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The Supreme Contemporary Retro Super-bike
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Apr 1, 2025
What if you want a high-quality lightweight, modern carbon road bike but you prefer rim brakes, a mechanical groupset and don’t want balloon tyres for so called ‘all road’ riding? In this video I’m going to show that that - despite the best efforts of the industry - bikes like this do still exist. I’ve found the ultimate modern bike for the retrogrouch. The Racer Rosa is an example of a bike which proves that you can still buy a top end carbon road bike with rim brakes and is compatible with mechanical gears.
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0:00
What if you want a high-quality, lightweight, modern carbon road bike
0:03
but you prefer rim brakes, a mechanical groupset, and you don't need balloon tyres for so-called all-road riding
0:09
In this video, I'm going to show you that despite the best efforts of the industry
0:13
bikes like this do still exist. I've found the ultimate modern road bike for the retro grouch
0:25
Call me old-fashioned, sit in my ways, grumpy even, guilty as charged
0:30
But as I see it, the bike industry's efforts over the last decade or so to fix things that ain't broke
0:35
means less choice and more expense for the consumer. However, if you know where to look, it's still possible to incorporate those retro elements into a cutting-edge road bike
0:44
Not only that, but for the same price as those flagship frames from the big brands that are electronic groupset and disc brake only
0:52
you can get it made-to-measure, handmade in Italy and with a custom paint job
0:57
Yes, it costs over £4,000 for the frameset, £4,700 to be precise
1:02
but that is about the same as the Cervelo R5, the S-Works Athos and the ND Mele
1:07
all of which are electronic groupset and disc brake compatible only. They're made in the Far East, they're off the peg
1:14
and this bike is actually cheaper than the Colnago C68 and the Pinarello Dogma F
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if you've never heard of racer rosa it's basically a london-based italian brand
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that imports wholesale italian culture into walthamstow and that includes the bike fittings
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with giuseppe janachini who is a bike fitter who fits well to a pros and flies into london
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one weekend every month for fittings with racer rosa i went for a fitting with giuseppe in 2016
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and that's where the journey started. Racer Rose have built me an aluminium made-to-measure frame
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based on Giuseppe's measurements and although I'm not particularly unusually proportioned, the advantage of a made-to-measure bike, a bespoke bike, is that everything is absolutely perfect
1:59
The stem length is exactly right, there are no spaces underneath the stem or above it
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there's exactly the right amount of seat post sticking out. Everything about the bike not only
2:08
is right but it looks right too When I not reviewing a bike for my day job here at Cycling weekly the aluminium bike has been my go bike for the last few years ever since they built it for me When Racer Rosa offered to build me a carbon bike based on those same measurements I absolutely jumped at the chance
2:24
Racer Rosa used established, you could even say iconic, frame builders, and this bike was made by Decordi
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using the tube-to-tube construction where every tube is mitered and cut exactly to match Giuseppe's geometry
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You could even see Luigi Decordi's signature here on the top tune. I wanted as classic a frame as possible and that means straight tubes and no drop seat state
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Now the top tube on this does have a very little slope on it, it's not quite horizontal
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and that's so that I can get a little bit of extra comfort with a little bit of extra seat
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post sticking out. The tubes themselves are squared off rather than rounded but the silhouette itself
3:00
is absolutely perfect. Now I did mention that I didn't want balloon tires and the clearance is
3:06
pretty tight like a proper race bike. Now I'm going to be running 25mm tyres, not 28s and I
3:12
certainly don't need to run 34s so it's got nice tight clearances. It has a tapered head tube
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inch and an eighth to an inch and a half and that actually is a concession to modernity that I'm
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absolutely fine with because the steering is so precise and I definitely do not want to go back
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to one of those one inch steerers that just flops all over the place. Another thing that I definitely
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didn't want is an integrated cockpit. I just want a traditional stem and bar as separate components
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that I can replace easily if I need to replace the cables and I want the cables out. If you look
3:42
at the front end you can see the silver Campagnolo logo on the cable and you know who doesn't like
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that. Now the bike could have been made with the stem slammed and the steerer cut right down but
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when I went for my fitting Giuseppe noticed that my flexibility wasn't quite everything it should be
3:57
so I've just got five millimeters of adjustment each way just in case. Being given the chance to
4:03
design your own paint scheme is liberating but you can easily end up with a dog's dinner or even
4:07
an accidental German national champions livery. Now what I actually wanted originally was some
4:12
kind of a sunburst finish like Fender guitars. I'm a bass player and I really love that classic
4:17
sunburst finish. There's a video on YouTube of guitar bodies being sprayed yellow and then the
4:22
black goes on around the edges and then finally the red. So I said to Diego at Racer Rosa
4:27
let do a sunburst finish and he started putting in the yellow and the red and the black and then and then it hit me we had a rethink and now we started with a pearl white for the main color and it goes into a deep orange and then a flame red and then it got a blue at the rear triangle
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And it's all gloss, and it looks absolutely lovely. I finally and regretfully accepted that the Steel Roberts that I bought second-hand
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and built up for that Resto Mod video last year was too big for me
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I didn't want to fit a stubby stem on it so I stripped off the Chorus groupset
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and luckily I'd never ridden it in the rain and I brought it here for its new home on the Racer Rosa
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I sang Chorus's praises a lot in that video. It's a lovely groupset and besides it would be a crime to fit Shimano or SRAM to an Italian bike in my view anyway
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If you want a mechanical groupset Chorus is the only choice for a handmade Italian bike
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I just absolutely love the snappy shifting, the marbled cranks, The aesthetic is just absolutely perfect for this handmade bike
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And even though it's only the third tier groupset It is not underpowered for a bike like this
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It has a 52-36 chainset and an 11-29 cassette Which is perfect for the type of riding I do
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Which includes club runs, group rides, even the odd road time trial
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Next up, the wheels Now I reviewed these Miike SWR50 wheels a few years ago
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And they're already becoming a little bit old school Because they have a narrow internal rim width of 17mm
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which is not the biggest compared to wheels these days. But for my purposes, they're perfect
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This bike has narrow clearances. I'm going to put 25mm tires on them, which go really nicely
6:04
Now, they're 1,600 grams, just over, so they're not the very lightest
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but I'm guessing they're pretty aerodynamic. They look great. Build quality is really good, and they sound really nice too
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As for the tires, they're going to be Continental Grand Prix 5000s, 25mm size, of course
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And these are not Italian tires, obviously, but they're really great tyres, I love them
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and in the end it means that the German flag does get to appear on my Italian bike after all
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And finally the finishing kit, it's all Italian Deda Super Zero Carbon
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and the saddle is Italian too, it's the Selle Italia SLR Superflow
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which I just get on really well with and didn't really have to think twice about that. Now if you're wondering what the total cost of this bike is
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I added everything up as if I bought it from you and it comes to So here is the complete build list Frame Group set Wheels
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Finishing kit £300. Saddle £70. Tyres £70. Total £7,435. Is there anything about this bike
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that I don't like. Okay, well, if I'm really honest, I'm really not sure that a press fit
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bottom bracket would have been my first choice. Somebody who goes for a mechanical group that
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over electronic, wind brakes over disc brakes, is not going to go with a press fit bottom bracket
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But I have enough faith in Decordy's manufacturing that I don't think this bottom bracket is going
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to creak. It's going to be really well made. Everything is going to be straight and round
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Quality control is going to be at a really high level. So this bottom bracket is not going to
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creek so I'm happy with that and in a kind of bottom bracket belt and braces sort of thing it
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also has an aluminium sleeve inside so that the cups aren't directly pressing on the carbon
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other than that this is my dream bike it fits absolutely perfectly of course since it's made
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to measure the ride quality I mean I can probably say that I can compare it to a classic steel race
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bike and that is the biggest compliments I could give it because for me that is the benchmark but
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it's better than that because it's so much lighter it weighs 7.5 kilos altogether which
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obviously is a lot lighter than a classic steel race bike and you really notice that when you ride
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it it just accelerates it's so responsive I mean it's firmer than those bikes that have the big
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tires but really you know it's got the classic ride and that's what I'm looking for. As for
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its speed it's a fast bike I've already won first road bike in my local club time trial I've been on
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a really fast group ride with it I've done a couple of commutes although you know you don't
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really want to use this kind of bike for commuting and you're going to eat into its lifespan if you
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do that. I've had it for a couple of months and every single ride I've just absolutely loved
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riding it. It's just an absolute joy. The only problem is if this is my ultimate bike what is
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my N plus one? Let me know what you think of my dream bike in the comments underneath and if you've
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enjoyed this video don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel and I'll see you again soon
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