Wow,... what a Bike! This is what most people said when they see Marco's new All road Touring bike for the first time....
Marco approached me quite some time ago with his idea of making him his dream bike for his long time planned bicycle trip through south eastern Europe and Asia and we started to talk about his ideas.
For him it was clear that he wanted to have the latest SRAM AXS Force XPLR derailleur on his new bike and so it was mandatory to make an UDH compatible frame for the very first time. With the help of my fellow frame builder Bartoz of Karamba Bikes in Poland who let me use his wonderful custom CNC machined UDH dropouts which are actually made by our both good friend Jacek Orlowski, we had our first and most important puzzle piece ready. From there everything came together quite naturally...
Marco had very clear ideas about what parts he wanted to use on his dream bike and so it is equipped with just the best of the best what the market has to offer. Such as the brand new super high end SON Ladelux combined for sure with our own purple Allygn EdelMü, carbon cockpit and seatpost by Deda, 3D printed saddle, super fast custom made wheels by my man Franz of Schneckenberg Cycling, running fast on Rene Herse Tires and the list goes on.
So this bike is truly one of a kind but what probably strikes you most is the absolutely amazing paint job made by our man Mario of Wide Ways. In the beginning of our project Marco showed me some very wild paint ideas and I always knew that I wanted to make a bike together with Mario of Wide Ways who is well known for his fantastic graffiti arts inspired paint jobs you would find on every Dlouhy bike. Since both live in Leipzig Marco was immediately hooked by the idea that Mario could paint his bike for him and both played pingpong with lots of ideas and sketches until they found the perfect design. And what can I say, the outcome is really absolutely insane and Mario did an amazing job job covering up every inch of the frame with all real painted and graffiti logos and tags and hidden messages everywhere. It never gets boring to read watch this bike, there is just so much to discover.
Hey Marco, and I really hope that you will also discover many new wide and empathy ways on your trip and your new journey will bring you to bright and wonderful places in your life, happy riding mate!
Photography: Florian Haeussler / FERN Bicycles.