Choonwei's Bonanno Commuter

This was a special project for our partnered fitter! He was searching for a steel commuter for his grocery shopping, neighbourhood exploration rides while at the same time, wanted his own geometry to achieve certain ride characteristics.
Enter Cicli Bonanno, a bespoke brand based in Berlin, Germany. Niccolo Bonanno, the main builder and person behind the brand, is known for his frame building skills where his works are shaped by Italian masters such as Dario Pegoretti. 
It was a new request to Niccolo as his works have been mainly concentrated in the road and gravel frames. We thought the request will be turned down due to his workload but very much to our surprise, Niccolo was excited to undertake this project which he deemed it as fun and engaging.
The commuter need a rack, a unicrown fork with cargo mounts for racks to support cargo if needed be. Choonwei wanted a clean build and with the unexpected torrential rain a factor for tropical Singapore, disc brakes was preferred over rim brake. Niccolo suggested the Allygn Diamond rack for something clean and have it painted as the same colour as the frame. The rack had clean lines and also provided the option to route dinamo hardware if needed. It was a great suggestion!
Niccolo also suggested the Reneherse fenders for the commuter. Choonwei had originally wanted to paint the fenders as well but after several thoughts, the decision to leave it in the original silver was chosen to give the build a more classy look.
Due to the specifications required, the crankset needed to be in 165mm and Ingrid CRS-POP came to mind. The crankset not only boasts the reliabity required, but in addition, a great stiffness-weight ratio as well as a great aesthetic dots design. More importantly, it was available in a very nice raw finish colourway that was needed to pair the build up aesthetically!
There were several considerations for the groupset such as Campagnolo, Sram but the choice was made once news of the GRX Limited Edition in Silver featuring flat bar option was released! Our partnered fitter has taste! With the groupset and crankset in silver, a nice matching silver White Industries BSA30 bottom bracket was installed to balance out the aesthetics of the bike.
Nitto makes nice components and when it comes to bottle cages, their bottle cage R was designed minimally yet maintaining a refined, sleek and classy look! 
Phil Wood produces magnificent chrome finished components and we went with their headset for this build to acheive a sleek, classy and minimal look from the front of the bike. It was just so satisfying to look at, along with the Bonanno headbadge! 
The wheelset was done up brilliantly by the guys over at Built Wheels. A set of Velocity Clliffhanger in polished finish was chosen to pair with White Industries CLD hubset and built up with Sapim Race spokes in silver.

 

You would have thought that the brake calipers on the bike would be the GRX Silver Edition and be surprised to see the XTR 9100 brake calipers on it instead. The post mount configuration on the frame and fork had restricted GRX calipers to be installed but it turned out to be a disguise as the XTR 9100 matches brilliantly with the aesthetic of the bike and boasts of superior braking performance!

Commuter bikes deserve great commuter bars and the Nitto Fairweather Bullmoose is one such handlebar. With a nice sweepback angle and an interesting integrated stem built with it, Blue Lug designed a nice bag dubbed the "Onigiri Bag" to fit in between the dual stem. 

The overall colourway inspiration came from a Benz 280 SL Pagoda that Choonwei stumbled upon as below. Velociao handled the paintwork and what can we say, bravo!

BUILD SPEC

Frameset 
Cicli Bonanno Custom Commuter
Headset
Phil Wood 
Wheelset

Velocity Cliffhanger laced to White Industries with Sapim Race

by Built Wheels
Tyres
Panaracer GravelKing SS
Groupset
Shimano GRX Limited Edition Silver with XTR Brake Calipers
Crankset
Ingrid CRS-Pop
Bottom Bracket White Industries BSA30
Handlebar
Nitto Fairweather Bullmoose
Stem
Nitto Fairweather Bullmoose

Seatpost

 Nitto S65
Saddle
Selle Italia Flite
Pedals
Shimano M324 Pedals
Grips
Brooks
Rack Allygn
Fenders Reneherse
Cage Nitto R
December 17, 2023 — Sherwin Ng
Tags: Commuter Bike Custom Assembled Custom Bike
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