Yes, they are custom cranks.

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.....with a custom chainring

English bicycles have always stood out in my eye, and this years NAHBS has been an excellent piece of foundation to solidify their concrete position in the handmade bicycle industry.

English Cycles - i've been llusting after his winter belt drive road commuter bike for a couple of years now. That thing is tailor made for the heinous winter conditions I live in. I actually just emailed them about some possibilities regarding that design

Totally agree...spot on!

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"It never gets easier, you just go faster..." - Greg Lemond

"Because technology alone is a poor substitute for experience." - Richard Sachs

Yes it would be interesting to see the English TT frame in the wind tunnel, although in my experience testing in the tunnel smaller frontal area is not always faster tested with a rider. Send it over and we can see

It is hard to tell from the photos exactly but it looks UCI illegal to me, especially the seat stay position and it is custom, the UCI doesn't like custom.

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The English TT bike won best of show.

It is Rob's personal bike and is designed to fit him. To my knowledge, he doesn't race UCI races, so who cares if it is UCI-legal or not? It isn't going to be mass produced for use by a pro team. Apart from the Richard Sachs CX bike, I don't think anything at NAHBS is UCI-legal.

I would also suggest that no matter how aero a bike is (or is not) in a wind tunnel, the bigger key is how aero the rider can be on the bike while still maintaining the necessary power to go fast. Rob is a consistent winner and age-group record setter of the races in which he competes. I'd say that means he and his machine combine to make a VERY aero system.

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
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English Custom Steel Internal di2
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I pretty sure a number of those custom guys got their frame designs(not necessarily what was shown at NAHBS) approved by the UCI. Richard Sachs was leading the way when the new regulations first came out iirc.

Guru Photon HL (Hyperlight) (670g for 54cm)

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Is that really 670g? In other words, is it Hyperlight, or just Hype?

Given Guru's history, this is not an entirely academic question.

Richard Sachs is the only one I've ever seen with a UCI "approved" sticker on his frames. I guess Boo or Seven would have to have their frames approved as they also sponsor pro riders in CX and MTB. But I'm not sure if any of the other custom builders supply bikes for registered pro teams. Does the rule apply to individuals racing in the elite ranks? Obviously there are none racing on the road at the World Tour, but there are many independent, pro CX and MTB racers out there. I'm not sure how the rule applies to them or how many get their bikes from small, custom makers.

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
Bike Pics
English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo

Zanconato is another. Don Walker too. There are others. Have a look at the list on UCI's website if your interested. The rules do apply to the elite ranks.

Not disputing it is a great looking bike, it is.

Here in Australia you can't turn up to a club race without UCI approved stuff, even water bottles, that is one reason I made that comment on UCI legalality.

I have been involved with wind tunnel testing since 2006 and have often wondered how a bike such as this might perform in a test, I have had these discussions with a very prominent builder of handcrafted frames here in Aus. However for the test to be valid it needs to meet the UCI spec that the comparison frames have to meet. And the rider/bicycle combined is what matters in a test, frame only testing is of questionable value.

Whether Rob is fast or not is not an argument that the bike is fast. Cancellara has won on Cervelo, Specialized, Trek, etc and would probably beat most of us here on a clown bike.

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Do you think the seat stays meet the seat tube too low?

Without measuring things, there doesn't seem to be too much difference with it compared to say a BMC

The maximum drop from the highest point on the top tube to the lowest point on the seat stay at the seat tube junction is 16cm.

15.9cm is ok 16.1cm is not, I can't tell 0.1cm from a photo but it does look like a lot of drop.

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