New Breezers

[Jeroen]

The Lightning steel frames are made by a cutting-edge steel specialty builder. This will be a low-volume bike and the price is likely to reflect that. Tubing material is Breezer D'fusion heat-treated chrome-moly.

The Lightning will be available as an XT/XTR bike and as a frame only. The Thunder will be available in three models.

Both Lightning and Thunder bikes will come with etched-brass Breezer headbadges as I had in the late 1990s. They look great! And are gold plated.

Yes, we will be at Eurobike. My first time showing bikes there since 1997!

 

[FairfaxPat]

I talked to Joe about the new bikes today. The curved downtube is for clearance on the 4 inch travel fork-a Fox F32 that I already use in 5 inch guise on my Fisher. Those bikes in the pictures are prototypes and the production bikes will differ somewhat, with the painted spearpoints not quite as long and the place where the downtube joins the headtube lower down on the headtube by about 20mm. When I asked about frame weights, he said thaty in a medium size the steel frame will weigh approx. 1800 grams, with the aluminum one weighing about 1500 grams. Pat

 

[kittytrail]

got mixed feelings on these since i was wondering what a modern breezer
steel hardtail redesigned by joe b. might look like for some time...

now we do have the beginning of an answer, with the sale of the brand to
advanced sports, and that may not be a bad thing in the long term as that
brings more possibilities of development(as evidenced by those frames),
and as long as they keep focused on bringing to market well thought-out
and built bikes like the transportation line(please, me wants a steel finesse!),
and not enter the two-wheeled carbon plushies me-too fray...

i'll refrain from commenting on that thunder though... :shock:
the lightning looks neat, just have to get accustomed to that down tube*
let's not forget that these frames are prototypes(and future retrobikes!)

there's still place/time for some sensible touch-ups and improvements
like cable guides on the head tubes(pleeeeease!)
down tube routing: cleaner and more symmetrical
integrated seat binder
non-integrated headset option: the big no-no for me ATM, integrated
headset are just plain evil! :evil:
a rigid steel fork option with the tapering of the steerer tube like on post '95 forks
maybe canti bosses? :shock: and no disc-mount? :twisted: only joking, i may go the disc way
one day, just not today...
and most importantly: BETTER PAINT!!!!!!!!!!!
which leads to, different colours: cobalt blue or purple anyone?

> "The Lightning steel frames are made by a cutting-edge steel
> specialty builder. This will be a low-volume bike and the price
> is likely to reflect that. Tubing material is Breezer D'fusion
> heat-treated chrome-moly."

so, in this view, a semi custom-made breezer steel frame might not be such
an utopia...
if made in the usa although one can hope for a system like the japanese-made
ritchey frames with the finishing done IIRC in the us by tom r.



* http://construct.typepad.com/25seven/20 ... ubing.html


ps. joe, will i get a new lightning as a replacement for the broken '98 one that got lost
in the french importation/distributor/bikeshop hell? :x