic logo and green decals the Pearl turned heads as soon as it rolled out of the box into the light of the RCUK office.
Pearl is new to the UK but the German-based company has been building top-end road bikes like this Grace SL for years, and that shows. The full carbon frame is finely finished with hugely oversized tubes and a host of details that help it offer something a little unique in a crowded marketplace.
Underneath the white paint is a unidirectional carbon frame that weighs a claimed 920g. A tapered head tube (1.5in at the lower bearing race) accepts Pearl’s own 395g Infinity II fork, and other design details like the twin-stays, huge bottom bracket junction and large diameter main tubes all give a good indication as to what the Pearl designers set out to achieve; an incredibly stiff and light frameset for the most demanding riders.
If the Pearl in these pictures isn’t to your aesthetic liking, then the company’s customisation process will be of interest. Any paint finish you like can be chosen with the cost for this process starting from just £150, and rising depending on how demanding you decide to be. This custom paint option is available on any of Pearl’s frames by the way, not just the Grace SL.
As well as painting the frames to your choice, they’ll also build it up with whatever components you want. Our sample arrived with Shimano’s Ultegra groupset, Mavic Cosmic wheels and Deda and Fizik finishing parts. A price tag on this build and frame finish is around £4000.
