Trade Shows

Vitus model year 2015 road bikes – first look

Flagship Vitesse EVO, lightweight aluminium Zenium SL and Energie cyclo-cross bikes among highlights

Vitus is a name steeped in history – Sean Kelly scored 80 per cent of his 193 professional wins aboard Vitus machines through the 1980s – and the brand was resurrected by Chain Reaction Cycles in 2011.

We stopped by the Vitus stand at last week’s Cycle Show to see what’s new for model year 2015. Turns out there’s quite a bit, including the flagship Vitesse Evo, a new super-light aluminium frame, Vitus’ first disc-equipped road bike and three cyclo-cross bikes.

The Vitesse Evo Team is Vitus’ flagship machine

We’ll go through all that over the next few pages, starting with the Vitesse Evo – the bike used by the UCI Continental-registered An Post-Chain Reaction team. You may have seen An Post rider Mark McNally win the Tour of Britain’s King of the Mountains classification.

We first gave you a glimpse of the Vitesse Evo at the London Bike Show at the start of the year and An Post-Chain Reaction have been racing it all season – now it’s available to the public.

The Vitesse Evo is ridden by the Vitus-sponsored An Post-Chain Reaction team

The frame is made from T700 high-modulus carbon fibre and claimed weight is 830g for a 54cm frame, so it’s suitably light. The oversized downtube has a squared profile to maximise stiffness, while the beefy BB386EVO bottom bracket and oversized chainstays are designed to work to the same effect. Same goes for the tapered headtube at the front-end. Meanwhile, the skinny seatstays and 27.2mm seatpost are on hand to offer up enough comfort to survive stage races.

The Vitesse Evo Team tops the range and comes in An Post-Chain Reaction colours, with a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset, FSA SL-K chainset and Fulcrum Racing 3 wheels. That makes for a claimed weight of 7.2kg in a size 56cm and it’s yours for £2,999.99.

The frame is dressed in Shimano Dura-Ace components and an FSA SL-K chainset

Two other bikes feature in the line-up, with the Vitesse Evo VRi wearing Shimano Ultegra Di2 and Fulcrum Racing Quattro wheels for an all-up claimed weight of 7.86kg and a £2,599.99 price tag. Drop down another level and the regular Vitesse Evo (£1,999.99) uses the same frame as the Team and VRi but has a mechanical Shimano Ultegra groupset and Fulcrum Racing Quattro wheels.

Let’s take a look at some of the other highlights of the 2015 range.