U.S. Built Custom Bicycles in Titanium and Titanium-Carbon Mix
You will love/hate this bike.
Introducing the KellCruis SL, a radical departure from your everyday cyclocross racer. What we've done here is take our Mudhoney CX platform and pushed it forward to its logical conclusion, something entirely new, akin to the way our Scrambler bikes took the gravel category forward.
This is part of the Seven Race Optimized EXotica series, or ROX. These are bikes that might exist as a single unit for a special rider (in this case Kelly Catale), or as a new model in our line. The name 'Cruis' is a bastardization of 'Kruis,' which is Dutch for 'cross.' You might love/hate the name, too.
What will jump out at you is, of course, the curved Portage Top Tube. To us, it's reminiscent of the cafe racer motorcycle profile. The bend is located for optimal shouldering during running sections of CX courses.
What is less noticeable in photos is the asymmetric rear end, which pushes the absolute limits on weight and stiffness.
First, the prototype dropout pair is 48 grams vs. 100 grams. That's 2 ounces we remove by reducing the amount of 6/4 titanium plating we need to support axles and brake mounts.
Second, we use 1" chainstays, again, to maximize power transfer. The driveside stay is dropped also, to shorten the rear end and improve traction.
Third, the seatstays are both asymmetric AND offset (offsymmetric?). This is a logical outcome of reducing the dropouts to their optimal size, and it has the knock-on benefits of making the bike lighter (seatstay tubing is lighter than dropout plating) and also stiffer (larger diameter tubing is stiffer than narrow plating).
There is not one symmetric aspect of the rear of this bike, but it remains perfectly balanced and aligned.