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| The Velo Orange Polyvalent in lilac (top) and deep emerald green (bottom). Both images courtesy of Velo Orange blog. |
Velo Orange, based in Annapolis, Maryland, is a bike nerd's paradise: So many elegant parts and accessories! Chris Kulczycki started the company in 2006. Last year, Chris retired and sold the company to two of his employees, Adrian and Igor.
With all those wonderful parts, you can build yourself an awesome bike. It just so happens that Velo Orange sells framesets.
The Polyvalent frameset can be built into a do-it-all bike. Tom wrote about an earlier version of the frameset back in 2010. He wrote that the Polyvalent's "multi-purpose nature makes it perfect for those who can only have one bike."
Ah, the search for "The One." The bike that can do everything. That's literally the idea behind the Polyvalent. I don't speak French, but VO informs me that "Polyvalent" is French for "many forms." Magnifique!
VO has been hyping this updated Polyvalent since, well, October 2016, and November 2016, and October 2017. They were excited! Now I see why.
This version has double eyelets so you can run your fenders and install your racks. It's designed for wide 650b tires or even wider 26" tires. It takes disc brakes. There's room for three water bottle mounts. You can do what you want with this monster.
Here are the specs:
- Frameset material: 4130 double butted chromoly steel
- Fork: 1" threaded
- Wheel Size: 650B or 26"
- Tire Clearance: 650B x 47mm, 26 x 2.3" (either with fenders)
- Rear Spacing: 135mm
- BB: English threaded 68mm
- Brakes: IS mount disc, 160mm
- Seatpost: 27.2mm
- Front Derailleur Size: 28.6mm
- Water bottle mounts: Triple on top of downtube, one set on seattube, one set on underside of downtube
- Fender bosses: seat stay bridge, chainstay bridge, under fork crown
- Rear Dropouts: Vertical with stainless steel replaceable hanger
- Frame Eyelets: Double eyelets on rear dropouts for racks and fenders
- Internal eyelets on seat stays
- Fork Eyelets: Double eyelets on fork dropouts for racks and fenders
- Triple thru-bosses on the blades for lowrider racks
- Hourglass braze-on for Randonneur or Campeur Racks.
- Rear Brake Routing: Easy internal routing for rear brake cable housing/hydraulic tubing
- Ovalized top tube for lateral stiffness and easy shouldering
Geometry
1 comment:
Nice bike. I find clever that current frames take advantage of disk brakes to allow different wheel diameters: thin 650B for commuting or fat 26" for offroad, etc.
This bike would not be "polyvalent" for me though. The unnecessarily funky rear dropouts (Breezer style) would not allow me to tow the kids trailer. If you want polyvalent, flat dropouts are the way forward!
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