British sports car legend Caterham is moving into cycling with a five-bike range launching at Eurobike next week.
While the promise of a classic style steel-framed bike is intriguing, it’s the new Duo Cali aero road bike – an acronym for Caterham Advanced Lightweight Innovations – that’s sure to cause a real stir.
Caterham describes Duo Cali’s monocoque carbon frame as having sportive, aerodynamic-shaped geometry “for the perfect blend of speed, comfort, kinetic design and safety”, along with “top-level weight and stiffness values”. Given that Caterham has teamed up with AX Lightness for the project, we’d expect that claim to be proved true.
The Duo Cali uses F1-grade carbon in a striking design that appears to feature split tubing – perhaps using a similar configuration as the Factor Vis Vires – in a gorgeous sweep past the seat tube and is seen around the bottom bracket area too. Caterham has also designed a brand new stem – which looks to have a built-in Garmin mount – and integrated seatpost especially for the bike.
There will be four Duo Cali models, headlined by the Limited Edition pictured here. This range topper features Campagnolo Super Record, looks like it comes with Garmin Vector pedals and will be a limited run of only 73. The range then filters down by Campag groups – the Duo Cali Record and Duo Cali Chorus along with the Duo Cali Urban EPS, an urban bike with Caterham-developed Campagnolo EPS flatbar shifters.
The top-end Duo Cali uses the Tune Airways wheelset, which Caterham says is the fastest tested set available and works perfectly with the new frame. As these wheels retail for over €2,800, we're expecting the Duo Cali to easily hit superbike price tags.
We'll have more on Caterham's new road bike from Eurobike 2014 next week.